Moodie was a singular character,—a cadet of good family, and brought up to no profession; he had been from his childhood passionately fond of field sports, in all of which he excelled. At an early age he had become his own master, with a good education, some usage of the world, a handsome person, a peculiarly active frame and sound constitution, and two hundred a year, pour tout potage. Rightly judging that England afforded no fitting scope for his peculiar talents, without the imminent danger of a committal for poaching, he had expatriated himself to Ireland; which country, he had, in a sporting point of view, thoroughly studied, and made himself completely master of its resources; he knew when every river in the whole island came into season and went out, and the best and cheapest way of transferring self and encumbrances from one point to another. He knew the times at which the woodcocks and the snipes would arrive, and the out-of-the-way places at which they may be safely shot; he could give a catalogue raisonnée of all the wayside public-houses in sporting localities, and was hand-in-glove with half the disreputable squireens of Ireland. Certainly, he bagged more grouse annually than many a man who pays a rent of five or six hundred a year for the privilege of supplying the London markets.
It was on the Erne that the fishermen had met him, and Moodie being an extremely well-informed and gentleman-like man, besides being a thorough sportsman, they had struck up with him what might be called an intimate acquaintance, which, now that they met as Englishmen on a foreign land, might be considered an intimate friendship.
It was the railroads, and the consequent invasion of the cockneys, which had expatriated Moodie from his adopted country; people began to preserve, too, and to let their fishing and shooting-grounds; even the Erne was not what it had been, and Moodie, whose whole belongings, besides his live stock in the shape of dogs, were contained in two portmanteaus and as many gun-cases, packed them, and one morning found himself standing on the quay of Gotheborg.
If, instead of the coast of Sweden, it had been the coast of the Cannibal Islands, Moodie would soon have found himself at home; but here he had letters of introduction, and Karl Johann, who had a high opinion of the English, was very anxious to get an infusion of English blood among his Swedes. Moodie’s peculiar talents, too, which in England might have consigned him to the county jail, in Sweden found their legitimate outlet; he soon found a beautiful little country house on the banks of the Gotha; had no difficulty in renting the exclusive right of fishing for some miles above and below it; paid the rent and all expenses of boats and boatmen, and put a handsome sum into his pocket besides, by supplying Gotheborg with lake salmon (salmo ferox). He then got the rangership of a royal forest, by which he kept his numerous hangers-on in what he called butcher’s meat, and traded with the Zoological Gardens and private collections in the wild beasts and birds of the country, by means of which traffic, he had furnished himself with the choicest collection of sporting fire-arms and fishing tackle to be found in the north. Besides which, Moodie had become a public character. Sweden has its wild beasts as well as its ordinary game,—he who destroys a wolf or a bear is a public benefactor, and Moodie had a peculiar talent for tracking them. Every farmer within a hundred miles of Gäddebäck would pull off his hat to him; but that is not saying much, for a Swede is always pulling off his hat, and if he had nothing else to pull it off to he would be making his salaams to the cows and sheep.
It was not a great deal of Gotheborg the fishermen saw that evening; their experience of the country was confined to a march by the shortest road from the landing place to Todd’s Hotel, and their subsequent view to a sort of Dutch interior, of which pipes, tobacco, bottles, glasses, juniper beer of native manufacture, and thin vinous importations from Bordeaux, made up the accessories; but the fishermen had much to inquire after, and Moodie had much to tell.
Breakfast, always a luxurious meal in the north, at least, in summer time, on account of the quantities of berries and the abundant supply of cream, brought a visitor,—a young artillery officer, a friend of Birger, by name Dahlgren, and by rank Count, who had his quarters in the inn,—for the Swedish officers have no mess like ours, but lodge permanently in the hotels, paying a fixed sum per week, and dining at the table d’hôte. Like Birger, he was a painter, but whereas the guardsman exercised his art simply as an amateur, or at most, in the public service of his country, his friend, Count as he was, exercised his as a profession, and as a means of eking out his scanty pay.
There would be a grand review that afternoon, he said, and it would be well worth seeing, for Gotheborg is the great artillery station of Sweden, and the Commander-in-Chief, with his staff, who were on a tour of inspection, had arrived by the canal steamer from the new fortress of Wanås, on the Wetter.
This piece of information, which the artilleryman detailed with great glee, was received by Birger with a wry countenance, as certain to detain him within doors as long as the General remained at Gotheborg,—for it will be remembered he was at that very time unable to join his regiment on account of pressing family affairs.
This did not affect the others, so, leaving their friend to amuse himself as best he might, by improving his sketches or watching the magpies from the window, they started, under the pilotage of their new ally, for a tour of observation.
Whatever else Gotheborg is famous for, certainly the most remarkable thing in it is its flocks of magpies,—birds which, in our country, are extremely wild, and by no means fond of town life. Gregarious, in the proper sense of the term, they are not, but they are as numerous as sparrows in London, very nearly as tame, and much more impudent. This by no means arises from any affection which the inhabitants have for the bird—for magpies are ugly and mischievous all the world over, and quite as mischievous in Gotheborg as anywhere else,—but from a popular superstition they are under the especial protection of the devil—and truly the devil cares for his own: they build their nests and bring up their young under the very noses of the schoolboys; they feed them with stolen goods, filched from every kitchen,—and often and often, among the delicacies of the season, they regale them with spring chicken of their own killing. But no one molests a magpie; Heaven only knows what would be the consequences of killing one; and, though Government has set a price on their heads, they sleep in safety, under the protection of their great master.