We were used to it—ours was a kind of charmed life; it is marvellous how we sometimes escaped. Fancy the melancholy termination of our career, as a wandering gipsy, on the shores of the Tyen Vand.
The Birmingham bagman would have lost two copies of this work. The fate of the English gipsies in Norway, would have remained an impenetrable mystery.
Esmeralda, as we passed the Lortwick sœter, would now and then advance rapidly from the rear, and fire a heavy broadside into Noah. The Romany chaff was very severe on both sides. “Isn’t Ambrose a balloshero? Oh, yes, Ambrose is like varnon, when he rockers like a galdering gorgio. Ambrose can talk, can’t he? The mumply dinlo! What a state he puts himself in, over everybody else.”
Noah was by no means wanting in ammunition. When Esmeralda fell back to the rear, we did our best to keep her there. Noah kept a running fire all the time. The tall gipsy kept his temper very well, except when severely hit, by some more than usually sarcastic allusion.
Leaving the lake, we passed down a narrow gorge. At the head of this gorge, Esmeralda again brought up all her reserve of the Romany artillery. Uncle Elijah was brought up, knocked down, and killed ten times over.
How well we remember the tall active form of the gipsy girl, rapidly bringing up her merle and baggage from the rear, her eyes flashing with indignant fire—poor Noah—what will be his fate? The battle of Dorking was nothing to it. Noah stands firm. He takes advantage of the intricacy of the narrow pathway; the broken nature of the ground separates their forces. Ole, we see, is still alive; a stray shot is only heard now and then.
Again we had calm, and quiet, on the horizon. Shortly after coming forth from the defile, we halt. Our donkeys are unloaded on the summit of a lofty slope. At a short distance from us there is a sœter. Below, at the bottom of the valley across a small river, we see the Bergen road. The gipsies had had their say. No one had any conception, or they themselves, what it was all about. An exhaustion of superabundant animal energy, and intense physical force. All was forgotten. A fire was quickly lighted in the now warm sunshine. Ole and ourselves were now to part. The middags-mad consisted of fried English ham, vinegar, fladbröd, butter, ovensbröd, and tea. Ole was delighted with our tea. He carefully measured the tin pannikin we had given him to use. Ole always had the same. Noah said he knew it by a dinge on the side. Our guide said he should have one made like it. All our camp arrangements had, apparently, much interested Ole. Mountaineers are naturally interested in the most portable, and convenient methods, of affording food and shelter, in those regions where accommodation is scanty and uncertain. There was very little that we had not provided; scarcely any addition necessary, beyond those things we had already brought. Such was the practical result of our camp experience.
After our middags-mad, slightly tinged perhaps with a shade of melancholy, we strolled aside with Ole. The cost of Ole’s services amounted to eight specie dollars, calculated at the rate of four marks a day, and including his return allowance. Our coat, lost on the Galdhöpiggen, was to be sent by parcel post if found. The postage would be twelve skillings per pound, and we gave him one mark twelve shillings.
Ole said he hoped to see us again; we hoped so too. With unfeigned regret we parted with our gallant Ole Halvorsen, of Rödsheim. Always punctual, even-tempered, and ever anxious to save us any unnecessary expense; possessed of much practical experience of a large region of wild country; ready to camp out on the mountain side without a tent; undaunted in the hour of difficulty; never at fault, quick in expedients, cool and calm; of few words, but full of information; we pay this parting tribute to our excellent Ole Halvorsen.
Ole said he had never fared so well in the mountains. It was a compliment to our cook and commissariat.