Madame smiled, and looked pleased; making a guess that something was said about her, and that that something must be complimentary.
“Then, as for attendants, I made bold to detain this most excellent and well-born Gothenburger, Herr Jacob Carlblom”—(with a polite bow to Mr. Jacob, returned by a still more polite bow from that illustrious and well-born individual). “Herr Jacob is a traveller of some celebrity by sea and land”—(the Parson afterwards found out that he was a Gothenborg smuggler)—“and would be happy to attend the gentlemen in the capacity of courier, cook, interpreter, and commissary, for the remuneration of a specie-daler per diem, with his food and travelling expenses.”
“Very well,” said the Parson; “I suppose we must have a cook, so we will try your friend Mr. Jacob in our expedition up the Torjedahl, and see how we like him. And what says Torkel? are we to have the benefit of his experience?”
Torkel looked as if earth could afford no higher pleasure, for, in his way, he was a mighty hunter—he was not only great at the Långref,[2] and skilled in circumventing the Tjäder[3] in his lek, but he had followed the Fjeld Ripa[4] to the very tops of the snowy mountains, had prepared many a pitfall for the wolf and fox, and had been more than once in personal conflict with the great Bruin himself.
“Torkel shall be my man, then,” said the Parson, who had a pretty good eye to his own interest.
“And English Tom, who speaks the language so well, will be just the man for the highborn Captain,” said Ullitz.
“Very good,” said the Parson, “so be it; and whenever we have to do with lakes and sailing, Tom shall be our admiral, and shall put in practice all the science he has learned in the British navy.”
“Tom is as proud of belonging to the English navy, as if it were the Legion of Honour,” said Ullitz, whose father had belonged to the French faction, and who was rather suspected of holding French politics himself.
“It is the Legion of Honour,” said Birger, “and I give Mr. Tom great credit for his sentiments. Well, you must look me out a man, too. This will not be so very difficult, as I speak the language pretty well for a foreigner.”
In fact, Birger had been practising the language a good deal already, and not a little to the Captain’s envy, by making fierce love to the daughter of the house; an amusement with which guardsmen, Swedish as well as English, do occasionally beguile their leisure moments; and, to the Captain’s infinite disgust, Marie did not seem to lend by any means an unfavourable ear to his soft speeches.