“We have only to get up the hill,” said the ferryman, shouldering my pack, as we safely reached the opposite shore, “and we shall be soon at the parson’s house.”
A warm welcome did I get from my friend the pastor. He recognised my voice directly, as he opened the door in the dark.
“Vilkommen, Vilkommen, Metcalfe! Hvor staae til? (welcome, Metcalfe! how are you?) Det fornoie mig meget, at de har ikke glemt os (I’m glad you’ve not forgotten us).”
And I was speedily in the Stuë, shaking hands with the Fruë (clergymen’s wives have by law this title; merchants’ wives are only madame). Her fair, good-humoured face fatter, and her figure rounder than when I saw her four years ago at the mountain parish in the west. Lisa, too, the hobbledehoy girl, all legs and arms, like a giblet pie, has now become quite a woman, and more retiring. The baby, Arilda, too, runs about bigger and bonnier, while Katinka, another and elder sister, whom I have never seen before, comes forward to greet her father’s friend. There are also some ladies from the “by” (town), with the latest news, foreign and domestic.
I spend a day or two with my kind and intelligent host and his family. Much of his income is derived from land, so that he farms on a large scale. The house is beautifully situate. Beneath us may be seen the river playing at hide and seek among umbrageous woods. On the hills opposite is the mother church of the district, with large farms clustering about it. The neighbourhood abounds in minerals. Not far off is a cobalt-work, now under the auspices of a Saxon company, and which is said to be productive. If the old derivation for cobold be from cobalt, because that particular sort of sprite’s favourite habitat is a mine of this description, I shall, no doubt, pick up a goblin story or two at the manse.
Katinka, the eldest girl, is very well read; better certainly than any I have met with in the country, for they are not a reading people. She sings a national song or two with much feeling, and explains to me the meaning of them, which, as they are written in old Norsk, would be otherwise difficult of comprehension.
“But how do you know the meaning of this outlandish lingo?—it’s not a bit like the written Norsk of the present time.”
“It was not for nothing,” replied she, “that I lived from a baby in the mountain parish where we first saw you. The inhabitants of those sequestered dales still use many of the old words and forms of speech.”
I was soon on my hobby—legends and superstitions.
“Have you any witches or spæ-wives, as they are called in Scotland?” asked I.