During their absence the post had arrived, bringing letters for them all; these Ullitz had forwarded, and their first occupation, while their attendants were preparing the supper and exchanging news with those who had been left behind, was to read their respective letters. Birger had a whole heap—which he did not deserve—from a host of relations and friends, whom, in his ardour for sport, he had grievously neglected; all of these he postponed for a great, square, official looking document, with “Kongs ofwer Commandant’s Expedition” written in the corner: this he did deserve, for it contained, along with an acknowledgement for his valuable portfolio of military drawings, an extension of leave, which the dutiful lieutenant had asked for on the plea so well known in the British army, “family arrangements.”
“Hurrah,” said the Captain, “here’s a letter from Moodie; he wants us to meet him at Gotheborg, where he is bringing down a cargo of elks and reindeer, and Northern wild beasts, for the Zoological Gardens; and then we are to go back with him, he says, to some place which I can neither spell nor pronounce, where, the chances are, we shall get a crack at a bear.”
“You have always had a weakness that way,” said the Parson, “I believe getting a crack at a bear, as you call it, was your principal reason for coming here at all.”
“Well, but Moodie says there is capital fishing on the Gotha; the salmo ferox, my boy! what do you think of that? and you know the fish are beginning to run small here, there was not a full-mouthed salmon caught the last day we fished here, nothing but miserable grauls.”
“Grauls give very pretty sport, though, and as for the salmo ferox, it is nothing but an ill-conditioned, over-grown trout, that has got a cross of the pike in it, and consequently will take nothing but the spinning bait. But I must say I should like to see old Moodie again.”
“Will you go then?”
“Ask Birger.”
“Hey! what?” said Birger, looking up from his letters, which, after all, seemed to be more interesting than he had expected. “Moodie? ah! yes! that’s the fellow my friend Bjornstjerna mentions; a terrible fellow he says, a very Hercules against the wild beasts—there is never a skal without him; Bjornstjerna says he had rather have him than a hundred men, any day.”
“And who is Bjornstjerna?”