“Bravo!” he cried; “you are punctual by inspiration! How the devil did you know that we were here?”
“I had no idea of such a thing,” replied Christian; “I was going to the new chateau merely by chance.”
“Then chance is for us the first thing in the morning; and that is a sign that we shall be fortunate in the hunt. Really, you are capitally disguised, just as you were yesterday evening; but you have neither the proper shoes nor weapons for the present occasion. Luckily I foresaw that it would be so, and we have brought all that you will want. In the meanwhile, take this cloak as a protection against the cold, and let us start instantly. We are going quite a distance, and the day will not be too long for all we have to do.”
Christian stepped, with Larrson, into one of the small country sleighs, very light, with seats for two, and drawn by a little mountain horse. The lieutenant and Corporal Duff, a kind-hearted old man, a non-commissioned officer, and a great expert in hunting, got into the second sleigh, which was exactly like it. The major took the lead, and they started at a rapid canter.
“You must know,” the major said to Christian, “that we are making all this haste so as to have a private hunt of our own. The baron has plenty of game, and plenty of skilful marksmen upon his domain, and he himself is a very accomplished and very courageous hunter. But as he will be obliged to conduct or send a great many of his guests to the battue to-day, who are more remarkable for their boasting than their skill, it is much to be feared that they will make a great deal of noise, and do very little execution. Besides, the battue with peasants has no great interest, as you can see for yourself, when we return down that mountain that you see before you, after having made our expedition. It is really a sort of cowardly assassination. They surround the poor bear, who is not always willing to leave his den; they terrify him, they harrass him, and when he comes out at last to fight or fly, they shoot at him without the least danger, from behind strong nets, where they are protected from his desperate attacks. Of course there can be nothing exciting, nothing unexpected or startling in a hunt conducted in this way; and besides, it often happens that the impatient and awkward members of the party make the whole thing fail, and that the beast has packed off before they can come up to it. We shall go to work in a very different way, without trackers, without noise, and without dogs. I will tell you what is to be done, when the right time comes. And you may rest assured that a real hunt is like all true pleasures; it does not admit of a crowd. It is a noble diversion, which you can only enjoy with your friends, or persons of exceptional merit.”
“I must thank you doubly, then,” replied Christian, “for wishing me to share with you this confidential pleasure; but pray explain to me how it is that you are at liberty to kill the baron’s game before him. I should have thought he would be more jealous of his prerogatives as a hunter, and of his rights as a proprietor.”
“For that very reason it is not his game that we are going to try and kill. His estates are considerable, but the whole country does not belong to him, God be praised! Do you see those fine mountains directly in front of you? that is the Norwegian frontier, and on the outskirts of those gigantic ramparts we shall find a group called Blaakdal. There, in the midst of those sublime wildernesses, and sometimes enveloped by clouds, for the summits of the mountains are not often so clear as they are to-day, live a few free peasants, who are landowners. From one of these dannemans (that is what they are called) my friends and myself have purchased a bear, whose retreat he has just discovered. This danneman, whose familiarity with all such matters makes him a very interesting man, lives in a magnificent site, which is almost inaccessible to a carriage, but, with the help of God and these good little mountain-horses, we shall get there. We will breakfast at his house, after which he himself will be our guide to his lordship the bear, who—since he has not been tracked beforehand by babblers and reckless fools—will await us without mistrust, and receive us—according to his mood at the moment. But look, Christian, see what a beautiful spectacle! Have you already beheld this phenomenon?”
“No, not yet,” cried Christian, transported with joy; “and I am very glad to see it in your company. I have heard of it, and that is all; it is a magnificent parhelion!”
In fact, five suns were rising above the horizon. The true, the powerful star of day was accompanied to the right and left, and on either side of its radiant disk, by four luminous images, not so brilliant, and not so round as the real sun, but surrounded by rainbow-hued halos of marvellous beauty. As our hunters were riding towards the west, they stopped for several moments to enjoy this optical effect, which is produced by very much the same causes as the rainbow, although it is scarcely ever seen in Europe, except in the extreme north.
At first they drove along a broad highway, but this soon dwindled into a narrow, uneven lane, leading through private estates; the lane turned into a path, and then followed the open country, uncultivated and rugged, with only a few scarcely perceptible tracks cut into the snow along the hill-sides. After this, Larrson, who understood perfectly both the country and the capabilities of the sleigh he was driving, dashed forward into a really terrific region, over the bare sides of the mountain; on he went, careering along the very edge of precipices, slipping at full speed into the bottom of almost perpendicular ravines, jumping ditches at a flying leap, shooting over fallen trees and tottering rocks, without even condescending to avoid these fearful obstacles, which seemed every moment as if they would shiver the fragile sleigh into fragments. Christian did not know whether to admire most the audacity of the major or the skill and courage of the thin little horse, whose marvellous instinct was like a sort of second sight, and which the driver accordingly allowed to go its own way. Twice, however, the sleigh was upset. It was not the fault of the horse, but of the vehicle, which could not accommodate itself quickly enough to his movements, in spite of its ingenious construction. These overturns are sometimes serious; but they are so frequent that very few of them, in comparison with the number that occur, amount to anything. The lieutenant’s sleigh, although he was warned by the accidents befalling the party in advance, as they cut their way through the ice, was also upset two or three times. The young men rolled in the snow, shook themselves, replaced the sleigh upon its runners, and started again, without thinking anything more of the adventure than if they had got out to lighten the load of the horse a little. In other countries, an upset makes people laugh or tremble; here, it is accepted quietly, as one of the things that are anticipated and inevitable.