“All nonsense,” said Birger, “one fellow fires at a rustling leaf, and then all the rest crack off their pieces, by the way of follow-the-leader; you may just as well make yourself comfortable,” drawing his cloak round him by way of suiting the action to the word. “Hand me over the bottle, Jacob! some more hot water in the pot!”
“I shall go, however,” said the Captain, who was young at picket work, and proportionably anxious; so shouldering his rifle, and calling to Tom, his corporal and interpreter, he disappeared into the outer darkness, while his friends settled themselves more comfortably in their cloaks, and threw half a dozen additional, not to say superfluous, logs into the glorious blaze.
The dispositions at the foot of the pass had been made with great judgment; the object was, if possible, to prevent anything from passing during the night, but at any rate to arrange matters so that nothing should pass without being seen.
For this purpose a pretty large fire was lighted so near to the perpendicular part of the rock that nothing would be likely to go behind it, the shrubs of course being cleared away from its vicinity; and on the opposite side of the passage was a little sentry-box of fir branches, under which sat two Swedes, with directions to let fly at anything that crossed between them and the fire; so that if they missed, as most likely they would, the picket above might at least be prepared.
The men, who had been excited by the firing, were sharp as needles, and indeed, were not very far from letting fly at their own commander, but they had seen nothing that they could be very certain about, though of course their imaginations were full of half the beasts in Noah’s Ark; and so, after straining his eyes into the thick darkness for half an hour or more, the Captain heaped fresh fuel on the fire, recommended a sharp look-out, returned slowly up the pass, and was well laughed at for his pains as he resumed his seat by the blazing tree.
“By the way, Birger, what is that story that you and the Parson were alluding to just before dinner, I hope you have eaten and drank enough by this time to qualify you for relating it.”
“What, the twilight of the gods? the Ragnarök, as the Edda calls it; that is not a story, it is a bit of heathenism.”
“It seems to me,” said the Captain, “that you Swedes keep your heathenism a great deal better than you do your Christianity.”
“The Norwegians do, certainly,” said Birger, “the fact is, their conversion was effected by force of arms, rather than by force of argument; the party of Olaf the Christian was stronger than the party of Hakon the heathen, so they killed and converted, and the people became Christians, and very appropriately adopted the saint’s battle-axe for their national emblem. As for their Reformation, that was simply an order from a despotic court, not resisted, only because the people did not care much about the matter. ‘It will not make herrings dear,’ was the popular remark on the subject. The creed of Odin was the only religion that they were in earnest about, and that is why the legends that they cling to, are, nine times in ten, heathen rather than Christian.”
“I think I have read that story about the herrings in Geijer, but applied to a different nation,” said the Parson; “it will not do for you Swedes to be throwing stones at Norway, in the matter of that Reformation; your original conversion by St. Ansgar, was a good deal more creditable than theirs, but your Reformation was simply the party of Gustaf stronger than the party of Christiern—you reformed your Church because you wanted to dissolve the union of Kalmar.”