As we glide out into the offing, my spinning-tackle is got out, as I determine to improve the opportunity, and see what the lake can boast of in the way of fish. A banging trout is soon fixed on the deadly triangles which garnishes the sides of the bright metal minnow, to the great delight of the boatmen, to whom the operation is entirely novel.
Take warning, piscatorial reader, from me, and mind you use a plaited line with spinning-tackle. In my hurry I had used a fine twisted one, which kinked up into a Gordian knot the moment it was slack, and I lost some time in getting out another line.
Yonder, on the western shore of the lake, standing in the midst of the silent wilderness, rises the solitary house of God where the people of these parts worship, its humble spire of wood reflected on the surface of the lake. With the exception of Hovden Church and our boat, the waters and shores exhibit nothing else indicative of the proximity of man.
The congregation must be a very scattered one, for if ever people dwelt few and far between, it is in these solitudes. Not one of the three clergymen of the parishes of Vinje, Sillejord, and Tind, who share in the Sunday duty which is performed here a dozen times a year, can live under fifty miles off. A Diocesan Spiritual Aid Society is certainly wanted in these regions.
Such words as “hyre,” to hire; “ede,” to eat; “beite,” to bite; “aarli,” early, let drop by the boatmen in the course of conversation, remind me that I am in a part of the country where a portion of the old tongue still keeps its ground, such as it was when brought over to England, and engrafted on its congener, the Anglo-Saxon, nearly a thousand years ago.
Quite a tempest of wind now suddenly springs up, sending us along at a great pace, and rendering it difficult, when I now and then caught a trout by the tackle trailing astern, to lay-to and secure the fish. The twenty-four miles were soon behind us, and we found ourselves in the Quenna river. “Ducks ahead!” was the cry of the lively Torkil, and my fowling-piece soon added fowl to the fish. No fear of starvation now, even though the larder at Lien prove to be empty.
As it is some hours to nightfall, I rig my fly-rod, and try the pools of the Quenna. Some fat, cinnamon-coloured flies, which I found reposing under the stones, being hardly yet strong enough on the wing to disport themselves aloft, gave me a hint as to the sort of fly that would go down, and, my book containing some very similar insects, I had no lack of sport, securing several nice fish. They do run as large as five pounds, I hear.
On returning to the small farm-house where I was to spend the night, a horse, I found, had been procured; and as a beautiful evening gave promise of a fine day on the morrow, we prepared to start by earliest dawn. My bed of skins was, as usual, laid in the hay-shed; and I retired in the highest possible spirits at the prospect of crossing the desolate and grand mountain-plateau that separates us from the western shores of Norway.
As this spot stands at an elevation of some three thousand feet above the sea, there were no pine-trees growing near; so the shed was constructed of undressed birch poles, and was about as weather-tight as a blackbird’s wicker cage. The chinks near my pillow I stopped up with loose hay. Vain precaution! Before dawn I awoke, cold and stiff. The weather had changed; my sleeping-chamber was become a very temple of the winds, and the storm made a clean breach through the tenement, having swept out the quasi-oakum which I had stuffed into the crevices.