After the conclusion of the service the fishermen were lounging homewards, taking their time, and enjoying the weather, and the views, and the sunshine, and the Sunday quiet, and upon the whole, though all of then ardent sportsmen, by no means sorry for a day of regular rest, when the Pfarrherr himself, accompanied by his Candidatus overtook them. The Candidatus was a long, tall youth, fresh from college, conceited and shy at the same time, who looked, as Birger afterwards observed, as if he smelt of the midnight oil; but the Pfarrherr was a gentleman-like man, with a broad, good-humoured, fresh-coloured face, looking more like an English old-fashioned squire than anything else. He had been priest of Soberud for many years, and being a regular anti-Swede, was very popular. He had represented the district in several Storthings, and was likely to do so in many more, though he did belong to the commercial party, which in Norway, as in America, is aristocratic and tory, in opposition to the country party, who in those nations are the radicals.
In addition to this, he was the probst, or rural dean, which was a fortunate circumstance for him—for being an enthusiastic admirer of Grundtvig, he was a great deal too much of a ritualist and antiquarian for the continually receding Swedish Church, and, under other circumstances, could hardly have failed in being brought up before the Church Committee at Christiania, for his little peculiarities; though it is a fact that most of the ecclesiastical members of Storthing, who composed it, thought, felt, and, if they dared, would act, precisely as he did.
He spoke English readily enough—indeed, English is to the educated Norwegians what French is to us,—and, as a matter of course, invited the fishermen to share the hospitalities of the præstgaard. This, however, would have been a mortal offence to poor Torgenson, who, though he could not speak to his guests one single word except through an interpreter, would have been deeply scandalized, and, indeed, would have felt lowered in the eyes of his countrymen, had they deserted him. The Parson, however, being a professional man, was an exception, and Pfarrherr Nordlingen carried him off in triumph, Torkel promising to bring over his knapsack to the præstgaard.
The præstgaard was not so large and rambling a building as the hall, but was infinitely more comfortable; highly-polished birchen furniture, and well-stored bookcases, gave it an air of habitableness. The room into which they entered was the summer parlour, whose French windows, shaded by gauze curtains, were wide open, looking on a broad lawn and a sparkling little stream beyond it; a good sprinkling of juniper twigs took off, in a great measure, from the bare look of the carpetless floors which always strikes an English eye. It is a great absurdity, in a country which is not favourable for sheep, and whose woollen manufactures seldom go higher than the wadmaal, that the duty upon English woollens should be so absurdly high. But the fact is, the Storthing is so entirely in the hands of the democratic, or country party, that anything beyond a class legislation is hopeless. The idea is not that all the people should have warm blankets, but that the democratic and agricultural majorities should work up inferior wool. Weaving by hand is an agriculturist’s winter work.
The Priestess Nordlingen, as she was called, a smiling, pretty-looking woman, much younger than her husband, was occupied in laying the cloth for aftonsmad, assisted by the dowager priestess, who lived now on the other side of the little stream, but being on excellent terms with her late husband’s successor, spent a good deal more of her time in her old home than she did in her new one.[32] Servants they had, both of them, in plenty, for the præster are among the richest in the land; but no Norwegian wife is above acting as butler and housekeeper, and no Norwegian damsel, fröken though she be, is above waiting at table. It does not seem quite the thing to an English gentleman, to have the ladies waiting upon him; but certainly in the Norwegian grammar, if they have one, the masculine is more worthy than the feminine.
Forest life is pleasant, but a contrast is pleasant also, and the Parson, as he lay back in a peculiarly easy chair, sipping leisurely the dram which invariably precedes a Norwegian meal, and which, in the present case, was true cognac of unquestionable genuineness and undeniable antiquity, considered himself in very great luck indeed; in fact, much as he admired the rude abundance of the hall, he infinitely preferred the quiet elegances of the præstgaard. He made some such observation to Nordlingen.
“Yes,” replied he, “the Reformation has injured the Church cruelly, as an endowment, and has cut off five-sixths of its clergy; but we individual præster have not much to complain of as regards ourselves.”
“You must have pretty severe duties, though.”
“Well, they are not severe, because they cannot be done. My parish was originally six; these have been thrown together under one. If I had half-a-dozen curates, the parish could not be visited, nor the annex kyrker properly served; for in former times it supported six priests and six deacons; so what one cannot do at all, one soon ceases to distress one’s self about. The work is not done, cannot be done, and no one expects it to be done. We have work enough—especially those who, like me, are elevated to the Storthing,—but it is not ecclesiastical work.”