With orange-tawny bill,
whose plaintive song so delights us in Great Britain.
Several fieldfares, also, chattered in a startled and angry manner as they rose from the low birch bushes, impatient, no doubt, for the period, now fast approaching, when their young ones will be ready to fly and start for Germany, one of their chief winter habitats, where, under the appellation of “Krammets-vogel,” they will appear in the bill of fare at the hotels. What an odd notion, to be sure, of all these birds going so far to lie-in! What an infinity of trouble they would save themselves if they stopped, for instance, during the breeding period, in Germany or England! Aye; but then they would be exposed to the depredations of “Tom Brown” and others of the genus schoolboy, whose destructive and adventurous qualities generally first develop themselves in the bird-nesting line.
One of the straps which fastened my luggage to the horse having broken, my guide very soon constructs, of birch twig, a strap and buckle which holds as fast as any leathern one I ever saw. This fertility of invention is due to the non-division of labour. What could an Englishman have done under similar circumstances?
Halvor Halvorsen, my guide, is a poor weakly fellow, and having seen me prescribe for Ingulfsland, he asks me if I can do anything for him. Good living and less hard work are all he wants; but, unfortunately, while he has plenty of the latter, he gets but little of the former. On his back is a great load of milk-pails, and some provisions (potatoes and flad-brod) for his spouse, who is taking care of a sæter, which we shall pass.
At length we arrive there: it is a cot of unhewn stone-slabs, and before the door a lot of dried juniper-bushes, the only firing which the desolate plateau affords. Gro Johannsdatter, a really pretty-looking young woman, with delicate features, smiles in a subdued manner as we enter, and thanks her husband quietly and monosyllabically for bringing up the food. This, together with her little boy, she proceeds to examine with inquisitive, eager eye. The larder was doubtless nearly empty. She then gives her husband, whom she had not seen for some time, a furtive look of affection, but nothing more—no embrace, no kiss. How undemonstrative these people are! It is a remarkable characteristic of the lower orders of Norway, that, unlike their betters, they never think of kissing or embracing before strangers. Compare this with those demonstrations in Germany and France, where not the opposite sexes, but great bearded men, will kiss each other on either cheek with the report of popguns, regardless of bystanders.
Presently they go into the inner compartment of the hut, and then at length I believe I heard the sound of a kiss. While she makes up the fire, and boils some milk for her husband, who has many hours of mountain still before him, I endeavour to take a slight sketch of her and the abode.
No sooner does she become aware of my intentions, than, with true feminine instinct, she begs me to wait a moment, while she divests herself of an ugly clout of a kerchief which hides a very pretty neck. The sketch concluded, she asks for a sight of it, and, with a pleased smile, exclaims, “No, no; I’m not so smuk (pretty, smug) as that.”
These châlets, by-the-bye, are not called sæter in this part of Norway, but stol, or stöl. They are very inferior in accommodation to those in the Hardanger district and elsewhere.
Beyond crossing a river, Humle-elv, when, by my guide’s recommendation, I spring on the horse’s back, I find nothing noted in my diary concerning the rest of the day’s journey.