Four or five of these highly prized fish were hauled in one after another by Birger, who looked as proud of his exploit as if he had landed a schoolmaster.[29] When the lines had been all coiled up and deposited in the boat, Birger proposed visiting some rushes that he remembered, in a hope of meeting with wild fowl; a hope in which he was disappointed, not at all to the surprise of his brother fishermen, for the whole lake looked so black and gloomy that no duck of ordinary taste would think of pitching there; it was, however, an interesting voyage among the sad and silent intricacies of the lake; but it so happened, that in returning they took a turn short of their point and wandered into another deep and narrow inlet, very like that from which they had started, but still not the same.
So like was one spot to another that they had pulled some considerable distance before the mistake was found out, and when it was, so much time had been lost that they were unwilling to pull back.
“Piú noja un miglio in dietro che dieci in avanti,” said the Captain; “let us pull on and see what luck will send us.”
Piersen, on being consulted, as best acquainted with the country, did not seem to know a great deal about it, but imagined that if once on shore he could cut into the right track; and the fishermen having taken a look at their compasses, and the sun, and the wind, what little there was of it, decided that at all events the adventure should be tried.
Hardly had this conclusion been arrived at, when the boat grounded on a bed of spongy rushes, so like that from which they had embarked, that it was with difficulty they could persuade themselves that it was not the very same—there was the same little soaking rill, the same mossy, soppy turf, and when they had gone on a little further, there was the same leaping, sparkling brooklet, bounding from rock to rock, just like that by which they had descended.
A good stiff pull it took them to reach the top, and then it was evident enough that the spot they had attained was not the same as that from which they had descended. There was no hill on the other side, properly so called, but a wide smooth plain of light sand, shelving, certainly, towards the east, but shelving so gradually, that the declivity was scarcely perceptible; it was completely overshadowed by large massive well-grown pines, not growing together closely but in patches (as is generally the case both in Norway and Sweden), so as to leave grassy glades and featherly copse-wood between the groups, but regularly and evenly, as if they had all been planted at measured distances. The branches formed a complete canopy over head, shutting out both air and sunshine, and effectually destroying everything like verdure beneath: the tall straight monotonous trunks with a purplish crimson tint on their bark, effectually walled in the view on every side, and the whole ground was carpeted with a slippery covering of dead pine-leaves.
“I hope this will not last long,” said the Captain, “the place is so dark and the air so close and stifling, that it seems like walking through turpentine vaults. However, our road lies this way, that is certain,” putting his compass on the ground so that it could traverse easily, “and at all events we must come to a water-course sooner or later.”
But they did not come to a water-course; whether there were none, the sand being sufficiently permeable to sop up the rain, or whether they were travelling on the rise between two parallel brooks, did not appear; but mile after mile was skated and slid over with considerable fatigue and exertion, and the same scene lay before them, and around them, and above them. Tall clear branchless stems, with long vistas between them opening and closing as they went on, vistas which led to nothing and terminated in nothing but the same bare, branchless, dead-looking poles. Their compasses and a slight declivity told them that they were not travelling in a circle, and their reason enlightened them as to the fact that everything except a circle must have an end; but after three hours’ very hard work and some dozen of tumbles a piece, that end seemed as far off as ever.
The only variety was a dead tree, and the only apparent difference between the living and the dead was, that in this case the straight perpendicular lines were crossed by lines as straight, which were diagonal; for the dead trees for the most part reclined against their living neighbours, very much to the detriment of the latter. As for a bird, it did not seem as if birds could live there; nor could they in the close space beneath that dark-green canopy; but every now and then there was a tantalizing whirr of wings, as a black-cock threw himself out from the topmost branches, and, far above their heads, skimmed along in that bright sunshine which could not penetrate to them. This is a favourite haunt of the black-cock, for the pine-tops and their young buds are its most welcome food, and often render its flesh absolutely uneatable from the strong turpentiny flavour they impart to it.