“There,” said the Parson, fixing his rod in the stern-rings, and springing on shore as the boat’s keel touched a sandy, slaty beach in the isthmus of the peninsula—
“Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we marched on without impediment.
Here is the limit of my survey. Thus far have I borne the baton of command; and I beg you to observe that we have reached the appointed spot twenty minutes before the appointed time.” And he held out his watch in proof of it. “I have, as you see, performed my promise; and thus I resign the leadership of the expedition.”
“With universal thanks and approbation,” said the Captain; “and I propose that now the leadership devolve upon Birger; he is the man of camps and bivouacs, for he has experienced what we have only read about.”
“Well,” said Birger, “I will not affect modesty. Like others, I have passed my degrees, and it would be a great shame if bearing his Majesty’s commission, I did not understand what every soldier is taught.” Then, suddenly recollecting that the Captain was a military man as well as himself, he steered adroitly out of his scrape, continuing, as if his concluding paragraph had been part of his original speech—“You have only to wait for a war, Captain, and you will be in a situation to give us all a lesson. No one understood these things better than your old Peninsula men; but Sweden thinks her soldiers ought to learn their business before we are called out to fight, and not afterwards.”
To pass the degrees—“gradar,” or rather “gradarne,” for no one ever thinks of speaking of them without the definite article “ne,” as if there were no other degrees in the world—is anything but a joke in Sweden. Military service, so far, at least, as the Guards and the Indelta[7] are concerned, is extremely popular. There is ample choice in candidates; and very good care is taken that the officers shall be men who know their business, and shall not be at a loss in what situation soever they may be placed. The “gradar” consists of a series of lectures and extremely strict examinations, in everything connected with the service, both intellectual or physical, from the construction of an equilateral triangle up to the sketch of a campaign, and from the musket drill to a year of sea service. Passing out in seamanship is indispensable; for Sweden, reversing our principle of hatching ducklings under hens, hatches her young death-or-glory cornets and ensigns on board her ships. Properly speaking, the Swedish navy has no midshipmen. The cadets, who fill pretty numerously the midshipman’s berth, may possibly enter the navy, if they are so inclined; but nine-tenths of them are candidates for commissions in the army, and are thus learning a lesson which may be of use to them hereafter, when they have troops of their own to embark or manage on ship-board.
Birger had passed his degrees with credit, or he would not have been selected as a travelling student; and his companions were now likely to profit by this circumstance, for one of those degrees comprehends all these mysteries of camping, and hunting, and cooking, and provisioning, and, if scandal may be trusted, a sort of Spartan stealing, which goes under the euphemism of “availing one’s self of the resources of the country;” these little matters being taught by a three weeks’ actual practice in the field every summer.
Birger was altogether in his element. “Now,” said he, “the first thing I must do is to borrow all your boatmen, for I shall want every man I can lay my hands upon; some for the camps, and some for cutting and drawing fuel; I can find something to do for them all, and for more too if I had them. And here, you Jacob, take a basket with you, and see what you can forage out from the cottages and woods about, in the way of milk, bread, butter, berries, and so forth; and hark you, Jacob, no brandy, if you please; that is the first thing those scamps always put their hands upon.”
“You have not reckoned us,” said the Captain, “among your effective strength; we shall not be of much use in foraging, as we cannot speak Norske, but we have hands and heads too.”