“Yes, they have, and in great plenty too; of all varieties of quality, from very bad, down to indescribably beastly. They call it smör, pronouncing the dotted o like the French eu; and I can assure you their very best butter tastes just as the word sounds.”
“Well, then, I vote for some of these sardines, to take off the taste.”
“With all my heart,” said the Parson; “they flavour anything, when they are not made of salted bleak, as they generally are—so does cayenne pepper. We may as well have some cocoa paste, and a Bologna sausage or two may prove a useful luxury.”
“What do you say to a cask of biscuits?” said the Captain. “What sort of bread have they?”
“Do you recollect that old story told of Charles the Twelfth, when he said of the bread brought to him, that it was not good, but that it might be eaten? No one can tell the heroism of that speech who has not eaten the Swedish black bread, which is generally the only representative of the staff of life procurable. It is gritty, it is heavy, it is puddingy; if you throw it against a wall it will stick there—and as for sourness, O, ye gods! they purposely keep the leaven till it is uneatably sour, and then fancy it becomes wholesome.”
“Well, I suppose it does,” said the Captain. “The Squire used to say, that everything that was good, is unwholesome or wrong; and I suppose the converse is true. But why not take the biscuits?”
“Because we can get that which will answer our purpose perfectly when we arrive at the country, and that without the carriage, and at a much cheaper rate. There is not a seaport town in all the coast where you may not get what they call Kahyt Scorpor, a sort of coarse imitation of what nurses in England feed babies upon, under the name of tops and bottoms. They are made of rye, and are as black as my hat; but they are very good eating, keep for ever, and are cheap enough in all conscience, being from four to six skillings to the pound, that is to say, threepence. In Norway they call them Rö Kovringer.”
“We will take some rice, which very often comes in well by way of vegetables in a kettle of grouse soup; and a good quantity of chocolate, which packs easily, and furnishes a breakfast on the shortest possible notice. And this, I think, will do very well for the commissariat department of our expedition.”
“And now for arms and ammunition,” said the Captain.
“Everything we are likely to want in that department, we must take with us—guns, of course. Shot certainly may be got at Christiansand, and the other large towns; up the country, though, you will get neither that nor anything else: but powder can be got nowhere, at least, powder that does not give you an infinity of trouble in cleaning your gun, on account of the quantity of deposit it leaves. That little magazine of yours, with its block-tin canisters and brass screw-stoppers, will hold enough for us two, unless we meet with very good sport indeed, and in that case we must put up with the manufacture of the country.”