IN THREE PARTS.—PART II.
CHAPTER THE NINTH.
The morning after Kingston's arrival and after their early breakfast, Deborah followed her father into his 'den;' he was already equipped for riding, and was drawing on his gloves.
'Late hours suit thee not, Deb; thou'rt looking pale, my Rose.'
'I am well enow. But father, I don't want you to take yourself away to-day; it seems unmannerly to Kingston. He will not care for my dull company alone. Do stay, my father!' She put her arms round his neck.
'Why, this is a new request! Thou'rt safe from all lovers while King is with thee. Pshaw! little one, I must go; I have pressing business. King will be proud to bear thee company. He raves about thee. Take him to the vicarage, or to ride.'
'No. Stay, father.'
'Sweet heart, I cannot. Ye look scared. I will send King away, and have Mistress Dinnage sent to ye. Ye're not well.'
'Indeed I am. Well, go, father; I will ask ye no more. Nay; I am all right; but it grieved me for Kingston.'
Sir Vincent laughed. 'Grieve not for him.'
And so Deborah and Kingston Fleming found themselves alone, for Mistress Dinnage, though urgently pressed by Deborah, was too proud to bear them company.
Deborah put a brave careless face on the matter. 'What will ye do, King?' she asked. 'I am going out for flowers. It is too hot to ride till evening. Will ye go your ways till dinner, or will ye be a carpet-knight, or what?' Truly, there was as much repulsion as invitation in Deborah's question, as she stood looking up, with her hat tied down and her basket on her arm; and though at that moment there was no vestige of coquetry in her manner, that upturned face could not look but lovely.
Kingston, half smiling, half mortified, answered: 'Well, I thought o' no other plan but to bide with you, Deb; but if ye are anxious to be rid o' me, I am off.'
'Nay!' Deborah laid her hand upon his arm, all penitent. 'Come with me. I will not deign to answer your insinuation. I will shew ye all the old haunts; the green paths where we played and romped, King, in the good old days.'
'Ye speak like a grandmother,' said Kingston, as they went down the long gallery together. 'The good old days! And what are these? You are a child as yet. I truly have cares and troubles.'
'You have not!' Deborah gazed up at him with her clear eyes, reproachful, yet laughing. 'Everything comes to your hand,' said she: 'work, travel, honours, a ladye-love. Ye have all that life can offer, and yet are not content.'
'Content? No; I am not.' Kingston stopped, and gazed at the 'Mistress Mary Flemyng' whose picture hung above them. 'Here is our ancestress, Deb, the "beautiful Mary Flemyng." She resembles you. The same eyes, the same trick o' the eyelids, the same mocking, witching smile. Here she is, but seventeen, unwed still, but her fate is hanging over her. At eighteen, she was married to an old rich rake. She went mad in time, and they tell us, "died young;" the best thing she could do. Why, she had better have kept her name of Fleming, for she had a sad life of it. But she had a soft, tame, yielding nature; there was excuse for her. The Fleming fortunes too were at a perilous low ebb; and it is needful ever and anon to sacrifice a bud off the parent stem to mend the fortunes of the house. That was arranged. What is the worth of beauty but to win gold? Thy beauty, poor Mary Fleming, won a fortune; thy sweetness and worth were sold to the highest bidder! It was for thy kindred's sake. Truly, it was a noble act!'
'Who told you this?' asked Deborah, gazing gravely up at her beautiful ancestress with a heightened colour and intense interest. 'I never heard the tale. O yes; surely I heard it long long ago, and thought it was a wicked act of hers. For had she not another lover—one that she really loved, young and noble?'
Kingston laughed cynically. 'O yes, but poor. What was that? A victim more or less never mattered. There were a dozen went to the dogs for her. She looks like it—doesn't she? That invincible spirit of coquetry could never have been quenched: it lurks in her eyes, on her lips. She deserved her fate.'
'Kingston, you are hard and cruel. Success has not sweetened you. I respect poor Mary Fleming!'
'Because you would have done likewise?' he asked, gazing down into her eyes fiercely and sardonically.
Half angered, she turned away, yet with a smile that was full of tender trouble, tenderness sweet and strange. Kingston brooded over that smile, and liked it not. That smile would seem to shew that Deborah had a lover. Who was Deborah's favoured lover? Kingston even remembered the daisy long ago. They had not another word to say till they reached the garden. There lay the quaint flower-borders, smelling of a thousand sweets, where bees and butterflies made up the jewels, and many a darting dragon-fly. And away in the background stretched cool and deep green woods, and a green path of tender shade, where stood a rustic seat. Oh, such a seat for lovers! And the tall bright foxglove reared its dappled bells about the gloom. Kingston's dreaming eyes took all in unconsciously, while Deborah cut and piled up a blooming heap of flowers.
'Now we have done,' she said. 'I must go and arrange them. Mistress Dinnage arranges beautifully.'
'Don't go in, Deb; the sun thaws me. I am cold. Feel my hand. I thought I was to be shewn the "old haunts?"'
Deborah blushed. 'O yes,' she answered hurriedly, avoiding his eyes again. 'The flowers must die, then, King.'
'Let them! A thousand flowers have had their reign at Enderby in these two years, and millions more will bloom and die before I see Enderby again!' He spoke hurriedly, emphatically.
Deborah gazing up at him, turned pale. 'What! are you going to die, King?'
'Nay, Deb, sweet heart; I can come here no more. Ask me not why. I can tell you—nothing.'
'Oh, I like not to hear you talk like this, King. You had a bright gay spirit once. I live in an atmosphere where, it is true, all is bright and beautiful and home-like, and but too dear! Yet I feel it is volcanic land; and beneath our feet, King, I hear the thunder-mutterings; and above our heads, King, it seems to me there often rise clouds black as night; for ye know how it is with us. But to your coming I looked for comfort. In father's and Charlie's faces I often find paleness, apprehension, gloom, through all their looks of love for me; and a foreboding chills my heart. But you were never wont to be like this. Now it seems to me your looks portend just such gloom and mystery. Ye are sad; you are not yourself. What ails you? Is there no lasting sunshine in life?'
'Not in yours, Deb, unless matters take another turn with you. Things are dark with your father, my little one. He has told me much. For one thing, I thank God, Deborah, that you have refused the Lincoln bait they tempt you with. Listen to no one who may lure you to such utter ruin. I know that man now. You were better dead than Mistress Sinclair.'
'No fear of that.—But shall we indeed be ruined, Kingston?'
'Things look dark. Could ye bear to lose Enderby, Deb?'
'Lose Enderby!' Her paling lips shewed that the girl had never contemplated that. 'Nay; I know not how to bear it. Is it sure?'
'No; but I thought it best to prepare you for any emergency. Heaven grant you may have some one to take care of you in this uncertain future!'
'I have a father and brother,' exclaimed Deborah proudly.
Kingston laughed with some bitterness. 'Ay, you have.'
'Have ye aught to say against them?'
Kingston glanced with his old raillery at the flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. 'I dare not say it, if I had. Yet I wish I could get hold of that fellow Charlie; I might bring him to reason, if I could find him out.'
'He will come when he knows that you are here.'
Kingston doubted this in his own mind.
'Dear old Enderby!' muttered Kingston, as they strolled up the winding woodland path. 'With no home of my own, here I have always found one. It is our home, Deb. Can we leave it? Can we? I never thought it was so dear till now.'
Deborah did not answer. Her breast was heaving tumultuously. He saw that she was weeping silently and bitterly. She sat down on the shrubbery seat, and Kingston walked slowly on. He soon returned, guessing rightly that Mistress Fleming would be proudly herself again.
Deborah and Kingston saw not much more of each other that day till they rode together in the evening. It happened that Mistress Dinnage stood by her father's side and watched them.
'They make a pretty couple,' said old Jordan through his smoke. 'He's more her match than Master Sinclair. 'Twould be a sin and shame to give pretty Lady Deb to him. Why, Master Charlie would run him through first!'
'That he would; and so would she, father, bless ye! Ye don't yet know our Lady Deb, if you think such a thought. See him go out through this gate, father, times on time, the old sharp fox! his eyes glowering, as he could murder me. He has caught it then; and I have well-nigh laughed in his face. I hate the cunning bad old man, with his tall hectoring air. I wish Master Charlie would horsewhip him soundly.'
Old Jordan chuckled over his pipe, glorying in the spirit of Mistress Dinnage. 'Ay, ay; I wish he would, Meg. Young giant! Many's the time I've hosswhipped he. He'd laugh in my face for my pains now.'
That night the two girls were in their favourite walk, while Sir Vincent and Kingston were indoors.
'I shall owe you a grudge, Mistress Dinnage.'
'Why?'
'For leaving me all day with my cousin Kingston.'
'I would have ye be together!'
'This is not like you. Can it end but in misery? Oh, the Fates send him soon away from Enderby! Meg, he likes me well—far better than he did formerly; but oh, man-like, he would fain get the better o' my heart by fair fair words.'
'And why?' cried Mistress Dinnage impetuously. 'To hold and cherish it! What is this Mistress Blancheflower? Can she compare with thee? Would he linger here'——
'Hush, hush! He is betrothed. When he weds, thou and I will run away and hide till it is all gone by. My heart will not break, sweet; do not think it. I am too proud.'
They wrung hands; and Mistress Dinnage sped away like a deer, for King Fleming's tall figure emerged from the garden-door in the wall.
'Plotting, plotting!' he said. 'My pretty conspirators! I wish I had caught you in it. That was Mistress Dinnage. I know her pace. How is it that the pretty lassie is not wedded out o' harm's way?'
'Because Mistress Dinnage only weds for love.'
'So she lives to do mischief. O Deb! look, there was the daisy-scene! There lay you, and there stood I. Deb, I would give up all the good o' my years of toil to be a boy again!'
The blush had not faded from Deborah's face when he looked at her. 'We all feel that,' she responded. 'How you did tease me, King!'
He smiled. 'I should love to tease thee now, if I had ease of mind. Give me your hand, Deb. Now climb, and gather that rose, and give it me with a gracious grace, as I saw you give to another.'
'I never climbed, though. Will this not content you, Master Fleming?'
'Nay, the highest, the highest! the "Rose of Enderby." I was blind, I was stone-blind! I never cared for roses; the taste comes too late. A student's life kills joy, and men grow blind in burrowing in books.'
'Well, there! Can your old blind eyes see that? I will fasten it in your coat.—Nay, you shall not, Kingston Fleming!' Deborah started back, with all her fiery soul blazing in her eyes, for Kingston would fain have drawn her to him and thanked her with a kiss. She plucked the rose to atoms and scattered it in the night air. 'Some maidens might think this cousinly of you; not I. I will not abide this familiarity.'
His face looked pale and changed in the moonlight. 'Have I offended you, Deborah? Can I not even be your brother—for love of the olden time? Nay, see me! Look on me, Deb; I have need of pity. Do ye not see I am in trouble?'
All the girl's passion vanished; she drew near and laid her hands in his; she felt those strong hands trembling like leaves in the wind.
'In trouble, King?' she asked tenderly and piteously, with her sweet face upturned. 'Ye are ever hinting this; yet never win the courage to tell me where this trouble lies. Trust Deborah Fleming! She is the receiver of troubles; she is used to them. Deborah Fleming can prove a truer sister to you, perchance, than by idle words and caresses.'
But the strangely sensitive and impassioned nature of Kingston Fleming was all stirred and tempest-tossed; the gay calm summer sea was swept by a great storm-wind, which stirred the depths beneath.
'Nay, child,' he whispered, with hurried agitated breath; 'I cannot tell. Thou'dst hate me, Deb—hate me. I cannot afford to lose thy friendship even. Deb, I have few true friends. But above all, I have been mine own worst enemy! Ah Deborah, I am most miserable.' His head sank: lorn, dejected, despairing, he stood before her, the wild, high-spirited, light-hearted Kingston Fleming!
'Thou shalt not be miserable,' said Deborah, trembling herself, and her great lovely eyes brimming over with tears, while she pressed to his side, and twined her arms round one of his. 'All will be right, King. But for hating, I cannot hate thee, dear, being constant to my kinsfolk and my friends. Yet I will not press thee to confide in me. Take comfort. These be dark days for us all, King; brighter will come yet.'
'Thou'rt an angel-comforter, Deb.' Kingston had regained some calmness, and resumed his walk, holding Deb's hand upon his arm. 'But of all human infirmities, ye would hate weakness most. Isn't it so?'
'Weakness? Well, yes. I like not weak men. You are not weak, King?'
He laughed aloud and bitterly. 'Weak as water! Ah, ye will know it some day, perchance!'
'Mistress Blancheflower does not think ye weak, I'll warrant.'
He laughed again. 'Mistress Blancheflower thinks not much about it.'
('They have quarrelled,' thought Deborah, 'and this makes him so reckless and unhappy. Well-a-day! I cannot interfere.') 'So it seems to you,' she answered aloud; 'but maids can be very proud, I tell ye; but because she does not shew her thoughts, you must not love her less.'
'Ah, this is sound advice, and easy to be followed! Some maids have no thoughts at all.'
'You would never have loved such, dear King! Nay, you are hard and bitter, and that makes you unjust.'
'Have I been so? Not one word have I uttered against Mistress Blancheflower. I am fond enough of Mistress Blancheflower, Deb.'
So they said no more, and Kingston Fleming received neither rose nor kiss. He did not sleep that night, he could not, for his 'trouble.' He stepped out on the leads to smoke, and saw all Enderby lying still and peaceful in the pale glory of the moon. He stood thinking, thinking. There is her lighted window in the turret. His whole soul ached and yearned. Why, O unhappy Kingston? He said not to his soul then: 'Deb, thou'rt too mad for me!' King Fleming, you are betrothed; you are about to wed a beautiful and 'honourable' lady; fly from all thoughts that would wrong her and your own honour; shut your eyes and steel your heart against the dangerous charm of Deborah Fleming; fly from Enderby! Deborah, are you witch or siren? With what subtle glamour are those eyes charged, that they haunt the captive soul, and will not let it be? Is it coldness, indifference, disdain, a sisterly tenderness—she gives him each in turn—that is madding him so? Why was she so beautiful? Why should the sun-tanned romp of two years ago turn to so perfect and delicate a beauty? Deborah has bewitched her cousin Kingston, and for that he knows not if he loves or hates her most, as he upbraids her bitterly. Yet, has she tried to lure him on? Has she not rather rebuffed him? No; it is the very essence of coquetry to woo and fly. He will allow her no grace, but that she is a 'graceless Fleming flirt.' And then he pictures her an angel in all but wings and crown. Anon the room is dark, the light is gone, the moon is clouded over, and Deborah Fleming lies sleeping—the noble, the beautiful, the guardian of a wild old father—the sweet adviser of a reckless brother—the angel and the Rose of Enderby—the lover of honour, purity, and good faith. Too late! too late! The bright and noble soul had been unsought, uncared for in its immaturity, darkened as it was in early days, and obscured by childish shames and sudden passions; but that fatal gift of beauty roused him now to a sense of all that he had lost. Beauty had ever been Kingston Fleming's lure. Then it was only her beauty that he loved? Again he voted her fiercely a universal and wild coquette. Well, she was fair game then. Indifference, and then and again a swift glance or tender sigh, should win her yet. No matter if the rose faded, if it could be no rose to him. Then, then he would wed the lovely and uncertain Beatrix Blancheflower. Still he lingered. 'Deborah! Deborah!' In all Enderby there is no light; and no light in Kingston's soul.
CHAPTER THE TENTH.
It was late in the morning before they met. Deborah was all sunshine and gaiety. Womanlike, she lived in the present, and realised no Enderby and no future without Kingston Fleming; the interchange of words and looks was enough for her. He turned his face aside, that she might not see how haggard it was, and was angry with her for her happiness.
Adam Sinclair came that day to Enderby, and Deborah played a dangerous part, but with infinite spirit, grace, and charm, so that it set the young man and the old man hating one another, as men can hate in jealousy. But Master Sinclair was the favoured one, and saw it. What was Master Fleming but a kinsman and a brother? So Master Sinclair rode off more madly possessed than ever, and darkly revolving plans; for Mistress Fleming he would wed, by fair means or by foul.
But the youthful beauty was not pleased. Kingston had seemed tenderer the day before; his eyes had looked admiration of her beauty; he had watched her, and given her his troubled confidence and affection. She loved him better then. Ah, he was content. He had heard from Mistress Blancheflower! and he cared not if she, Deborah, encouraged and even wedded old Adam Sinclair. So the rapid thoughts fled through Deborah's mind. No; she would not be treacherous to Mistress Blancheflower, she would not; but she could not bear this coldness! He was leaning from the window, and watching Mrs Dinnage, who sat below at her work in the sunny courtyard, while her sworn friend and foe, Dame Marjory, fed the pigeons. Deborah went and leaned beside the window.
'Wilt ride, King? We may not have steeds to offer long.'
'Nay; I will have none of your rides. I prefer watching Mistress Dinnage. She is pretty. All girls are pretty.'
'Ye are not gracious, Master Fleming. See if I ask ye again! Now there is one, Master Adam Sinclair, Lord of Lincoln, would ride to the world's end for me.'
'He can ask for favours in return; one day ye will pay him dearly.'
'How so, bird of ill omen?'
'With yourself.'
'Master Kingston Fleming, I do not need your auguries; once before I told you so.'
He looked up and flashed a smile—most mocking, or most tender?
She leaned from the window at his side. 'You are happier to-day, King: you can taunt.'
'O ay, I can always do that.—How pretty is Mistress Dinnage!'
'I am glad she pleases you.'
'Give me a rose, Deb, for peace.'
She gave him one. 'Throw it not to Mistress Dinnage now; she would only scorn your offering.'
Kingston touched the flower with his lips. Deborah blushed.
'If I may not kiss the Rose par excellence,' said he, 'I will kiss "the Rose's" rose.'
'Ye talk nonsense. Poetry does not suit you, King.'
'Ah, I have never written you verses.'
'I have not inspired you, mayhap.'
'Ye are too cold, Deb, save when Adam Sinclair is by. Once ye were all fire and fret; now ye are all snow and sorcery.'
'Strange blending! Have I witched you then?'
'Ay, the first day I came.'
'What worth is witchery?'
'To wear the heart away.'
'A pleasant vocation, truly, if I am working the like on you! But I thought not I was of so much dignity in your eyes as either to wear your heart or pleasure it.'
He looked in her eyes then as if his whole soul were in his own. 'Deb, art speaking truth?'
'Ay,' she answered with earnestness; 'as surely as that my name is Deborah.'
'"None so blind as those who will not see." Well, well, Lady Deb, think as ye will. Are you a coquette, Deb? I was wondering last night.'
'Oh, you do think o' me then? Well, I know not. If I lived in the great world, I might be; here, what can I do?'
'Enow; it seemeth me. It is well for ye, Deb, ye're not in the world; ye'd be a wild one! You're too beautiful by half.'
Deborah blushed, and with what covert joy Master King Fleming noted it!
'After that fine compliment,' said she, 'I will leave you to the contemplation of Mistress Dinnage. All girls are fair to you. I am going to ride. I may meet my wandering Charlie.'
'You will not ride alone?'
'Ay; not even Jordan with me. I may ride to Lincoln Castle.'
Kingston rose. 'Ye shall not have the chance. I am your cavalier, Deb.'
'As it please ye!' And away went Deborah, singing.
[A SUMMER HOLIDAY IN NORWAY.]
A summer holiday in Norway can scarcely be otherwise than delightful. This beautiful northern land has attractions for all classes of tourists. In few other regions in Europe can there be found commingled such picturesque firths, such clusters of rocky islets, such lofty mountains, such exuberant sunshine, and such a bright ever-changeful sea. Interesting to all, it is peculiarly attractive to the lovers of Izaak Walton's gentle art. To the angler, a Norwegian lake or river has long been an aquatic Paradise. What a blissful experience it must be to hook a twenty-pound salmon, or even a five-pound grilse; to feel it rush like an arrow through the pellucid flood, and to dash away after it through a cool forest of sedges, or over a subaqueous Stonehenge, with the pleasant hum of the line as it spins out into the river, resounding in your ears. While high overhead the lark sings in the clear air, and the silvery mists creep up the steep hill-sides, and the golden sunlight streams down through the thickets of birch and alder, dancing on the ripples of the gladsome river, and shining right down into the angler's gladsome heart. This is an experience worth all the elixirs that were ever invented. It braces the nerves, it expands the lungs with full draughts of the healthful mountain breeze, and makes the sinking heart bound once more elastic with the buoyant unforgotten lightness of boyhood.
Mr Arnold, in his Summer Holiday in Scandinavia, has done ample justice to the great and varied natural charms of Norway. Unhappily for some travellers at least, it cannot be approached without a longer or shorter sea-voyage, the pleasure or discomfort of which depends very much upon the weather. Our author in this respect was not very fortunate, for the sun kept resolutely out of sight. The sky, the dim haze-covered land, and the surrounding waves, were all one dull uniform gray; but even with this drawback, he was struck by the rugged grandeur and beauty of the sea-wall of Norway, one of the noblest in the world. Frowning, it rises a rocky rampart of gray beetling crags, fantastic buttresses, and cliffs of limestone, embosomed in masses of delicate many-toned hues of verdure, as the silvery gray green of the birch, the brighter shade of the hazel, or the more sombre colouring of the pine, predominates in the foliage of the copse-wood, with which every available nook and cranny is crowned. Jagged peaks and serried promontories fashion themselves in the most picturesque fashion out of the gray limestone crags, sheltering lonely sequestered bays of wondrous beauty; while beyond rise long ridges of lofty hills, their brown sides covered in great part with odoriferous pine-forests, checkered with vivid green patches of corn-land and pasture; with here and there a cluster of little quaint wooden red-tiled houses, lending to the beautiful wild scenery the interest of human life and industry.
At Christiania Mr Arnold and his party landed amid a group of placid onlookers; and having, chiefly by their own efforts conveyed their luggage to the custom-house, found that dreaded ordeal to be in Norway mere child's play. 'An old official,' says our author, 'with a flat cap, looking remarkably like a Greenwich pensioner, patted some of the luggage, and said in good but brief English: "Tourists?" "Yes," replied our spokesman. The old official then bowed, intimating obligingly that Norway was glad to see us, and waved his hand for the next lot.' A month was the time that the party had to spend in Norway; and after mature consideration, they decided that the best route for them would be from 'Christiania by Lake Miosen to Giovik and the Fille Fjeld viâ Fagernœs, and so to Bergen by Lœrdalsoren, returning by the southern road and Lake Kröderen.' What they could not determine was, whether to walk or ride or drive; but at last they decided that it was best to do at Rome as the Romans do, and wisely fell back upon the native carrioles.
As these are quite an institution in Norway, they merit a few words of description. Imagine a low light wooden conveyance, somewhat spoon-shaped, with an upright splash-board in front, two very large wheels, and a big apron buttoned down on both sides around the traveller. A sensible conscientious cream-coloured pony is attached to it in front; and behind, perched on a shaky projecting board, is a fair-haired, sallow, phlegmatic-looking peasant, boy or man as may be, who is called a skyds-carl. You may drive yourself, if you choose; and if you do, you may possibly flatter yourself that you are lord, if not of all you survey, yet still of the cream-coloured pony in front of you, and may make the pace according to your liking. Never was a greater mistake; the skyds-carl perched behind is that pony's master, not you; and if he chooses to utter in a low tone bur-r-r-r-dar-r, you may flog until you are weary; neither whipping nor coaxing will make the sagacious creature quicken its pace an iota. The stol-kjærre or country cart is a square wooden tray with large wheels, and a low-backed seat across the centre, sometimes with and sometimes without springs. The posting stations are more or less picturesque as regards scenery, but are all built upon one plan, of red pine logs, around a spacious yard, which may be tidy or untidy according to the taste of the inmates. Barns or other outhouses form two sides of the square, the house makes the third, and the fourth is supplied by the road. The buildings are roofed very generally with sods of turf, forming a plateau on which long grass and wild-flowers wave luxuriantly. The food to be procured at these stations is good of its kind: salmon, trout, reindeer venison, mutton; and wild-ducks in abundance if the tourist can shoot them—all very tolerably cooked. By way of dessert, there are wild raspberries, strawberries, and molteberries, a yellow insipid fruit of a pale amber colour, which tastes like a rain-soaked raspberry. The only bread to be procured at the up-country stations is flad-bröd to whose qualities Mr Arnold bears the following affecting testimony: 'It is thin, dry, dusty, full of little bits of straw, and quite tasteless, like the bottom of a hat-box with the paper torn off.'
The household arrangements of these posting establishments are often very primitive. The front door sometimes opens into the sleeping-room of the entire family; and if you arrive any time after nine P.M. you may see on entering the master and mistress of the mansion reposing on a broad high shelf at one end of the room near the stove, while the rest of the family and guests of lowly degree recline around on benches, or on the floor, where they can at least have what room they require. This is a luxury which no tall tourist need expect in a Norwegian guest-chamber; there the beds, although furnished with appliances for making them as wide, if need be, as the famous bed of Ware, are seldom longer than five feet eleven.
The roads, although necessarily steep at places, are fairly good; but most of the bridges are constructed in a very primitive style. The natives are a kind, hospitable, honest, but somewhat apathetic race. Watching their stolid expressionless faces, one cannot help wondering where the superabundant energy of the old vikings has betaken itself to. During the long winter evenings, the women knit and spin a great deal. They provide themselves plentifully with household linen and homespun clothes, which are often of a dark-brown colour, enlivened in the case of the men by a bright scarlet cap, and in that of the women by a white kerchief tied under the chin. In appearance, a small Norwegian farmer is very like an English labourer. His house, built of wood and thatched with sods, is devoid of ornament, but has no lack of solid comfort, and is sufficiently warmed by a huge quaint-looking iron stove.
The women on holiday occasions turn out in the old Norse costume, the chief feature of which is the bodice, which is often made of some bright-coloured velvet, turned down in front with white silk, and laced before and behind, according to our author, 'with several yards of fine silver chain, each chain ending in a silver bodkin, in order that they may be the better threaded through double rows of eyes (in themselves strikingly pretty articles of silver), that run in four lines up the back and front of this showy piece of Scandinavian haberdashery.' Both men and women are very fond of large bright buttons and of silver or plaited ornaments.
Bears abound in the dense forests of Norway and on the high barren uplands; and thrilling stories are told of hair-breadth escapes from these fierce but sagacious animals. A sportsman near Maristuen was one day wandering in a birch thicket, when he suddenly came upon a huge bear regaling itself with raspberries. Bruin was peaceably inclined, and fled; but he instantly gave chase. With a speed perfectly surprising in such a lumbering unwieldy animal, it ran down the hill-side, while he rushed after it in hot pursuit, till on a steep slope of the mountain it suddenly disappeared. There was a little patch of brushwood before him, over which he leaped, and hearing an ominous crashing of branches in his rear, turned round, when there was the bear, which with a murderous growl rushed right upon him. Instinctively he raised his rifle and drew the trigger just in time, for almost at the same moment the infuriated brute seized the muzzle of the piece, which exploding, blew its head to atoms.
A Norse wedding is always preceded by a series of presents from the bridegroom to the bride. First, there are about two dozen meal-tubs of various sizes, elaborately painted; and last and crowning glory of the trousseau, there is a wonderful clothes-press. Inside, as far as regards drawers large and small, and brass pegs and racks for crockery, it is a marvel of ingenuity; while outside it is a perfect triumph of art. The ground tint is a warm bright vermilion, painted all over with green and yellow scrolls, enlivened with wreaths of gorgeous flowers, and piles of brilliantly hued fruit, pleasingly interspersed with quaint lovers' knots and bleeding hearts transfixed upon Cupid's darts, in the midst of which are the names and birth-dates of the liberal donor and blissful recipient of this magnificent wedding-gift. A Norwegian maiden, who is generally as sober as a linnet in her ordinary attire, appears on her bridal day glittering in all the colours of the rainbow. On her long fair hair is set an antique crown of silver gilt; and her bodice, stiff as a cuirass, is thickly studded with beads, silver-gilt brooches, and small mirrors. This bridal adornment is too valuable to be the individual property of any Norse belle, but belongs to the district, and is hired out for the day.
The scenery in Norway is remarkably beautiful; the mountain roads often wind along the base of huge gray cliffs with steep dells beneath, where some bright salmon river may be seen sparkling along beneath the gloom of the overhanging pine-trees, or some soft blue lake may be discerned glimmering like a sheet of silver in the sunshine, or pillowing on the stillness of its waveless breast the mighty shadows of the everlasting hills.
At Strande Fjord, one of these lovely lakes, which was shut in by a dark background of pine-clad mountains, whose rugged sides were furrowed with deep torrents and white lines of waterfalls, our travellers found in the pleasant station-house a party of seven English ladies and gentlemen, tempted, like themselves, to make a halt of a few days at this charming spot. Here there was every variety of scenery—lofty mountains, precipitous waterfalls, dense pine forests, and wide undulating stretches of fresh green meadow-land; while in the midst slept the tranquil lake; now kissing with tiny wavelets the pebbles on its silvery shore, now bending away round the bold red cliffs, that guard like weird sentinels this lake Paradise of the North. The face of the huge crags is frayed and worn into deep shadowy caves, whose roofs are tapestried with a profusion of ferns; while by the precipitous margin of the lake, long verdant palm-like fronds wave in the breeze, or stoop to meet sub-aquatic forests of weeds and water-flags.
Lœrdalsoren, the highest point which they reached, was a quaint overgrown village, nestling between high green and purple hills. Insignificant as they accounted it, it was a town of no small repute in the surrounding wilderness, for it possessed a doctor, a church, two hotels, and a telegraphic office. Still, in spite of all these advantages, it was an undeniably dismal little place, intensely cold, and with nothing to offer by way of comfort for the inner man, except salmon, a viand of which, when confined to it exclusively, people tire sooner than of any other.
Wide ranges of mountains extend all around Lœrdalsoren, towering up one above the other in savage grandeur till their jagged snow-clad peaks seem to pierce the sky. Gray and yellow patches of reindeer's moss carpet the sheltered nooks and hollows among the hills, and the deer themselves are abundant: the skyds-carl pointed out a hill where a native sportsman had recently shot nine in one day.
So bitter was the cold, that before they reached Bjoberg, on the downward road, they were half frozen, and could scarcely hold the reins.
From Bjoberg the descent was rapid, and was like the change from Christmas to midsummer; the sun's rays became warmer and warmer, and the breeze more mild, until they exchanged the snow-clad hills, the bleak uplands, and the barren patches of reindeer's moss, for the wild-flowers, the sparkling rivers, and the luxuriant greenness of the northern summer.
At Huftun they found excellent entertainment at the house of Madame Brun, a Frenchwoman, whose superior cookery worthily sustained the high gastronomical pretensions of her nation. Near her pretty house they shot two varieties of the woodpecker, and saw tranquilly sailing in mid-air, a few hundred yards from them, a splendid specimen of the Norwegian eagle.
The most abundant bird in Norway is the magpie, which the peasantry, from superstitious motives, seldom or never kill. There are also great quantities of the hooded or gray crow, abundance of swallows and snipes, and great flocks of wild-ducks of five different kinds. Generally, they are excellent eating; but at the Lillie Strand a black duck was shot, a bird of such a singularly unpalatable and fishy goût, that our author jestingly supposed it must be a stray member of the species which the Pope benevolently allows good Catholics to partake of on Fridays.
Grouse, ryper, and woodcock are also found. Grouse one would fancy must be abundant, judging from the experience of an Englishman who is reported to have killed twenty-two brace in one day.
Lake Kröderen they found a pretty placid sheet of water; but after the surpassingly grand and beautiful scenery through which they had passed, it seemed to them tame; and as it was impossible to obtain any refreshment on board the steamboat which plied on its waters, they made no unnecessary delay, but pressed on as quickly as they could to Christiania, whence they repaired, viâ Jonköping and Helsingborg, to Copenhagen.
The Swedish railways they found very slow, and the country flat and uninteresting, except around Lake Wenern, which was beautiful, and had besides all the interest associated with the birthplace of Linnæus. They passed the little village in which the boyhood of the great botanist was spent, and called to mind that as a child he could not recollect names; and was voted, even at the university of Lund, a most superlative dunce, who could not be made to display much interest in anything except the pursuits of his father and uncle, who were ardent botanists. So poor was the household of this illustrious Swede, that his father could only allow him eight pounds a year for his whole collegiate course; and the poor student while at Upsal had often to mend his shoes with gray paper, and sally forth rod in hand to eke out his slender meals with a few fish from the lake. The country between Elsinore and Copenhagen impressed them favourably; it is, our author says, 'dense with beech and fir woods, and full of glades, lakes, and park-like lawns.'
Copenhagen is a handsome town, with a population singularly English-looking in manners and appearance. Its great point of attraction for our tourists was the Museum, filled with the works of Thorwaldsen, the Phidias of the North. Here, in the middle of a large hall, a cenotaph is erected to the memory of the great sculptor; and around stand the imperishable monuments of his genius, instinct with the classic grace, with the refined delicacy, with the glorious beauty of old Greek art, carried to as great perfection beneath these cold skies of the gray North as ever it was in sunny Athens.
From Copenhagen our tourists returned by Jutland and the Hamburg railway to Calais; having enjoyed their holiday so much, that Mr Arnold recommends 'all the lovers of nature to see Norway as well as Seville before they die.'