“‘All right; I got the loan. They were the more willing to lend, for they had some notes of old date, which are to be called in by the bank at Trondjem, before the month’s out, and it will save them the trouble and expense of sending them up there.’
“‘Ay, so,’ replied Ule, meditatively. ‘What is the date of the notes that are to be called in? Perhaps I may have some.’ And going to an old cupboard, he produced from a coffee-pot seven hundred dollars.”
We now get into an enclosed and more cultivated country, and see symptoms of civilization as we approached Vikersund, in the shape of a drunken man or two staggering homewards; and, at the merchant’s, where I stop to make some small purchase, there is a crowd of peasants clustering round the counter, or sitting in corners, imbibing corn brantviin.
At Vikersund the road forks. That to the left leads to Christiania, by the shores of the beautiful Tyri Fjord and the pass of Krog-Kleven; the other crossing the wide sound, the only vent of the Tyri, Hols, and Rand fjords, by a very long bridge, goes to Drammen and Kongsberg.
In the stream lie thousands of logs that have been cut down in the mountains and along the feeders of this glorious waterway, to the very foot of the Fillefjeld. Some of them have, perhaps, left their native grove two or three years ago, and would never have got here were it not for certain persons jogging their memories and goading them into unwilling activity. One of the most characteristic features of a Norwegian valley are gangs of burly broad-chested men, armed with huge poles, the ends of which are shod with a hook and spike. Directly there are symptoms of the water rising after rain, these fellows appear suddenly, and are seen pushing the stranded timbers from the shore, dashing through the water in their great jack-boots, to islands or shoals, for the like purpose, or boating across the river to set afloat some straggling laggard; and, forthwith, all these, like so many great cadises, just disengaged from their anchor, and soon to take wing, go swarming down the stream. The boat, by-the-bye, used by these Norsk equivalents to the Far West lumber-men, is never destined to return to its mountain home, but will be sold below for what it will fetch.
In Norway scenes are constantly meeting the traveller’s eye, whether it be such as that just described, or the rude log-huts, or the countless tree stumps, the work of the axe, or the unthinned density of forests which are not near any watercourse, which forcibly bring to one’s mind Oliphant’s description of Minnesota and the Far West. But there is this trifling difference, that whereas there you may as likely as not be bulleted, or your weasand slit by a bowie-knife, you are safer in this country than in any land in Europe.
As it was my purpose to visit a clergyman in the neighbourhood, I left the main route, and took a short cut, by which I saved six miles in distance, though not in time. For the short way was a pleasant alternation of ledges of rock and mudpits. Fortunately I was provided with an air-cushion to sit upon, or the jolting must have proved fatal, at all events to my teeth. If there is no dentist here—such a thing I never heard of in Norway—there ought to be.
After four or five miles up and down, we descended in good earnest through a straggling grove of pines, their dark foliage now rendered darker by the fast approaching night. To our left I could see something white, and heard fierce roarings. The broad expanse of water at Vikersund had narrowed into a mere fissure, only a few yards across, with splintered walls of overhanging rock. What! that small-throated boa-constrictor going to swallow up such a monstrous lump of water at a mouthful? Choked it will be, and no mistake. See, what a chattering, and frothing, and smoking! That lot of trees, too, they must stick in his gizzard; half-a-dozen have lodged there already, firm and immovable, as if riveted by the strongest bolts. A few steps more, and behold! the strife has ceased; the logs, together with the boiling soapsuds, have shot through the tunnel or funnel, and lie heaving and panting on the waters of another river of no little breadth and volume, which, swiftly gliding through the forest, cuts in here, and joins the narrow outlet of the great Drammen river at right angles.
After their prodigious tussle, it must be quite a relief to those much battered logs to rock in the comparatively tranquil lap of the Hallingdal river; for it is my old friend of Hemse-Fjeld reminiscence—who kept now rollicking and roaring like a schoolboy, now floating lightly and whispering softly, like a miss in her teens, as we journeyed along together—that here clubs its fortunes with the lusty progeny of the Fillefjeld.
At the fork made by the two streams dwelt a ferryman, who speedily transferred my effects from the carriole to his frail boat. It required careful navigation to get over; as the surge of the Vikersund river—which, as the ferryman told me, albeit it had come through such an eye of a needle, was by far the bigger of the two—was of such momentum and so sudden in its dash that the crowding waters of the Halling were struck all of a heap by the concussion, and fairly turned round and fled. After recovering the first shock, however, it gradually established a nearer intimacy with the boisterous stranger, and they presently made a fresh start forward, and vaulted together over a rugged rapid below, which I could just see gleaming through the dusky shades of the evening, and the forest. The first struggles with the world of the new-married couple.