Glimpses of Three Coasts

by Helen Hunt Jackson

When these boats came alongside, Bob peered wistfully over the railings, but did not offer to stir. The connection between this new variety of water craft and terra firma he did not comprehend. But at the first landing which we reached, he gazed for a moment intently, and then bounded forward like a shot, across the gangway, in among the crowd on the wharf, in a twinkling.

"Oh!" shrieked Sanna, "Bob is on shore!" And she rushed after him, and brought him back, crestfallen. But he had learned the trick of it; and after that, his knack at disappearing some minutes before we came to a wharf—thereby luring us into a temporary forgetfulness of him—and then, when we went to seek him, making himself invisible among the people going on shore, was something so uncanny that my respect for him fast deepened into an awe which made an odd undercurrent of anxiety, mingling with my enjoyment of the beauties of the fjord. It was strange, while looking at grand tiers of hills rising one behind the other, with precipitous fronts, the nearer ones wooded, the farther ones bare and stony, sometimes almost solid rock, walling the beautiful green and blue water as if it had been a way hewn for it to pass; shining waterfalls pouring down from the highest summits, straight as a beam of light, into the fjord, sometimes in full torrents dazzling bright, sometimes in single threads as if of ravelled cloud, sometimes in a broken line of round disks of glittering white on the dark green, the course of the water in the intervals between being marked only by a deeper green and a sunken line in the foliage,—it was strange, side by side with the wonder at all this beauty, to be wondering to one's self also what Bob would do next. But so it was hour by hour, all of our way up the Hardanger Fjord, till we came, in the early twilight at half-past ten o'clock, to Eide, our journey's end. The sun had set—if in a Norway summer it can ever be truly said to set—two hours before, and in its slow sinking had turned the mountains, first pink, then red, then to an opaline tint, blending both pink and red with silver gray and white; all shifting and changing so fast that the mountains themselves seemed to be quivering beneath. Then, of a sudden, they lost color and turned gray and dark blue. Belts and downstretching lines of snow shone out sternly on their darkened summits; a shadowy half-moon rose above them in the southeast, and the strange luminous night lit up the little hamlet of Eide, almost light like day, as we landed.

At first sight Eide looked as if the houses, as well as the people, had just run down to the shore to meet the boat: from the front windows of the houses one might easily look into the cabin windows of the boat,—so narrow strips of shore do the mountain walls leave sometimes along these fjords, and such marvellous depth of water do the fjords bring to the mountains' feet.

"Have you written for rooms? Where are you going? There isn't a bed in Eide," were the first words that greeted us from some English people who had left Bergen days before, and whom we never expected to see again. The disappearing, reappearing, and turning up of one's travelling acquaintances in Norway is one of the distinctive experiences of the country. The chief routes of tourist travel are so involved with each other, and so planned for exchange, interchange, and succession of goers and comers, that the perpetual rencontres of chance acquaintances are amusing. It is like a performance of the figures of a country-dance on a colossal scale, so many miles to a figure; and if one sits down quietly at any one of the large inns for a week, the great body of Norway tourists for that week will be pretty sure to pass under his inspection.

At Holt's, in Bergen, one sees, say forty travellers, at breakfast, any morning. Before supper at eight in the evening these forty have gone their ways, and a second forty have arrived, and so on; and wherever he goes during the following week he will meet detachments of these same bands: each man sure that he has just done the one thing best worth doing, and done it in the best way; each eloquent in praise or dispraise of the inns, the roads, and the people, and ready with his "Oh, but you must be sure to see" this, that, or the other.

There were those who sat up all night in Eide, that night, for want of a bed; but Bob and we were well lodged in a pretty bedroom, with two windows white-curtained and two beds white-ruffled to the floor, on which were spread rugs of black-and-white goatskins edged with coarse home-made blue flannel. In the parlor and the dining-room of the little inn, carved book-cases and pipe-cases hung on the walls; ivies trained everywhere; white curtains, a piano, black-worsted-covered high-backed chairs, spotless table linen, and old silver gave an air of old-fashioned refinement to the rooms, which was a surprise.

The landlady wore the peasant's costume of the Hardanger country: the straight black skirt to the ankles, long white apron, sleeveless scarlet jacket, with a gay beaded stomacher over a full white blouse, shining silver ornaments at throat and wrists, and on her head the elegant and dignified head-dress of fine crimped white lawn, which makes the Hardanger wives by far the most picturesque women to be seen in all Norway.

At seven in the morning a young peasant girl opened our bedroom door cautiously to ask if we would have coffee in bed. Bob flew at her with a fierce yelp, which made her retreat hastily, and call for protection. Being sharply reproved by Sanna, Bob stood doggedly defiant in the middle of the floor, turning his reproachful eyes from her to the stranger, and back again, plainly saying, "Ungrateful one! How should I know she was not an enemy? That is the way enemies approach." The girl wore the peasant maiden's dress: a short black skirt bound with scarlet braid, sewed to a short sleeveless green jacket, which was little wider than a pair of suspenders between the shoulders behind. Her full, long-sleeved white blouse came up high in the throat, and was fastened there by two silver buttons with Maltese crosses hanging from them by curiously twisted chains. Her yellow hair was braided in two thick braids, and wound tight round her head like a wreath. She had a fair skin, tender, honest blue eyes, and a face serious enough for a Madonna. But she laughed when she brought us the eggs for our breakfast, kept warm in many folds of linen napkin held down by a great motherly hen of gray china with a red crest on its head.

The house was a small white cottage; at the front door a square porch, large enough to hold two tables and seats for a dozen people; opposite this a vine-wreathed arch and gate led into a garden, at the foot of which ran a noisy little river. An old bent peasant woman was always going back and forth between the house and the river, carrying water in two pails hung from a yoke on her shoulders. A bit of half-mowed meadow joined the garden. It had been mowed at intervals, a little piece at a time, so that the surface was a patchwork of different shades of green. The hay was hung out to dry on short lines of fence here and there. Grass is always dried in this way in Norway, and can hang on the fences for two weeks and not be hurt, even if it is repeatedly wet by rain. One narrow, straggling street led off up the hillside, and suddenly disappeared as if the mountains had swallowed it. The houses were thatched, with layers of birch bark put under the boards; sods of earth on top; and flowers blooming on them as in a garden. One roof was a bed of wild pansies, and another of a tiny pink flower as fine as a grass; and young shoots of birch waved on them both. The little river which ran past the inn garden had come down from the mountains through terraced meadows, which were about half and half meadow and terrace; stony and swampy, and full of hillocks and hollows. New England has acres of fields like them; only here there were big blue harebells and pink heath, added to clover and buttercups, wild parsley and yarrow. On tiny pebbly bits of island here and there in the brook grew purple thistles, "snow flake," and bushes of birch and ash.

Bob rollicked in the lush grass, as we picked our way among the moist hollows of this flowery meadow. In Sanna's hand dangled a bit of rope, which he eyed suspiciously. She had brought it with her to tie him up, when the hour should come for him to be carried on board the steamer. He could not have known this, for he had never been tied up in his life. But new dangers had roused new wariness in his acute mind: he had distinctly heard the word "steamer" several times that morning, and understood it. I said to him immediately after breakfast, "Bob, you have to go home by the steamer this morning." He instantly crept under the sofa, his tail between his legs, and cowered and crouched in the farthest corner; no persuasions could lure him out, and his eyes were piteous beyond description. Not until we had walked some distance from the house, in a direction opposite to the steamer wharf, did he follow us. Then he came bounding, relieved for the time being from anxiety. At last Sanna, in a feint of play, tied the rope around his neck. His bewilderment and terror were tragic. Setting all four feet firmly on the ground, he refused to stir, except as he was dragged by main force. It was plain that he would be choked to death before he would obey. The rope project must be abandoned. Perhaps he could be lured on board, following Sanna. Vain hope! Long before we reached the wharf, the engine of the boat gave a shrill whistle. At the first sound of it Bob darted away like the wind, up the road, past the hotel, out of sight in a minute. We followed him a few rods, and then gave it up. Again he had outwitted us. We walked to the steamer, posted a letter, sat down, and waited. The steamer blew five successive signals, and then glided away from the wharf. In less than three minutes, before she was many rods off, lo, Bob! back again, prancing around us with glee, evidently keeping his eye on the retreating steamboat, and chuckling to himself at his escape.