A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden / 2nd edition

by William A. Ross

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SICK SAILOR—THE STORM—THE LEE-SHORE—"BREAKERS A-HEAD"—THE YACHT IN DISTRESS—WEATHERING THE STORM—RETURN TO BERGEN—THE PHYSICIAN—THE WHIRLPOOL—THE WATER-SPOUT—HOMEWARD BOUND—SCARBOROUGH—YARMOUTH ROADS—ERITH—GREENWICH HOSPITAL—CONCLUSION.

Whatever might have been my refinement of feeling, I was not deterred from eating venison for a week afterwards, day by day, and assenting to its delicious flavour, which, for the satisfaction of the son of Epicurus who may read these lines, I would state, tasted very strongly of the moss on which the animal had fed, and comprehended every charming idea he can form of the term "gamey."

All was hilarity on board; and though the evening wind in passing only kissed gently the lazy canvass, nothing occurred to mar the serenity of every face and heart until the afternoon of the day following that on which we sailed from the village. The sailors had been partaking of venison as well as ourselves; but there were not those sounds of joviality incidental to festive occasions, and the silence in the forecastle attracted our notice. "Talk of the Devil," my ancient countrywomen say, "and you will be sure to see him;" but though we had not spoken of his majesty, we certainly alluded to the crew; and whether D——, their representative, bears any affinity to that mighty potentate, I have never heard; yet certain it is, the said D——, with a countenance of ill omen, came into the cabin, and regretting that he should disturb us at such a time, observed,

"I am afraid, my Lord, King is very bad. He eats nothing, and complains a good deal."

"Of what does he complain?" asked R——.

"Of a dull pain in his stomach, my Lord," replied D——, "and a continual desire to retch."

"Oh! it's only a little attack of bile," observed R——; "I will soon put him to rights."

Rising from his chair, he went to seek his small medicine-chest with which returning, he placed it on the dinner-table. A few grains of calomel were weighed; and due directions being given when the physic should be taken, R—— prepared a black dose for the morrow, and committed that also to the custody of D——.

"I tell you what it is," said R——, after he had resumed his seat, "those cherries were too sour, and King, in making love to that girl, eat nearly the basket-ful; but if men will be fools, they must stand the brunt of their folly."

"Very true, my Lord," assented D——; "but I think King more ill than he looks, or says that he is; for he is fond of a drop, my Lord, like most of us, and that predilection tells when it comes."

"With this still weather," observed R——, "I suppose we cannot hope to reach Bergen for the next week."

"There is a slight tide, my Lord, the pilot says sets out the Fiord," D—— made reply; "and if so, the cutter would hardly take so long to drift the distance."

"It is nearly one hundred miles?" said R——, interrogatively.

"Nearly, my Lord," answered D——; "but I think the wind is edging round to the west. Let us see, my Lord;" and D—— turned round, and began to examine the barometer hanging up behind him, as well as a symparometer.

"It is very odd, my Lord," he continued, after a pause, "but the barometer is very low, and this symparometer as high as it can well be."

We rose to look at the glasses, and found them as D—— had stated; but it was not the first time we had observed this variation between the barometer and symparometer.

"That barometer must be out of order," said R——.

"I never saw this before, my Lord," answered D——, "and it would be difficult to say which is right, or which is wrong; but you may depend, my Lord, something is brewing."

We tapped the barometer, and coaxed the symparometer; but all to no purpose, and they both doggedly retained their relative indications one to the other. D—— had hitherto been guided entirely by the symparometer, for it was a very delicate and beautiful instrument, and never failed in foretelling a shower of rain, or squall of wind. It is remarkable, that when we got to the north of 60 degrees, the symparometer acted directly opposite to that plan for which it was intended; and instead of the declension of the oil being indicative of bad weather, and its ascension prognostic of fair weather, a direct contradiction to the movement of the barometer was the result. Let those who understand the matter account for the fact. The coldness of the climate could have had no influence, for the temperature differed not from that of England; and when we were cruising in the latitude of the Naze, this symparometer was most sensitive and correct in its action.

Perplexed by the position of the two glasses we went on deck, and cast our eyes to the clear blue firmament, and rested them, ungratified, on the sharply-marked summits of the mountains. It was now about half-past ten o'clock, the evening being unusually calm, and its breath sweet with the smell of flowers, and aroma of the juniper and fir. The sky was without a stain, except in the west, and there clouds of a dark crimson tinge clustered, motionlessly, about twenty degrees above the horizon, and extending from the S.W. to the N.W., looked like a narrow zone of red-hot iron; but their splendid colour was lessened by being seen through blacker vapours, that thrown, as a veil of crape, over them, intercepted our vision.

As the cutter drifted close in to the shore, a great number of filbert trees were pointed out to us by our pilot; and since the fawn had shown, the day before, such partiality for the leaves, I rowed the jolly-boat to land, and commenced plucking as much as the boat would carry. Busy with my task, I paid no attention to the yacht; but still took it for granted, that she lay becalmed. A gun fired; and looking up, I saw the cutter on a port tack, standing across the Fiord; and I knew enough about sailing to understand, that if I did not make haste, I should be unable to overtake her when she reached over, on the other tack, to me. Stowing as many branches of the filbert at the bottom of the boat as it would hold, I pulled to the yacht; but before I got alongside, the wind that had freshened, lulled again calmly as ever. The clouds, nevertheless, to which I have drawn attention, began almost imperceptibly to move, and the darker ones, breaking into small masses as they floated towards the zenith, dilated and assumed all kinds of shapes.

After administering the calomel to King, D—— returned in an hour.

"My Lord," he said, "King is worse. With his hands clasped on his stomach, he sits writhing with anguish. Listen, my Lord—hear, how he groans!"

R—— spoke not in answer; but walking to the fore-hatch, descended into the forecastle, and we followed.

"Where is your principal pain?" asked R——.

"Here,—my Lord,—here," and without altering his position, King pressed his right hand closer to the pit of his stomach.

"Do you fancy a little brandy?—do you think it will relieve you?" observed R——.

"No,—my Lord," he replied in a faint voice.

"Keep heart, my man," said R——, placing his hand kindly on King's shoulder. "He ought to go to bed," he then observed to us; and giving instructions to the steward, ordered the large berth occupied by P——, should be prepared. P—— had made the proposal of vacating his cabin; and in a quarter of an hour, King was put to bed. Striving by every means in his power to alleviate the pain an honest and faithful servant was suffering, R—— suggested and tried a variety of remedies, both by external and internal applications; but in vain. The virulence of the disease, whatever it was, increased, and its painful intensity exceeding all endurance, King, with every contortion of body, groaned aloud.

An hour had passed, and the confusion on deck appeared to grow greater the nearer midnight came. The wind had been rising gradually and determinedly since we first left the deck, and now had arrived at the force and recklessness of a strong breeze. Rare, but great drops of rain struck the deck like lumps of molten lead, and flashes of lightning, yet without the sound of thunder, brought intelligence of an advancing storm. From mouth to mouth ran the order of,

"All hands on deck!" and the shuffling feet of men moving up the fore hatch intimated the promptitude with which the command was treated. R—— and P—— had already returned to the deck; but I remained below doing what little offices I could to assuage the anguish of King; and he seemed to desire my presence for no other service than to give him water; for during the paroxysms of his complaint, he ceased not saying,

"Water! Sir; water!" and would snatch the glass from me, and drink with avidity.

I crept on deck to see our situation and that of the vessel. Thick clouds, black and rolling one over the other in their headlong flight, overcast the sky, and the stars no longer shone in the firmament. The mountains that had been so distinctly defined when I looked on them two hours before, seemed now shapeless mounds of earth swelling towards Heaven, and adding to the obscurity of night; and when the lightning gleamed in broad sheets, their great forms hanging over us, had, from the motion of the vessel, the appearance of falling on us. Every instant the strength of the wind became mightier, the thunder roared louder, and before the echo had made response from the nearest mountain-top, the lightning leaped downward from the zenith into the valleys, and darted, while it hissed, from tree to tree. The sea began to rise, and the cutter, that had hitherto lain so placidly on the smooth water, heaved, and her larger spars creaked to the growing scud.

We had now opened the North Sea, and the pilots were desirous of getting under an island that lay about two miles from the mouth of the Fiord, before the gale reached its utmost fury; for by doing so, the vessel would then be perfectly secure in the quiet waters of another Fiord that flowed thence to the walls of Bergen. In the effort to accomplish this, the vessel was exposed to the whole drift of the Northern Ocean; and the wind having settled down to S.W. by W., blew directly in our faces, and placed a fearful shore on our lee. Having looked around me, as well as the pitchy darkness would allow, and ascertaining from the King's Pilot, as he was called, a seaman as courageous as he was skilful, the dangerous bearing of the land, and the object he desired to gain, I took my leave of the deck, and made more room for those who could be serviceable in the governance of the vessel. A deafening peal of thunder shook down a second deluge, and driven to seek shelter, R—— and P—— came to the cabin immediately after me.

Taking each a seat on the sofas, we spoke not; and no sounds but the loud words of command, the noise of men running to and fro over head, and the cries of King, interfered with the sovereignty of the thunder, and whistling of the impetuous wind.

Dripping with rain, and out of breath, anxious care sitting on his whitened lips to watch and thwart each word he would speak with firmness, D—— hastened down the main companion and addressed himself to R——.

"My Lord," he said, "the pilots begin to differ: one prays the other to put back, who persists in beating to windward. The gale increases, and the land is not two miles from our lee. What had better be done, my Lord?"

"It is impossible for me to interpose my authority. The safety of the vessel is in the hands of the two pilots; and what they say must be obeyed," replied R——.

"But, my Lord, they are at variance," said D——, impressively. "I do not know the coast, and cannot judge for myself which one is in the right."

R—— made no answer, but, calling for a glazed coat and cap, went, accompanied by P——, on deck. Knowing that on all such occasions as the present, the less crowded the decks are, the more effectually all orders can be carried out, I lay down on the sofa, and noted all that was going forward. Worn in nerve and wearied by the distracting uproar of the elements, and flapping sails, I fell at last into a pleasant mood of thought, and, lost to everything around me, did not perceive that King, by some means or the other, had risen from his berth and was in the cabin, until I heard him groan. Kneeling on the floor, and with his face buried on the sofa opposite to the one on which I was reclining, the poor fellow had placed one of the pillows on the side of the sofa, and was pressing his stomach against it.

"Why, King!" I exclaimed, starting from my lethargy, "What has brought you here? You should not have left your bed;" but he did not appear to understand, or hear me. Knowing that he had taken calomel, I took a blanket and threw it over him lest he should catch cold, for the wind passed in draughts through the cabin, as it would rush through a funnel. He looked up, and said,

"Oh! Sir—is it you? Do I disturb you, Sir?"

"No," I replied, "it only disturbs me to see you so ill."

"Thank you, Sir, thank you," he said, and strove to smile; but his complaint, which appeared to attack him with great anguish at intervals of a few minutes, altered the expression of his countenance, and with the most horrible distortions, he shrieked like a maniac. When the pain abated he was alive to everything; and hearing the thunder, the fury of the wind and rain, he observed to me,

"What a night, Sir! If I don't die one way, I shall another."

"Don't despond," I answered as cheerfully as I could, "and you will die neither way."

At this moment R—— and P—— tumbling down the staircase as softly as the pitching and rolling of the cutter permitted, inquired how King felt. I told them what I really thought, that the man was dying of some internal disease of which we were not aware.

"The pilots," said R——, out of King's hearing, "wish now to run back into the Fiord; but if King is not rallying, I think we had better go on. We may get through it somehow."

"I am willing," I replied, "to do anything you propose; but I am sure if we be not at Bergen to-morrow, King will be dead."

"I agree with you," answered P——.

"Very well, then," said R——, "as far as we three are concerned, it's a bargain."

"It is," we both replied.

"I will now hear what the men say," R—— continued, smiling with his wonted lively air, "for I can't drown them all without giving them a little time to pipe to prayers."

Approaching King, he observed, as light-heartedly as the occasion would give cause,

"Keep up your courage, King; we shall be at Bergen to-morrow morning by daylight."

"Shall we, my Lord? Thank God!" said the poor fellow solemnly. "But, my Lord," he went on saying, with a forced smile, "though I am sick, I am a sailor. I know this channel well, my Lord—it is narrow, full of blinders, and,—"

"Never mind the blinders," replied R——, with gaiety; "if your messmates will thrash through them, I will."

"God bless you! my Lord—thank you;" and the sick man took R——'s hand, and clasped it firmly as the weakness of his condition granted.

Hurrying to the deck, R—— ascertained the feeling of his crew, for I heard above the loudness of the storm, D—— call to the men,

"What will you do, my sons? Will you go on, or put back? There is danger a-head; but if we run back, King must die. Which will you do? my Lord gives you the choice, since your souls are at stake. Will you risk your lives to save your messmate; or put the helm up, and throw him overboard at daylight?"

As with one voice, they all shouted,

"We will go on."

I heard the acclamation, and did not think King was well enough to pay attention to the observations of D——, or the reply of the sailors; but he must have also heard the shout for he said to me,

"What is that they say, Sir?"

"Only," I replied, "that the men are determined to brave the gale, and mean to beat round under the lee of the island into the Bergen Fiord."

"It is very good of my Lord," said King in a low voice. "If I live, I will never forget my Lord's goodness."

I thought I saw him lift his hand to his face and brush away a tear; but I had persuaded him to lie down on the sofa, and the table, swinging up and down as the vessel pitched and rolled in the trough of the sea, obstructed sometimes my view completely. I rose to trim the dull lamp that burned on the table; and seeing that the blanket had fallen to the floor I approached King to spread it over him again. Poor fellow! he lay on his back with his mouth wide open, gasping for breath, and his sunken closed lids, his ruddy complexion and round face changed to the yellow hue and emaciation of sickness, made me think that he was dying; and I placed my hand on his wrist. At my cold touch he opened his eyes, and groaned. Just then the vessel gave a very heavy lurch, and its violence forced the door that communicated with the pantry back upon its hinges. Scarcely had this accident come to pass, than Jacko, whom I had not seen for some days, taking advantage of it, ran into the main cabin and, with the curious chirp of the ring-tail monkey, jumped on the restless table. Perceiving with the quickness of a man, that all was not right, the little animal looked into my face for inquiry, and then scratched his side, not from any particular reason, but from habit; and walking on all fours to the edge of the table nearest to me, stopped, and looked again as if to probe my humour, and leaped gently on my arm. I was still standing over King. The monkey peered first at me, and then gaped at King, wondering why he should be so inert, when activity was so paramount; and putting his head on one side, chirped, and appeared to be deliberating about something. Stretching out his neck to have a closer view, he satisfied himself that he was not in error, but knew the face before him, however much illness might have changed it; and being a singular favorite of King, the affectionate creature seemed to understand the miserable condition of his kind friend, and descending with the aid of his tail, which he twisted round my arm, he stepped softly on King's chest. The sick man again opened his heavy eyes, and seeing what had disturbed him, raised his hand, and feebly stroked the monkey's glossy back. As long as I live I shall not forget the expressive despair and love of that little creature. With a low, piteous chirp, it wormed its small, round head under King's chin, and folded its left arm as far round his throat as it would go.

"Jacko," said the sailor, so faintly that I could just distinguish the words he uttered, "I shall—die. Yes!—I must!—yes,—Jacko."

The monkey moved not; but continued chirping, fondling closer to King's neck, and doubling up his body almost into a ball.

"Oh! Lord!—Sir," exclaimed King suddenly—"here it comes! O! O! O!" and the convulsion of his limbs and features testified his anguish. Such expressions of dreadful pain at any other time would have frightened Jacko out of his wits; but now he merely stood upright on his hind legs with his diminutive hands placed on King's cheek, and glancing from the tortured countenance and form of the stricken seaman to my face, expressed his deep concern by the most melancholy chirrups.

Midnight had come and gone, and the hurricane continued unabated. The wind blowing with terrific violence caused all commands to be given through a speaking-trumpet; and the waves broke over the labouring vessel in such frequent volumes, that they jeopardized the lives of the men, who, in the excitement and execution of their duty, neglected due precaution. I have crossed the Atlantic thrice from one hemisphere to the other, and in a deeply-laden merchant-vessel experienced the anger of a south-west gale; but my consolation then was to know, that the sluggish ship had ample sea-room. Now, however, the case was reversed; and with a storm concentrating the fury of ten others, our little bark had no breadth of berth to lay to, or length to run in, but was compelled to accept the alternative of beating against the tremendous swell of the North Sea that appeared to crowd all its power and vehemence into the mouth of the Fiord, or be shattered to atoms on the perpendicular rocks of the mountains, against which the waves dashed with a roar not less appalling than that of thunder. The intensity of darkness was complete as that of a wall; for standing a foot abaft the mast, we could not see the bowsprit end; and one man had no other order to fulfil but to wait for the flashes of lightning, and mark the position of the land. I cannot remember any sight either that I have seen, or fable that I have read, which gave me a more terrible idea of death than this night; for not only did the elements struggle with each other to drive us to despair, but the groans and shrieks of a fellow-creature, as he was being borne on the wings of disease to his grave, cut off the small ray of cheerfulness that might have crept into our hearts while standing shoulder to shoulder in contention with the tempest.

A cry of desperation flew from end to end of the deck, as a vivid gleam of lightning sped by us, and a tearing noise, like that of a tree whose trunk, nearly severed by the axe, is rent in two by the weight of its branches, and falls to the ground. I thought the mast was struck and shivered by the lightning.

"We are lost!" several voices cried; "the mainsail is split!"

King had fallen into unconsciousness, produced either by the acuteness of the nerves being nullified by the assaults of disease, or incidental to that kind of stupor which death casts like a shadow along its path. Disliking to die like a rat in my hole, I went on deck; and a bright flash of lightning showed the mainsail ripped from the second reef earing up to the peak. Though the waves rushed by the vessel with the velocity of the fleetest steeds, and demolished everything that obstructed their career, our craft appeared to defy their fury, and sprung from billow, to billow with the playful airiness of a cork.

"We are lost!" said P——, collectedly, in a low voice, as soon as my head was visible above the companion.

"No," I replied; "'a live dog is worth a dead lion.' I shall be drowned when I am three fathoms under water,—not before."

My companions, I think, attached more heartlessness to my careless manner, and, perhaps, quotation, than I intended; for they made no answer.

"My Lord," said D——, hurrying up to R——, "we must cut away the boom!"

"Let it go," answered R——, briefly, and with calmness.

The cutter was luffed up, and above the roar of the sea, as it lashed and leaped over the bows, D—— shouted,

"Now, my sons, down with the main! and stand by to cut it away."

"Ay, ay, Sir," the men replied, and arranged themselves almost in an instant in their proper places, just as if they moved by mechanism; and not a human voice was heard as the different ropes were let go, and the huge mainsail, flapping furiously, descended towards the deck. The cutter did not seem to feel the immense weight of the canvass, increased as it was by the rain; but danced about as buoyantly as ever. In a few minutes vanished all idea of sending the mainsail adrift, and every thought was turned to the trysail. Five times the attempt was made to set it; but the furious blasts of wind, now freighted with hail, dissipated the strength of our crew with the same facility as the breath of a man would level a palace of cards. During these repeated efforts to get the trysail up, which necessarily occupied much time, the cutter had drifted some way to leeward; and, at last, the man keeping watch on the bow, exclaimed,

"Breakers! Sir, breakers!"

A dozen of us vociferated at the same moment,

"Where?"

"There they are!" shouted the man; "close on the lee-beam!"

Through the thickness of night the waves were discernible like a heap of snow, white with foam, and, as if wantoning with each other, jumping into the air, not fifty fathoms from the yacht. Sailors are brave men; but when a continuity of danger pursues them, they are apt to despair, not from any want of physical or moral ability, but from that morbid impotence which develops itself in their superstitious fancies. The pilots had not given up the hope of vanquishing the storm, and D——, who knew the disposition of his countrymen, did not yet dread their vacillation; but we did. Nothing seemed possible to save us, but the interposition of Heaven; for the storm-jib and reefed foresail were the only sails on the cutter, and they were barely sufficient, in such a sea, to give her steerage way. Every wave that struck the yacht hurled her near and nearer to the breakers; but the courage of the men continued indomitable, and promptly, with the most cheerful expressions, they performed any, the most perilous task allotted to them.

"Ware her, pilot!" D—— called out to the principal pilot. The two pilots taking up the hint, consulted for an instant, and then that one to whom D—— had spoken, said,

"Ware ship."

The beautiful little vessel obeyed her helm as willingly as if she were on a lake; and D—— could not help observing to me, his eyes beaming with the devotion of a sailor for his ship,

"It's a shame, Sir, to doubt she would ever perform her duty."

Scarcely had the words fallen from his lips, or the cutter wore round, when the man, who had first seen the breakers, shouted a second time, like the flying herald of Doomsday,

"There's a vessel going to run us down!"

Every soul ran to the weather side and sought with starting eyes the object of anticipated destruction. By the gleams of light a native vessel, with a sole square-sail set, was imperfectly seen bearing down on our weather bow; and although the wind and sea combined with the darkness to render our annihilation seemingly inevitable, the crew of the approaching bark sang, in a long, slow measure, two or three Norwegian words, and their constant, drawling repetition became distincter as the vessel, like an ice-berg, tore through the frothing surge towards us. There stirred not a sound on board our cutter, except the unceasing exhortation, spoken almost sepulchrally, of the pilot standing near to the helmsman,

"Stea—dy!—stea—dy!"

Both pilots appeared to have understood the signification of the chant, for they altered not the course of the cutter, but kept their eyes fixed, as well as the night admitted, on the huge white sail of the spectral vessel; and would make no other reply to our questions, but,

"They see us, they see us."

Like the spirit of the storm, the vast sail glided through the black air above our top-mast, for it was so dark we could not distinguish the hull; and there was something of mystery and impressive awe, amid the howling tempest, the roar of thunder, and the flash of lightning, in this slow, chanting recitation, uttered by a number of voices that seemed to proceed from the dense obscurity.

It was a vessel from Bergen bound up the Sogne Fiord for timber; and the crew having seen us buffeted, in such a shattered condition, by the gale, and perceiving by the rig of the cutter, that she was a foreigner, humanely bore down to us; and the mystical song of the sailors was a signal to follow them, which being sung slowly and with unfailing repetition, outlasted the blasts of wind, and gave us the opportunity of catching the words as the two vessels rose on the crests of the waves. Our pilots refused to adopt the counsel given, and run out to sea; for had they done so, we might have found ourselves by daylight driven half way to Trondhjem, and the life of King must have been sacrificed.

Neither wind nor sea yielded yet, and we were as stubborn; but had the trim of the yacht not been true, and her liveliness that of a straw, the swell would have made a clean breach over her decks, and its pressure been fatal. At two we got under the lee of the long-desired island. The trysail that had been partially hoisted was now set properly, and trusting to the goodness of our cause, guaranteed by the tried worthiness of our craft, we stretched away from the island, and stood for Bergen.

Returning to the cabin I found King awake, lying where I had left him. When he saw me,

"My pain is easier, sir," he said, not more audibly than a whisper; "but I feel weaker."

"That's your fancy," I answered livelily; but not without the fear that internal mortification was ensuing. "We have beaten the gale on its own ground," I proceeded, endeavouring to divert his thoughts, "and are standing right down the Bergen Fiord."

"It is good of my Lord—very," he replied, and drew a deep sigh; "but—I shall never see England again. My poor wife!" The tears ran silently down his sunken cheeks. While the sick man wept, my two friends, with countenances of joy, entered the cabin.

"Well!" observed one of them, "I thought all was up with us; but it is now only a tale to tell."

"Yes," the other replied, "neither on sea or shore fail experiments of the heart; and if we could only land you, King," continued the speaker, drawing near to the sofa, "three or four hours hence in Bergen, I would not decline fighting the same battle, ignorant of its chances, again next week."

The sailor, too sad and ill to speak, smiled through his tears at the generosity of a youthful spirit. After administering every possible comfort to King, we lay down to rest; and it seemed that I had hardly closed my eyes when the grating noise of the cable awoke me. The yacht was at anchor in Bergen harbour. In less than half an hour a medical man was on board; and by his order King was immediately wrapped up in blankets and taken ashore. He was in the last stage of intestinal inflammation; and an hour more would have sealed his destiny. I need not say, that for many days life oscillated uncertainly between death and the vigour of his constitution; but R—— had the good fortune to secure the services of a most skilful, though young, Norwegian physician. None of us can speak too highly of the kindness and unhesitating attention of this gentleman, who combined not only the estimable and generous disposition of youth with the intellectual attainments of maturer years, but claimed every accomplishment of manner and attraction of form that birth and education might have refined and nature alone could give.

So ended the 1st of August, to live in our memories. In the evening we went to see King. He was so ill, that his medical attendant begged, while remaining in his bed-room, we would not speak. The poor fellow was delirious. When we came near to his bed-side, he stared at us; but could not remember who we were. Sailor, who managed to push his way up stairs, though we had taken the precaution to leave him out of doors, rushed up to the bed, and placed his paws on it; but a cuff on the head sent him to the other end of the room. King seemed to have recognized the dog; for he rolled his head from side to side on the pillow, as if in reprobation of the act to keep the animal from him; and although his left hand lay outside the coverlet, he was so exhausted, having been bled twice, that he could not stir it; but moved the forefinger, beckoning the animal to him. At the suggestion of the doctor we stood on one side, and opened a passage for the dog. The animal crouching in the farthest corner of the room, hung his head, doubtful of the duty required of him; but the moment R—— motioned with his hand, the dog in one bound reached the bed. The wan, vacant countenance of the sufferer, brightened with the hue and intelligence of health, for he smiled and moved his lips, though he had not sufficient strength to articulate a word. The dog sometimes licked his hand, and then with playfulness, took the moving finger between his teeth, and allowing it to slip from his mouth, would seize it again; and so, although both were speechless, both understood each other. At last some sad reflection, the thought perhaps of home, or the little chance he had more of sharing the affection of any human thing, as he did now, crossed his mind; for the sick man closed his eyes, while yet his finger moved as before and the noble brute still toyed with it, and oozing from under the shut lids, one by one, the tears ran over, and bathed his temples.

"We shall excite him, doctor," we said in a whisper.

"I think so," he replied; "leave him for the present."

We left the room; but it was with some difficulty we could get the dog to follow us. The attachment of animals is a common tradition, but I have never had the opportunity of seeing it so feelingly displayed as during the illness of King; nor did the rage of the elements, or the fear of death press heavier on my spirits than the mute love of Sailor and Jacko touched me deeply. No living creatures could have remembered with more devotional sincerity the acts of friendship and human kindness, or demonstrated their grief with greater effect and truth.

Our stay at Bergen was greatly lengthened by the illness of King; for R—— did not like to leave Norway without being assured of his ultimate recovery. During our sojourn, the guide, a Swede, whom we had hired, pointed out the house in which the Marquis of Waterford was lodged after his encounter with the watchman, when his life was nearly lost. Borne on their shoulders, the watchmen carry about with them a long staff, at the end of which is a circular knob full of small spikes that resemble the rays of a star, on which account the staff is called the Morning Star; and with one of these astral knobs the noble Lord, in a scuffle, was struck on the head. The inhabitants of Bergen still remember the Marquis; and while they condemn the conduct of their countryman, exalt the character of the young nobleman; and I believe myself, that the local trade of the town never received before his arrival, or after his departure, such an impetus as it did from the liberality and personal expenditure of Lord Waterford. Our guide did nothing else but talk of him, and laughed till he cried while recounting the comical freaks of "the sweet man;" or, as he phrased him vernacularly,

"Manen sött."

The lateness of the season made R—— anxious to quit Norway before the middle of August; and since King could not, under the most favourable circumstances, leave his bed before the end of the month, we thought of our return to England. On the afternoon of the 7th, King being pronounced entirely out of danger, and, as far as human wisdom could tell, certain of regaining his former health, we sailed; but R—— left in the hands of the British Consul a sum of money, to purchase whatever might be required for King's present use, and future passage to England; and writing a note which was to be given to him by the Consul, when he was sufficiently well to read it, R—— told the poor fellow not to be hurt at our departure; but that we had sailed from Bergen by compulsion, and not according to the dictates of our own hearts. Promising to touch at Harwich, and communicate to his wife the tidings of his convalescence, for we had written to inform her of her husband's desperate condition, R—— concluded by intimating, that the Consul would supply him with every luxury he desired, and he was not to hesitate in the expression of any fancy his sickly state might prompt him to make. R—— told him, also, to join the yacht at Cowes when he returned to England. King lived to see the English shores again, and gratefully, in the blunt, pathetic language of a sailor, to thank his amiable benefactor. He fills, at this moment, his old post.

Although the afternoon was calm, the cutter dropped rapidly down the Fiord, until within four miles of the sea. The pilot, one of the most expert at Bergen, had been very anxious to get the yacht clear from the land before night-fall, that he might be on his homeward way in good time; nor were we less desirous of taking our departure before set of sun. But Fortune seems ever to act towards some men with the sincerest malice. About half a league, as I have said, from the mouth of this Fiord, one of many that conducts to Bergen, and on the starboard shore, is a rock that juts towards the centre of the channel, and forms a small bay. Mariners know the spot well, and avoid it. The surrounding scenery, fraught with the natural softness of beauty and severe grandeur of Norway, resembles most other things that bear, seductively, external comeliness, and carry an antidote unseen. The bay is a whirlpool. Our hyperboreal Palinurus was perfectly acquainted with this modern Charybdis, and used every stratagem of which he was master, to escape it; but the wind being light, left the cutter to the mercy of the current. Nearly three hours the yacht did nothing else but revolve, as if she were fixed on a pivot, and not all the united exertions of the crew could tow her out of the eddy.

The unhappy pilot stamped his foot every time the cutter took a fresh whirl, and called his favourite Odin to witness his dilemma; but Odin paid as much deference to his prayers as Hercules did, of yore, to the waggoner who got the wheel of his cart in the rut. The cutter wearied not in her waltz; but, whether she felt the want of a partner, or the power of the wind, I know not; for when the pilot had lighted his pipe, and given his soul to its soporific ward, she darted unexpectedly out of the circling haven, and ceased not in her flight until the first wave of the Ocean leaped up against her bow with so much rude impetuosity that her hull staggered under its force, and her gaff-topsail shook with anger at such lack of gentleness.

Amid a multitudinous salute of "Farväl!" the pilot bundled into his pram; and even now I see him tossed about, looking the very configuration of "Gamle Norge."

The sameness of all other seas is not forbidden to this northern one; and except a more constant repetition of squalls and showers of rain, I distinguished the great family likeness. The 8th of August passed pleasantly enough, and for those souls which can absorb the sublimity of water, and soar to the infinity of space, the scene might have seemed wondrous in width and height; but the subsequent day, while sitting below and reading, I heard a tremendous racket on deck, and before I could exactly arrange the different sounds, the main-sail and gaff-topsail came to the deck "with a run;" and for aught I knew to the contrary, but strongly imagined, the gib and foresail followed their example with like expedition.

"We shall go up in the air, like a balloon!" one of the sailors, with a twang of horror in his voice, exclaimed.

"Ay, or swamped!" a second suggested, loudly, with dreadful determination.

"Ay, ay; and the deck's as good as stove in!" growled a third nautical son of a Shuhite.

I threw the book I had been perusing on the cabin table, and hurried towards the staircase; but one of my friends met me at the door, and moving with the same velocity as myself, we came into sharp collision. He rebounded to the right, and I recoiled to the left hand.

"For God's sake, get out of the way," said he, out of breath, and recovering his legs as fast as he could.

"What's the matter?" I asked, with much alarm. "Is the vessel on fire, or what?"

"No;—nothing," replied he, with a wildness of look that foretold anything but nothing. "Here, steward!" he called out at the top of his voice,—"Alfred!—Gandy!—cook!"—dismay expanding the sources of information, and adding loudness to his vociferation—"Where's my gun?"

The steward, Alfred, Gandy, and the cook were busily employed elsewhere, for they made no reply, and my friend soon found, without their assistance, what, at first, confusion of mind had hid from his sight.

Breathless, too, with the flushed face and disordered dress of haste and horror, my other fellow traveller came thundering down the companion, and the thick shooting-boots he commonly wore clattered the importance of his approach.

"Gracious heaven!" I exclaimed, "What is all this about? If I am to be——"

"Where's the powder?" asked he, and brushing by me, like a rocket, to get across the cabin, brought his shoulder so forcibly in contact with my chest, that he knocked all the breath out of my lungs, and broke my second sentence into pieces.

"Where's the powder?" again asked he, his voice ascending in the scale of articulation.

"How am I to know?" fulminated the one, angrily, loading his gun with the despatch of an adroit musketeer. "Am I a magazine?"

"No; I know that," said the other, tartly.

"Well; what's the good of baiting a fellow when he's busy," replied the first decisively.

I could rest no longer in ignorance of my fate, and I scrambled on deck. The vessel labouring very much in a heavy sea, had not a stitch of canvass on her, and her bare mast tapered into the air like a cocoa-nut tree that had been discrowned.

"What is all this?" I said, appealing to one man who had hold of the tiller, and, with his neck extended like a race-horse, seemed to be steering as if the greatest way was on the vessel.

"Look there, your Honour," and without removing his eyes from the bow of the cutter, he pointed the thumb of his left hand over his shoulder. I turned, and saw, half a mile astern, the cause of all this uproar. But I had barely a clear conception of what I was looking at, when my companions with loaded guns reappeared on deck. The triggers clicked, and I assumed their guns were to be discharged at once, but D—— called out,

"Not yet; it's too far off."

"Tell us when to fire, then," said my two friends, filing themselves in that attitude which the reader may have observed in a regiment of soldiers, when the word is given to "present."

"What!" I cried out, now that I found my senses by the visual elucidation of the threatened evil;

"What! you don't mean to say you are going to fire with a couple of fowling pieces at a water-spout?"

"To be sure, Sir," answered D——, giving me a momentary glance that he ventured to take, clandestinely, from the water-spout. "Don't they fire guns to break them?"

"Yes," I replied, "people do,—cannon!"

However, I could not get any one to agree with me, that a rifle-ball would have just as much effect on the dispersion of the huge water-spout that boiled and waved, like an elastic tower, to and fro with the wind, and roared in the wake of the yacht, as a sigh would arrest the rotation of Sirius; and so, placing my life in the custody of Providence, I went back to my book, and left my companions standing on the poop with guns presented, and the whole crew with leaping hearts and open mouths waiting the efficacy of their artillery. I did not hear the discharge of the two guns; but the water-spout kept them in great trepidation, by approaching within a hundred yards of the cutter, and then resolving into its native cloud and water.

The following day the high lands in the vicinity of Whitby in Yorkshire were seen; and at four o'clock the same afternoon we passed close under the frowning headland, on which the old ruins of the castle stand. A south-west wind appearing desirous to treat us with another gale, we brought up off Scarborough for the night; and notwithstanding the swell which precluded all other boats from intercourse with the shore, we managed to reach the land in a gig, and stretched our legs on English ground again.

Early in the morning P—— left us for London, fearful that the wind might detain us some time at Scarborough; but five hours after his departure, at mid-day, with a fresh breeze, we got under weigh; and, though the wind continued heading us the whole distance, reached Yarmouth as the clocks in the town were striking eight.

Having made up our minds not to remain more than the night at this place, the cutter lay in the roadstead.

We must have arrived at a moment of some gaiety, for on a terrace facing the sea, a band was playing, and all the inhabitants had congregated to converse and walk. What a contrast to the country from which we had just come! No man can judge of the superiority of England, whether in the beauty and elegance of its women, the cleanliness of its towns, the multiplicity and aptness of its comforts, but he who has wandered in other parts of the world. Grumblers are domestic; just the same as spoiled brats cry for the very sake of peevishness, because they know not the pain of denial. As I have not much more time to speak, I would, with my last breath, recommend discontented people to travel; but if they should come back in the same fretful condition, well, let them go to——Bath;—no further.

At six o'clock on the morning of the 12th of August, we sailed from Yarmouth, and at a quarter to seven in the evening, the anchor of the Iris dropped within thirty yards of the pier-head at Erith.

By the first flush of day, taking the early tide, the cutter crept up the familiar, winding River; and while yet I pondered on the reason why I should love my own land, with its yellow sky and puffing toil, better than the pure Heaven and kindly ease of foreign strands, the Hospital of Greenwich lay within the cast of a stone. The crimson flag was waving on the western turret, just as it waved in May, and so, with his two wooden legs projecting at right angles to his body, sat alone, on the same bench, the lone old pensioner. I seemed to have been sleeping for three months. I felt sad, and knew not why. How ideal is the reality of life! and the inexpressive cause of grief is the consciousness of that truth.

The sailors, as they furled the sails, talked of home. The deer and fawn, ceasing to ruminate, viewed their new country with surprise; but Jacko going into Sailor's hutch, begged, without doubt, to know if he might ride through the town on his back; and Greenwich, like Brundusium, was,

"longæ finis chartæque viæque."

As all men are not of the same stature, so their minds differ in the means of accepting knowledge, or entertainment, and to please every one is a difficult thing. To hope, therefore, that I should afford amusement to all who read these pages, would be to aspire for that which has not fallen to the lot of any one; but if out of the incongruity of opinions I have expressed, be they ever so weak, or opposed to each other, instruction may be taken, then I shall not have striven without a result. For me, I have no moral lesson to teach; but by writing, to repeat what I have witnessed, and by that repetition to impart to others those things which, sheltered, though of the same world, by a different sky, and shadowed by other customs, were pleasing to my mind and sight.

My task is done; and, like a dream, is dreamt the recollection of human things already changed and ever changing. The remembrance of the interesting country through which I have been travelling shall abide by me always; for, encouraged by the desire to speak and muse, as I do now, of the hardy, freely happy, and contented sons of its mountains, I first learned that no greater blessing could be granted than a life of honourable industry, and that, pine who might beneath the infliction of mental or bodily exertion, I had known the exalted destiny of creation in the effort to be useful. Like an exile turning to take a last glance at the blue outlines of his native land, I, too, have lingered to look back; yet the pleasant retrospection of three happy months is at an end; and I now dream of its delight as one who feels that, in the swift transition of existence, such peace of mind can never come again.