“No doubt of it,” said Miss Katinka.
“If the tailor had been an Englishman,” observed I, “we should have said that he ‘knew which way the cat jumped;’” and then I had to explain, and this elicited the remark, that the Norwegians are by no means deficient in proverbs.
“Have you a Norwegian equivalent to our commonest of English proverbs—‘to carry coals to Newcastle?’”
“Yes,” put in the worthy pastor, “but with a difference. We say, ‘to carry the bucket over the brook to fetch water.’”
“Well, we have another, not less common—‘to reckon upon your chickens before they are hatched.’”
“That’s our ‘you must not sell the skin till you’ve shot the bear.’ It’s just the same as yours, but with a local colouring.”
“All these proverbs, by the way, are not true,” continued I. “There is an English proverb that it requires nine tailors to make a man: as if a tailor was inferior to the rest of mankind in courage. That last story of Miss Katinka’s is a proof to the contrary. I remember being in Berlin, just after the revolution of 1848, and visiting the cemetery of those who had fallen. There was one monument to the memory of one Johann Schwarz, with an inscription to the effect that he fought like a hero, and received nine, or maybe nineteen wounds. Indeed, at the London police-offices, whenever a man is brought before his Worship for assault and battery of the worst description, or for drubbing the policemen within an inch of their lives, the odds are that it will be a tailor with a little body and a great soul.”
But my last observations were quite lost on my fair informant. For at this moment a letter was put into her hands, and she escaped from the room, her colour rising, and her thoughtful eye assuming a softer and more conscious expression.
“It’s Katinka’s weekly letter from her betrothed,” explained her father, when she had gone; “they always correspond once a week, and this is the day when the post arrives.”
As I was walking about the house, in company with my clerical friend, I had a fresh proof of the facilities afforded in this country to clever artisans to improve themselves. Thus, one Ole, who is driving the hay-cart up the steep inclined plane to the hay-loft, over the cow-house, has shown a strong turn for mechanics, and on the clergyman’s recommendation has obtained from the government three hundred dollars to defray the expense of a journey to England, that he may be further initiated and perfected in the mysteries of his trade. Another man about the farm, who has exhibited much natural talent as an engraver, is going to be sent to Christiania, to a craftsman in that line.