For my part, at this moment, I thought more about coffee than Norwegian liberty and politics; but as it was nine o’clock, P.M., the good people were quite put out by the request. Coffee in the forenoon, say they, tea in the evening. As it was, they made me pay pretty smartly for the accommodation next morning. “What’s to pay?” said I, striding into the room, where sat the old Deputy’s daughter, the mistress of the house, at the morning meal. She had not long ago become a widow, and had taken as her second husband, a few days before, a grisly-looking giant, who sat by in his shirt-sleeves.
“Ask him,” said the fair Quickly, thinking it necessary, perhaps, just so recently after taking the vow of obedience, by this little piece of deference to her new lord to express her sense of submission to his authority. For my part, as an old traveller, I should rather say she did it for another feeling. English pigeons did not fly that way every day, and so they must be plucked; and the person to do it, she thought, was the Berserker, her awful-looking spouse. The charge was exorbitant; and as the good folks were regaling themselves with fresh mutton-chops and strawberries and cream, while they had fobbed us off with eggs and black bread and cheese—the latter so sharp that it went like a dagger to my very vitals at the first taste—I resolutely taxed the bill of costs, and carried my point; whereupon we took leave of the Deputy and his descendants.
In one sense we had come to the world’s end; for there is no road for wheels beyond this. The footpath up the steep cliff that looks down upon the lake is only accessible to the nimble horses of the country. “Hurrah!” exclaimed I, as I looked down on the blue lake, lying hundreds of feet perpendicularly below us. “Hurrah for the mountains! Adieu to the ‘boppery bop’ of civilization, with all its forms and ceremonies, and turnpikes and twaddle. Here you can eat, and drink, and dress as and when you like, and that is just the fun of the thing, more than half the relaxation of the trip.” Why, this passion for mountain-travelling over the hills and far away is not peculiar to Englishmen. Don’t the ladies of Teheran, even, after their listless “vie à la pantoufle,” delight to hear of the approach of the plague, as they know they are sure to get off to the hills, and have a little tent-life in consequence? Didn’t that fat boy Buttons (not in Pickwick, but Horace), cloyed with the Priest’s luscious cheesecakes, long for a bit of coarse black bread, and run away from his master to get it?
The precipitous path is studded at intervals with heaps of hones, or whet-stones. I find that about here is the chief manufacture in all Norway for this article. One year, a third of a million were turned out. The next quarry in importance is at Kinservik, on the Hardanger Fjord. Surmounting the ascent, we traverse swampy ground dotted with birch-trees, and presently debouch upon one of those quaint edifices not to be found out of this country—stabskirke (stave church), as it is called—of which Borgund and Hitterdal Churches are well-known specimens. It is so called from the lozenge-shaped shingles (staves), overlapping each other like fish-scales, which case the roof and every part of the outside. Smaller and less pretending than those edifices, this secluded place of worship was of the same age—about nine hundred years. The resinous pine has done its work well, and the carving on the capitals of the wooden pillars at the doorway is in good preservation, though parts have lately been churchwardenized.
“That is Eidsborg church,” said a young student, who had volunteered to accompany me, as he was bound to a lone parsonage up the country, in this direction. “This is the church the young lady on board the steamer told you was so remarkable.”
After making a rough sketch of the exterior, we proceeded on our journey. The few huts around were tenantless, the inhabitants all gone up to the châlets. The blanching bear-skulls on the door of one of these showed the wildness of the country we are traversing; while a black-throated diver, which was busy ducking after the fish in the sedge-margined pool close by, almost tempted me to load, and have a long shot at him. As we proceed, I observe fieldfares, ring-ouzel, and chaff-finches, while many English wild flowers enliven the scene, and delicious strawberries assuage our thirst. Pursuing our path through the forest, we come to a post on which is written “Ravne jüv,” Anglicè, Raven depth.
“Det maa De see,” (you must see that,) said my companion, turning off up a narrow path, and frightening a squirrel and a capercailzie, which were apparently having a confab about things in general. I followed him through the pine-wood, getting over the swampy ground by the aid of some fallen trunks, and, in two or three minutes, came to the “Ravne jüv.” It is made by the Sandok Elv, which here pierces through the mountains, and may be seen fighting its way thousands of feet below us. Where I stood, the cliff was perpendicular, or rather sloped inwards; and, by a singular freak of nature, a regular embrasured battlement had been projected forward, so as to permit of our approaching the giddy verge with perfect impunity.
Es schwebt eine Brustwehre über den Rand
Der furchtbaren Tiefe gebogen
Sie ward nicht erbauet von Menschen-hand