“I never did,” said Torkel, “though I have been a good deal on the Hardanger-fjeld in my day; it is a capital place for ripar. But the truth is, these things are not so frequent as they used to be. My father, though, once passed a very uncomfortable night on the fjeld, and he never could make out, to his dying day, whether the ghosts had or had not anything to do with it.”
“How was that?” said the Parson, as he threw another log on the fire, and stirred the embers into a good ghost-story-telling blaze.
“In those days,” said Torkel, “we lived near Bykle, on the upper Torjedahl, and grew a good deal of barley which we could not very well consume ourselves, and had no means to transport to Christiansand, where generally there is a pretty good market for it. So my father set up a still, and drove a good thriving trade with the country about Jordbrakke and Skore, exchanging our brandy for their salt fish, an article which is scarce enough in the Tellemark. My father used generally to meet a trader, of the name of Nilssen, at what is called a post-house, situated on a ridge that divides the Torjedahl from the waters that flow into Wester Hafvet (the North Sea). Why they called it a post-house I am sure I do not know, for there is not a horse within a day’s journey of it, nor a post-master neither, nor, indeed, any one else. It was built by Government, no doubt, but you seldom saw anything so bad at a common sœter. One miserable room of ten feet square, the walls built of dry stones, with the wind whistling in at one side and out at the other, which was the only means of carrying off the smoke. Fuel there was, and straw there was, for Government provides that, and the post-master of the next station is responsible that there shall always be a store of both; but Government says nothing about the quality, and we used generally to find the green bog myrtle which grows there, bad as it is, better fuel and better bedding than either of them.
“One evening, about eight o’clock, my father arrived at the usual place, having appointed a meeting with Nilssen, but when he came there he could nowhere find the hut. He recognised the place well enough, there was no missing that; there was the deep still lake, the waters of which contained no living thing,—there it was, as black as ever; there, too, was that old mass of whinstone, which used to form the back of the hut, and always had a stream of moisture trickling down it, but no house was to be seen, and, what made matters worse was, that a thick mountain mist had come on, with driving rain, which felt as if every spiteful little drop was a needle. My father looked disconsolately along the track, and fancied he saw, through the blinding fog, the gleam of a fire; he went on some fifty yards, and there, sure enough, was a nice comfortable hut, water-tight and weather-tight, with the door wide open, a bright fire on the hearth, and two or three rounds of flad bröd and a Dutch cheese on the great stone in the middle which did duty for a table,—but not a soul was there.
“My father was not easily frightened; he was an old sailor, and had helped to catch many of your English traders during the last war. He could have looked down the throat of a cannon, and did pretty near, for he was on board the Najaden when the Dictator sank her; but he did not much fancy being damned, for all that. So he looked and looked at the merry blaze that smiled its welcome through the door, and watched the cheese and the flad bröd which seemed to be dancing in its light, but for all that he laid himself down under the lee of a rock, and cold, and wet, and miserable, wished for morning, for the wind blew, and the rain kept pelting away all night, till he thought it would have floated him, rock and all, into the Normand’s Laagen; and there, all the time, was the fire blazing away, till it subsided into a glowing heap of red-hot embers.
“Towards morning he fell into a miserable sleep, and when he woke up the mist was gone, the sun was shining brightly, and there was not a shred of cloud to be seen. The first thing he put his eyes upon was Nilssen, coming up from the shores of the lake, and looking as wet, and as cold, and as wretched as he was.
“‘Ah,’ said Nilssen, ‘so you have been lost in the fog, like me. My misfortune was all my own fault, too. I got here yesterday in very good time, and lighted the fire, and made all comfortable, and then I must needs be fool enough to start after a covey of ripar, that I did not get a shot at after all; and then the mist came on, and I could not find my way back. A wretched night I have passed, I can tell you.’
“‘What,’ said my father, ‘was it you who lighted that fire?’
“‘To be sure I did,’ said Nilssen, ‘who else should? Men are not so plentiful in this cursed place.’