After this, John, feeling at once genial and liberal, announced his intention of buying a sheenfelt (sheepskin rug) for importation into England; and Tofte with an aged retainer volunteered to show us his stores of sheepskins.
First our guide procured a bunch of enormous keys, such as Bluebeard would have hanging from his waist in a pantomime, labelled ‘Key of the Wine-cellar. Umbrella stand. Fowl-house. Potted shrimps. Cupboard where the jam’s kept,’ &c., &c. Then he marched off to one of the buildings, followed by us and the other old man, whose profession was apparently to exalt Bjölstad sheenfelts, and to debase—as far as extreme volubility and strict inattention to the elements of truth would enable him to accomplish that object—an ancient one which John wished to give in part payment.
Bluebeard led us up some stairs to the Blue Chamber, where we saw hanging in a row the skins, not of his deceased wives, but of many ‘timid-glancing, herbage-cropping, fleecy flocks,’ to use the beautiful and touching language of the Greek poet. Then the two accomplices selected the sheenfelt which they intended us to buy, and began to expatiate on its beauties in terms of undisguised admiration; and after half an hour’s huckstering and haggling, of course they persuaded John to take that and no other. However, it was a beautiful specimen of this kind of rug, of a dark grey colour, and very thick, warm, and heavy; so both sides were highly satisfied, and proceeded to the drinking of more aquavit in celebration of the bargain.
The weather was so unpleasant, and Bluebeard and his aquavit were so engaging, that we decided not to leave here till to-morrow. Our host was delighted to hear this, and at once went for more aquavit, which he appears to consider the first necessity of life; and then he proceeded to show us round his ancestral halls, as though he were a sober old verger of Westminster Abbey.
There was a sort of old-world Rip van Winkle sleepiness about Bjölstad very soothing to men who like us have lived in the nineteenth century for some few years. All the varlets and handmaidens were dressed in the old native costume, so appropriate to the ancient wooden buildings with quaintly carved eaves and doorways, about which they hovered. In the courtyard were two enormous dogs, that barked loudly whenever we appeared, but at the same time wagged their tails and looked imbecile and good natured. There were also four geese, who meant to be sitting basking in the rain, but as soon as anybody came to one of the numerous doors, or crossed the yard, they all stood up and quacked solemnly fourteen times each, then hissed once, and sat down again; and as some one was always moving about the court, the quiet rest of those birds was more anticipatory than real; but they alone of all the living creatures at Bjölstad appeared to have any fixed employment which demanded constant attention.
Bluebeard first took us through the state apartments, which contained many curious and interesting things of all ages, from an axe nearly a thousand years old, to a Birmingham plated teapot won at the Christiania horse show in 1860.
The Toftes boast themselves descended from Harald Haarfager, and are so proud of their ancestry, that from time immemorial they have never married out of their own family. If dear old Bluebeard may be accepted as an ordinary result of this system, it must be confessed that it has its advantages.
The things that he chiefly delighted to show us were those which had been used by the king during his occasional visits, the most curious being a large stone table made of one enormous slab not more than three-quarters of an inch thick, but very hard and elastic, more like a steel plate than stone; gorgeously embroidered counterpanes and chairs; some very old ploughs and sleighs; and a brass-bound box with a marvellous representation of Adam and Eve, very evidently before the Fall, and the most remarkable thing in serpents which the wildest flight of human imagination has yet conceived. There were some very nice silver utensils and ornaments, but not many, as most of his plate is kept at his largest farm. All that he had here was in a cupboard with a rubbishy unlocked deal door, standing in John’s bedroom; a fact which speaks volumes for the trusting simplicity and total inability to read a man’s character from his appearance, caused by a millennium of marrying your cousin once removed. Poor Bluebeard! he little thought what a viper he was nurturing in his bosom, or rather in his chest (his plate chest), and that in that room lay one who could perhaps, if he would, answer the questions—
Who took the Gainsborough?
Who has the Dudley diamonds?