[CHAPTER VI]
INTO THE LAND OF HORRIBLE FLIES: A NARRATIVE
OF PERSONALLY-CONDUCTED TRAVEL
It was manifestly absurd to drag the Marlin and its cartridges any farther. In the first case there was absolutely no probability of finding big game for it to shoot; in the second it was more than likely that carriers would be unprocurable farther inside the country, and we should have to hump all necessaries on our own backs, and the rifle would have to be jettisoned. In mid-Lapland it was unlikely also that we should find a purchaser, and here in Enare one offered. Who does not know the delights of doing a trade? We sold the Marlin for the price it had cost in London town, and threw in the cartridges as ballast to the bargain. It was the postmaster who bought; and in the joy of his purchase he put the Marlin to his shoulder, aimed at a hut some fifty yards away, and pulled trigger. The result was surprising. The bullet went in at one side of the hut and out at the other, and as the inhabitants happened to be within at the time, they came out hurriedly, and looking distinctly worried. The postmaster was only acquainted up to then with the penetrative power of the local weapon. So this performance of the Marlin made him dance with delight.
His thirst was whetted. He had tasted the delights of owning one good weapon, and he wanted another, and he cast his eyes upon it with frank longing. Now our 12-bore shot-gun would not have been classed in England as excellent; indeed it would barely have toed the mark at tolerable. It was an old friend certainly; it had done good service in many climes, and it had seen so many things that its owner was devoutly thankful it could not talk. But it showed the batterings of travel. Its stock was scored and scarred; its barrel was browned more by oil and tallow rubbed on bright-red rust than by the more scientific method of the gunsmith’s shop. It had been spoken of by a whisky miller in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee (who used shot-guns in the defence of his business) as homely; it had been described in more than one stately home of England as “that qualified old blunderbuss”; and its owner always started out across the seas from his native island with the advice, “Now, don’t bring that rotten old tin spout back this time.”
Still it had its points, that much-abused old gun. Held straight, it was deadly enough. It had many a time carried a ball in its right barrel with sound effect; and once, in Africa, when in a moment of stress and panic the ball cartridge was slipped into the left barrel, which was alleged to be “full choke,” it eased itself of the charge without bursting, although it nearly did dislocate the firer’s shoulder in the recoil by way of remonstrance. And at the same time it performed most thoroughly the requisite business with the bullet.
It was one of those guns which was probably always second-hand, and it had never been a high-class weapon even in its palmy days. Even its builder had sent it out into the cold, suspicious world without the testimonial of his name. Yet the man who carried it so many miles through so many scenes, and slept by its side before camp-fires, and nursed it in his lap through many a weary hour when—well, when things were not exactly so smooth as they might have been, and grumbled at its weight under tropical suns, and swore when he missed his supper with it, and got hot when jeerers made sport of its battered ugliness,—that man, I say, would give more than one crisp note to-day if he might have it stored away at home in some dark corner near at hand, from where he could take it out at times and abuse it with rough, friendly words, as one old chum abuses another. He would like to lift it in his fingers again, and put his chin against that piece of spun yarn which was served round the stock where—pah! what nonsense is this? The gun was not fit to carry. It was absurd to go about with such a weapon, when better guns were so handy. And if (as a matter of accurate fact) it was rather more serviceable than any of the other guns in Enare, why, of course, the people up there were little better than rank barbarians, and what could be expected of their artillery?
And so at Enare the old gun remained, and forty marks exchanged hands over the transaction. We travelled thereafter the lighter by several pounds of dead weight, and we did not miss the weapon’s usefulness. Even had we condescended to the murder of nursing mothers, we could barely have filled a decent game-bag with birds from one end of the country to the other. So one wished the postmaster good luck with his purchase; but many a thought went backwards after the old gun’s welfare, and many a sighing hope was registered that the new owner would entreat it tenderly.
The postmaster was the active spirit of Enare Town, and we made a good move in securing his vote and influence. He could not give us any information about much of our journey, it is true, because, as he explained before, all his experience of passage in and out of the country had been by the Sodankya route; but at least he could put us in the way of negotiating the first stage. He sent round word, and, after a delay, carriers came to our dwelling with thongs of reindeer harness in their hands ready to strap on their packs. But when they heard what was required, they demurred. They had no taste for wandering away into the distant wilderness. The postmaster delivered to them an hour’s animated lecture in Qfinsk before they would even think of it. Then they replied with more objections, and thus for two more solid hours the argument went on. There were three carriers—two Lapps and a Finn—and they stood in a row with their mouths open, and looked rather limp and dejected whilst the postmaster railed at them and detailed their prospective duties. A decorative background of Lapps arranged itself behind the group and watched proceedings with curiosity and attention. They rather regarded us as villagers elsewhere do a travelling circus.
We impressed upon the postmaster that what we really would like was one reliable carrier who would go through the country with us as far as Kittila, and engage the other carriers and guides as they were needed along the route—you see our demands by this time were getting simpler. We had quite given up the idea of the combined guide-interpreter person; and the postmaster urged this proposition with fluency and noise. He pointed out the easiness with which such a piece of work could be done. He dwelt upon the wealth which would accrue to the happy man who did it. But the three carriers did not warm to the scheme one little bit. They merely looked frightened, and shook their heads, and the Finn paid us the compliment of glancing in our direction, and then turning away with a perceptible shudder.