The whole of the coasting trade passes within this barrier, and the houses and villages, of which there are many, lie hidden on the sheltered shores of the numerous channels; so that, however well peopled the coast may be—and in some places population is by no means scanty—neither house, nor boat, nor ship, except the foreign trade as it approaches or leaves the coast, is ever seen by the outside coaster.
The shades of evening were already falling, and that at midsummer in Norway indicates a very late hour indeed, when the glimmer of a light was seen through the scrubby firs of a cape-land island, occasioning a general rush of expectant passengers to the bridge, for some had begun to doubt the very possibility of discovering this continually retreating port, and to class it with the fairy territories of Cloudland and Cape Flyaway; while others, with more practical views and less poetical imaginations, had been contemplating with anxiety the rapidly decreasing coals in the bunkers. Both parties, poets and utilitarians alike, had their fears set at rest when, on rounding the point, the long-lost lighthouse of Christiansand hove in sight—tall, white, pillar-like, looking shadowy and ghost-like, against the dark background behind it. The poets might have thought of the guardian spirit of some ancient sea king, permitted to watch over the safety of his former dwelling-place, for Christiansand is renowned in story. To the utilitarians it might, and probably did, suggest visions of fresh vegetables, and salmon, and cod, and lobsters, for all of which that town is famous.
A bare, low, treeless slab of rock forms its site, a mere ledge, about a quarter-of-a-mile long, and sufficiently low, and sufficiently in advance of the higher islands, to form in itself a danger of no small magnitude during the long winter nights. It maintains on its withered wiry grass half-a-dozen sheep and a pig or two, the property of the lighthouse-keeper, which being the first signs of life and vestiges of habitation which had greeted the travellers during the afternoon’s steaming, were regarded with an interest of which they were not intrinsically deserving.
In a very few minutes, the heaving of the outside sea was exchanged for the perfect calm and deep stillness of the harbour, with its overhanging woods, its long dusky reaches, its quiet inlets, and mysterious labyrinthine passages, among its dark, shadowy islands. These became higher and more wooded as the steamer wound her way among them, deepening the gloom, and bringing on more rapidly the evening darkness. All, however, looked deserted and uninhabited, till suddenly, on opening a point of land, high and wooded like all the rest, the town of Christiansand lay close before them, dark and indistinct in the midnight twilight, without the twinkle of a solitary lamp to enliven it, or to indicate the low houses from the rocks which surrounded and were confused with them.
“Hurrah!” said the Parson, as the plunge of the anchor and the rattle of the chain cable broke the stillness of the night. “Some of us are not born to be drowned, that is certain.”
CHAPTER V.
CHRISTIANSAND.
“Dark it is without,
And time for our going.”
Skirnis Fär.