The postmaster gave it up. “Very well,” said he, “then you shall just take them the first stage to Lusaniemi, and then they must get other carriers.”
The faces brightened at once. They were very like children these Lapps and Northern Finns. And they set about making up the packs to their fancy, and getting them strapped to their shoulders with the thongs of reindeer hide. The word went round, and the houses exuded more men, children, and women, all smiling their goodwill, all anxious to wish us God-speed. One wrinkled old crone of a woman, long past walking, was dragged up by her grandchildren in one of the boat-like reindeer sledges that she might not miss the spectacle.
We were all ready to start, when one more request was made for—shall we say, a souvenir. Would we fire one shot with the Marlin at a mark to show how good an aim Englishmen can make with a heavy rifle?
Was there ever a more embarrassing favour asked? We had made a good impression on Enare—there was not a doubt of it; and here was an excellent chance of destroying it in a single moment before the assembled community. But there was no evasion possible, and so one of us shouldered the rifle, took a quick sight on the mark they pointed out (and which he could only just see), and pressed delicately on the hair trigger. The bullet sped, and the crowd ran off to see the result. It was a lucky shot; it had blundered in “plum-centre”; and furthermore, it had pierced in through the log wall of the house on which the mark was set, and out again on the opposite side. Whatever else had happened, the reputation of the Marlin rifle for penetration was established in the Lapp capital for good and always. We were so overcome by the warmth of the multitude of the subsequent good-byes, that I regret to say we marched off neglecting to pay a debt of tenpence to the good lady with whom we lodged.
Our escort left us at the last of the dozen houses which formed the town, and from there on, excepting for one or two turf gamme of pariah hunters, we came across no human dwellings for some time. The way lay through a thick and fairly tall forest, mostly of pines and birches, though in places there was a heavy jungle of shrubs and undergrowth. There were no birds, and no sign of larger game. Only insects abounded. For awhile we had a trail to walk on, but this grew more disused, and finally vanished, and more than once we got astray, and had to make sharp turnings to recover the direction.
It was not altogether country that would have suited a bicyclist. There were rivers to plod through, and swamps to clog one, cliffs to scramble up and down, and thickets to disarrange one’s personal appearance, and most effectually to tear a mosquito veil if one had been worn. As a main direction, we were heading east along the flank of a steep valley, with hills on one side and a deep river on the other, which sometimes broke up into noisy rapids. As a general thing the trees closed us in, but now and again we got out on to rising ground, and found a view which it was worth stopping to look at.
The pace of our caravan now, was very different from that detestable slouch we had been forced to put up with at the north of Enare See. We logged off a good steady four miles to the hour, and after the first stop (which always comes early on a march, to get the loads finally adjusted) halts were pleasingly infrequent. The two Lapps were the willingest fellows on earth, and the solitary, high-booted Finn, although he was a poorer creature, was forced to keep up with his better’s lead. The elder Lapp, who headed the advance, was a melancholy-faced man of some personal beauty. He had lost his wife a few months before, had had his house burnt on the top of that, and so found himself, in middle life, changed from a prosperous family man to a homeless widower; and these things do not tend to cheer a man. He was a dull, capable servant, but we could not bring ourselves to like him.
Johann, the younger Lapp, was a very different animal. We took him to be aged eighteen, though he turned out afterwards to be ten years older than that estimate. He stood about four feet ten inches high in his lappellinin, and the full curve of his bandy legs was charmingly exhibited by the skin-tight white-flannel garments which covered them. He had a quaintly ugly face, beardless as a girl’s, and thatched above by a fell of coarse, black hair; and with his gaily-piped matsoreo off and packed against his load (as he always carried it on the march), and a tight, striped jersey covering his upper man, he was an exact reproduction of the peripatetic acrobat one comes across at English fairs and seaside summer beaches. Indeed one could never quite get over the idea that he was merely playing the part of carrier for a joke, and that some day, quite unexpectedly, he would doff his load, produce a square of threadbare carpet, and go through some entertaining contortions, and afterwards hand round his wooden coffee-bowl for coppers.
He was a fellow of infinite thews and a boundless appetite for hilarity. He always had the heaviest load foisted on him, and received it with a joke and a grimace; and after the most wearisome march he could always tell funny tales, and laugh uproariously at his own excessive wit. In his personal habits he was an irresponsible savage; but in a land where everybody was accustomed to do everything for themselves, he was surprisingly thoughtful and attentive. For instance, after he had been drinking at a stream, he frequently offered his wooden cup to one of us that we might drink with niceness also, instead of being forced to lap the water up like a dog; and more than once, when our kettle and the carriers’ were heating together on a camp-fire, he has burnt his own fingers that he might take our kettle off and hand it to us. Indeed in these little attentions he distinguished himself above all his countrymen we met, and perhaps it was partly for this reason along with the others that we grew so much to like him.