When we went out to Oscar's Hall, which is a pretty country-seat of the king's, on the beautiful peninsula of Ladegaardsöen, she was far more interested in the sculptured cornice which told the story of Frithiof and Ingeborg, than in any of the more splendid things, or those more suggestive of the life of the king. The rooms are showily decorated: ceilings in white with gold stars, walls panelled with velvet; gay-colored frescos, and throne-like chairs in which "many kings and queens have sat," the old woman who kept the keys said. Everywhere were the royal shields with the crown and the lion; at the corners of the doors, at the crossings of ceiling beams, above brackets, looking-glasses, and on chair-backs.
"I tink the king get tired looking at his crown all de time," remarked Katrina, composedly. "I wonder vere dey could put in one more."
The bronze statues of some of the old kings pleased her better. She studied them carefully: Olaf and Harald Haarfager, Sverre Sigurdson and Olaf Tryggvesson; they stand leaning upon their spears, as if on guard. The face of Harald looks true to the record of him: a fair-haired, blue-eyed man, who stopped at nothing when he wanted his way, and was just as ready to fall in love with six successive women after he had labored hard twelve years for Gyda, and won her, as before.
"He is de nicest," said Katrina, lingering before his statue, and reaching up and fingering the bronze curiously. "Ain't it wonderful how dey can make such tings!" she added with a deep-drawn sigh. But when I pointed to the cornice, and said, "Katrina, I think that must be the story of the Frithiof's Saga," she bounded, and threw her head back, like a deer snuffing the wind. "Ja, ja," cried the old woman, evidently pleased that I recognized it, and then she began to pour out the tale. Is there a peasant in all Norway that does not know it, I wonder? The first medallion was of the children, Frithiof and Ingeborg, playing together. "Dere," said Katrina, "dat is vat I told you. Two trees growed in one place, nicely in the garden; one growed with de strongth of de oak, dat was Frithiof; and de rose in the green walley, dat was Ingeborg de beauty."
Very closely she scanned the medallions one after the other, criticising their fidelity to the record. When she came to the one where Frithiof is supporting King Ring on his knee, fainting, or sleeping, she exclaimed, "Dere, if he had been dat bad, he could have killed King Ring den, ven he was sleeping; but see, he have thrown his sword away;" and at last, when the sculpture represented King Ring dying, and bequeathing his beautiful queen and her children to Frithiof, she exclaimed, "Dere, dem two boys belongs to King Ring; but now Frithiof gets her. Dat is good, after all dat dem two had gone through with."
King Oscar makes very little use of this pretty country-house. He comes there sometimes once or twice in the course of a summer, for a day, or part of a day, but never to sleep, the old woman said. All the rest of the time it is empty and desolate, with only this one poor old woman to keep it tidy; a good berth for her, but a pity that nobody should be taking comfort all summer in the superb outlooks and off-looks from its windows and porch, and in the shady walks along the banks of the fjord. One of the old Norway kings, Hakon, thought the peninsula beautiful enough for a wedding morning gift to his queen; but it seems not to have been held so dear by her as it ought, for she gave it away to the monks who lived on the neighboring island of Hovedöen. Then, in the time of the Reformation, when monks had to scatter and go begging, and monastic properties were lying about loose everywhere, the Norwegian kings picked up Ladegaardsöen again, and it has been a crown property ever since.
One of the most charming of the short drives in what Katrina called "the nearance" of Christiania is to the "Grefsens Bad," a water-cure establishment only two miles away, by road, to the north, but lying so much higher up than the town that it seems to lie in another world,—as in fact it does; for, climbing there, one rises to another and so different air that he becomes another man, being born again through his lungs. It is a good pull up a stony and ill-kept road, to reach the place; but it is more than worth while, for the sake of the clear look-out to sea, over a delicious foreground of vivid green fields and woods.
"This is the place where all the sick peoples in Norway do come when de doctors cannot do nottings more for dem," said Katrina; "den dey comes here. Here came our last king, King Oscar, and den he did die on the dock ven he vas coming away. He had all de climb dis hill vor notting. Ven it is the time, one has to go, no matter how much money dey will pay; dere is One"—here she stopped hesitating for a word—"you know all vat I mean: dere is One what has it all his own way, not de way we wish it shall be." This she said devoutly, and was silent for an unwonted length of time afterwards.
As we were driving down the steepest part of the hill, a man came running after us, calling so loudly to us to stop that we were alarmed, thinking something must be wrong with our carriage or in the road. Not at all. He was a roadside merchant; not precisely a pedler, since he never went out of his own town, but a kind of aristocratic vender in a small circuit, it seemed; we saw him afterwards in other suburbs, bearing with him the same mysterious basket, and I very much fear, poor fellow, the same still more mysterious articles in it. Not even on Norwegian country-roads, I think, could there be found many souls so dead to all sense of beauty as to buy the hideous and costly combinations which he insisted upon laying in my lap: a sofa-cushion, square, thick, and hard, of wine-colored velvet, with a sprawling tree and bird laid upon it in an appliqué pattern cut out of black and white velvet; a long and narrow strip of the same velvet, with the same black and white velvet foliage and poultry, was trimmed at the ends with heavy fringe, and intended for a sideboard or a bureau; a large square tablecloth to match completed the list of his extraordinary wares. It was so odd a wayside incident that it seemed to loom quite out of its normal proportions as a mere effort at traffic. He insisted on spreading the articles in my lap. He could not be persuaded to take them away. The driver turning round on his seat, and Katrina leaning over from hers, both rapt in admiration of the monstrosities, were stolidly oblivious of my indifference. The things seemed to grow bigger and bigger each moment, and more and more hideous, and it was at last only by a sudden effort of sternness, as if shaking off a spell, that I succeeded in compelling the man to lift them from my knees and fold them away in his basket. As soon as he had gone, I was seized with misgivings that I had been ungracious; and these misgivings were much heightened by Katrina's soliloquizing as follows:—
"He! I tink he never take dem tings away. His wife are sick; dat is de reason he is on de road instead of her. He was sure you would buy dem."