“Oh,” said Ullitz, “we shall have no difficulty whatever in finding a man; if there is anything these people love better than gain, it is pleasure, and here we have both combined. My only difficulty lies in making the selection. I have reckoned that each of the highborn gentlemen will want a boatman besides his own man; but I have engaged these only for the trip to Wigeland, as you will no doubt like to change them there for men who are acquainted with the upper river; but you can keep them if you like, they will be but too happy to go.”
“All right, then, we will start to-morrow afternoon, and get as far as Oxea before we sleep. The morning, I suppose, must be devoted to hearing Tom’s report from the Custom-house, making our selections for the trip, arranging our heavy baggage that we are to leave here, and seeing that our outfit is all right. I like to make a short journey the first day, in order that if anything is forgotten, it may be sent back for.”
“Not at all a bad general maxim,” said the Captain: “and now to bed; for the broad daylight is already putting out the blaze even of Madame Ullitz’s candles.”
“With all my heart,” said the Parson, “it is high time;” and rising from his seat and going round to where Madame Ullitz sat, he took her hand, and bowing low, said, “Tak for mad”—thanks for the meal.
“Vel de bekomme,” said the lady,—well may it agree with you.
In this ceremony he was followed by the whole party, who, shortly after separating, sought their respective sleeping-places.
The beds were queer concerns, certainly: beautifully clean, and fragrant with all manner of wild herbs; but as unlike the English notion of a bed (which in that country is always associated with ideas of a recumbent position), as is well possible. A thick, straw mattress, shaped like a wedge, occupied the upper half. Upon this were placed two enormous pillows, fringed with lace. The rest of the bed was simply a feather-bed placed on the ticking, and so much lower, that the sleeper takes his rest almost in a sitting position. The whole, including the quilt, was stuffed luxuriously, not with feathers, but with the very best eider-down; for Madame Ullitz, in her maiden days, had been at least as celebrated a beauty as her daughter was now, and unnumbered had been the offerings of eider-down made by her hosts of admirers, who had braved wind and wave to procure for her that most acceptable of all presents to a Norwegian girl—at once the record of her past triumphs, and the glory of her future home. The prudent traveller in Norwegian territories will always do well, if he has the chance, to choose for his residence the house of a ci-devant beauty.
Little, however, did the travellers reck of mattress or feather-bed, Madame Ullitz’s past conquests, or her daughter’s present bright eyes—a sea-voyage, four or five restless nights, a long day’s work, and a plentiful supper at the end of it, equalize all those things; and, though the sun was shining brightly through the shutterless and curtainless windows, five minutes had not elapsed before it was indifferent to them whether they had sunk to rest on eider-down or poplar leaves; or whether their beds had been strewed for them by the fair hands of the bright-eyed Marie, or by those of the two lumps of girls who had assisted at the grand supper.