We entered the shop of the bookseller, whose snuffling, sobbing method of talk convinced me at once that he was a Dane. The language is a nerveless, flabby sing-song, gasped out with bated breath. The Norwegian speaks out like a man, and with a pith and marrow in his pronunciation worthy of the rugged power with which one always associates in idea the name of Norway.
The pale bibliopole, after carefully shutting the door, which I had purposely left open—so close and oppressive was the atmosphere of the unventilated shop—fumbled about for a little time, and then discovered that the book I wanted was out of print.
“Oh! never mind,” said the stranger, “I have got a copy, which is very much at your service.”
And in spite of my protestations, this amiable gentleman, whom I afterwards discovered to be Professor C——, an author of some repute, conducted me to his house, placed refreshments before me, and compelled me to take the book, the cost of which was considerable. Indeed, all books in Norway are very dear, which may account for the fewness of readers.
Two matters of considerable importance stirred Bergen to its innermost core while I was there. What do you think they were, reader? Gas has been introduced, and to-night is the first night of lighting it. What a number of people are moving about to see it, as we go on board the steamer Jupiter, bound for Hamburg. The other incident was productive of no less ferment. Ole Bull, the prince of fiddlers, the Amphion of the American wilds, sick apparently of combining the office of leader of a colony, and musician-in-chief to the new community, has just returned to this, his native place, and is about to give a concert, to inaugurate his assumption of his new office of director of the Bergen Theatre.
CHAPTER XVI.
The safest day in the year for travelling—A collision—Lighthouses on the Norwegian coast—Olaf the Holy and the necromancers—The cathedral at Stavanger—A Norwegian M.P.—Broad sheets—The great man unbends—Jaederen’s Rev—Old friends at Christiansand—Too fast—The Lammer’s schism—Its beneficial effects—Roman Catholic Propagandism—A thievish archbishop—Historical memoranda at Frederickshal—The Falls of the Glommen—A department of woods and forests established in Norway—Conflagrations—A problem, and how it was solved—Author sees a mirage—Homewards.
In the old coaching days it used to be said the safest day in the year to travel by the Tantivy was the day after an upset. The same will hold good, thought I, of steamers, as I heard an animated conversation on board, how that last voyage it was all but a case of Norge v. Bergen (alluding to a collision between those two steamers, when the former went down), and how the Viken, Government steamer, would have been utterly cut down, and sunk, had it not been for the presence of mind of the Jupiter captain; how, moreover, a fierce newspaper war was going on in consequence, and the Government had ordered an inquiry.