and we were reduced to the prosaic necessity of walking, and helping to hold our luggage onto a jolting cart.
As we gradually descended into the birch-woods we were much struck by the beautiful effects of the variegated autumn tints, and soon the brilliant reds and yellows of the birches began to contrast with the dark green of the fir trees, the light greyish green of the lichen, and rich brown and purple of the ground and undergrowth. It was so long since we had seen any trees, that their beauty seemed to come to us quite as a new sensation.
Below Hind Sæter the road lay through dense forests of pines for mile after mile, with hardly any change except where we got occasional glimpses of the Sjoa tearing madly along far beneath us—so far that only a faint murmur came up from the leaping, hurrying waters. Hour after hour we walked, and still the same dark forest gloomed above us, so remote from the busy haunts of men that it seems not to be worth any one’s while to cut the trees except for use in the immediate neighbourhood, and hundreds of them lie naked and dead as they have fallen before the fury of the gale, and slowly rot or are devoured by insects until their place is ready for a successor.
As the shades of evening began to close, we were several times startled as the huge body of a capercailzie darted across the road at a pace which seemed impossible to such an enormous bird, and with an absence of noise that appeared equally unnatural.
About half-past eight we came to a more open part of the forest, and soon we saw a glimmering light ahead: Jens cheerily said, ‘Ransværk;’ and in a few more minutes we pulled up at the door of a large sæter.
Without knocking Jens opened the door, and we walked in and struck a light. There was the usual fireplace and table, and in the further corner a bed, which, as we presently perceived, was occupied by two girls. This discovery embarrassed us a little; but no one else, least of all the girls themselves, appeared to be at all disconcerted.
In our favoured land a woman would probably be slightly concerned if she were aroused from sleep by the unceremonious entrance into her room of three men, two of them ruffianly-looking strangers of foreign exterior; but not so these artless beings. The elder one at once got out of bed and proceeded to dress, while her sister remained where she was and soon fell asleep.
When the dressing commenced, we, being innocent young bachelors, retired and remained outside till it was finished, but we do not believe she appreciated our delicacy at all.
Then this poor girl, no doubt very tired after a hard day’s work at cheese-making, proceeded to relight the fire, prepare coffee, and broil some venison for us. And just as we finished a hearty meal, Öla and Ivar arrived, so that she had to begin all over again for them. Finally, in spite of our remonstrances, she dragged her sister out of the bed, and insisted on our having it, while they went and slept in another building a few yards away. So John took the bed they had vacated, while Esau made a couch for himself in the cheese-room, and we slept the sleep of the hard-worked, virtuous, penniless wanderer.
Verily they have a better idea in Norway of true hospitality than in any other country under the sun.