“In the town,” says he, “it is so traengt,” (in Lincolnshire, throng,) i.e., no room to stir or breathe.
In the course of conversation he tells me he verily believes I have travelled over the whole earth.
While the horse is stopping to rest and browse on a spot which afforded a scanty pasturage, a likely-looking lake attracted my observation, and I was speedily on its rocky banks, throwing for a trout—but the trout were too wary and the water too still. While thus engaged, a distant horn sounds from a mountain on the right, sufficiently startling in such a desolate region. Was game afoot this morning, and was I presently to hear—
The deep-mouthed blood-hound’s heavy bay,
Resounding up the hollow way.
Game was afoot, but not of the kind usually the object of the chase. The Alpine horn was blown by a sæter-lad to keep off the wolves, as I was informed. As nothing was to be done with the rod, I tried the gun, and as we slope down through the stunted willows and birch copses that patch the banks of the Miösvand, I fall in with plenty of golden plover and brown ptarmigan, and manage to kill two birds with one stone. In other words, the shots that serve to replenish the provision-bag arouse a peasant on the further side, who puts over to us in his boat, and thus saves us a detour of some miles round the southern arm of the lake. As we cross over, I perceive far to the westward the snow-covered mountains of the Hardanger Fjeld, which I hope to cross. The westernmost end of the lake is, I understand, twenty-four English miles from this. To the eastward, towering above its brother mountains, is the cockscombed Gausta, which lies close by the Riukan Foss, while all around the scenery is as gaunt and savage as possible. At Schinderland, where we land, after some palaver I procure a horse to Erlands-gaard, a cabin which lies on the hither side of the northern fork of the Miösen, said to be seven miles distant. But the many detours we had to make to avoid the dangerous bogs, made the transit a long affair. In one place, when the poor nag, encumbered with my effects, sank up to his belly, I expected every moment to see the hungry bog swallow him up entirely. With admirable presence of mind he kept quite still, instead of exhausting himself in struggling, and then by an agile fling and peculiar sleight of foot, got well out of the mess.
The delay caused by these difficulties enabled me to bring down some more ptarmigan, and have a bang at an eagle, who swept off with a sound which to my ears seemed very like “don’t you wish you may get it.” But perhaps it was only the wind driving down the rocks and over the savage moorland.
The modest charge of one ort (tenpence), made by my guide for horse and man, not a little surprised me. I did not permit him to lose by his honesty.
Unfortunately, the boat at Erlands-gaard is away; so meanwhile I cook some plover and chat with the occupants of the cabin. Sigur Ketilson, one of the sons, is a Konge-man, (one of “the king’s men,” or soldiers, mentioned in the ballad of “Humpty-dumpty.”) He has been out exercising this year at Tönsberg, one hundred and forty English miles off. The mere getting thither to join his corps is quite a campaign in itself. On his road to headquarters he receives fourteen skillings per diem as viaticum, and one skilling and a half for “logiment.” A bed for three farthings! He is not forced to march more than two Norsk (fourteen English) miles a day. The time of serving is now cut down one-half, being five instead of ten years, and by the same law every able-bodied person must present himself for service, though instead of the final selection being made by lot, it is left to the discretion of one officer—a regulation liable to abuse.
At last the boat returns, and embarking in it by ten o’clock P.M., when it is quite dark, I arrive at the lone farm-house at Holvig. Mrs. Anna Holvig is reposing with her three children, her husband being from home. There being only one bed on the premises, I find that the hay this night must be my couch. The neighbouring loft where I slept was a building with its four ends resting, as usual, on huge stones. At intervals during the night I am awoke by noises close to my ear, which I thought must be from infantine rats, whose organs of speech were not fully developed. In the morning I discover that my nocturnal disturbers were not rats, but swallows, who had constructed their mud habitations just under the flooring where I slept. “The swallow twittering from its straw-built nest” may gratify persons of an elegiac turn; but under the circumstances the noise was anything but agreeable.