“O, it is all right,” said Birger; “that is the way we always do in my country, we get it over at once: they will be as sober as judges after this—if we had not indulged them when they knew they had deserved it, they would always have been hankering after brandy, and dropping off drunk when they were most wanted: they will be as sober as judges after this, I tell you,” he reiterated, observing a slight smile of incredulity on the faces of both his companions.
“I do not feel quite so confident of their being as sober as judges to-morrow, as I do about their being as drunk as pigs to-night,” said the Captain; “though, to be sure, I do not know what judges are in Norway; but it does seem to me that five or six orts[12] are rather a liberal allowance, in a country where one can get roaring drunk for half-a-dozen skillings.”
“That is just the very thing I do not want them to do,” said Birger. “Whenever a Norseman gets roaring drunk, he is sure to kick up a row: it is very much better that they should get beastly drunk at once; then they go to sleep and sleep it off, and no one the wiser.”
“I should have thought, though,” said the Captain, “that you gave them quite enough for that, and a good remainder for another day into the bargain.”
“It is little you know of the Norwegian, then,” said Birger, “or, for the matter of that, of the Swede either: he is not the man to make two bites of a cherry, or to leave his brandy in the bottom of the keg. Besides, they will consider themselves upon honour. They asked my leave to get drunk on this particular night, and I gave them the money to do it with; it would be absolute swindling, to get drunk with my money on any other occasion.”
“Upon my word,” said the Captain, “this a terrible drawback to your beautiful country. Our fellows in Ireland used to get drunk now and then, to be sure, but they had always the grace to be ashamed of it. These scoundrels do it in such a business-like way.”
“Your countryman, Laing, sets that down to the score of our virtues,” said Birger. “He considers it much better to act upon principle, like our people, than to yield to temptation, as your English and Irish sots do. I must say, though, that he is not half so indulgent to us poor Swedes.”
“My countryman, Laing,” said the Parson, “though a very observant traveller, is, also, a very extreme republican and a very prejudiced writer. He gives us facts in monarchical Sweden, as well as in republican Norway, and he gives them as he sees them, no doubt; but, he looks at the two countries through glasses of different tints. Now, my idea is, that, in point of drunkenness, there is not a pin to choose.”
“Yes, but there is, though,” said Birger. “The Norwegian is quarrelsome in his cups; and you will seldom find that in any part of Sweden, unless in Scånia, and the Scånians are half Danes yet. I had the precaution to take away those gentlemen’s knives when I gave them the money for their brandy (and, I must admit, they gave them up with very good grace), or, the chances are, that we should have lost the services of that ass Jacob, and given a job for the Landamptman to-morrow. Why, half the party-coloured gentlemen in the castle at Christiania have earned their iron decorations in some drunken brawl or other.”[13]