It is a very plucky thing for ladies to come up here and live for a month, even now when there is a wheel-road (of a sort) to within fifteen miles, but the same thing was done by English ladies ten years ago, when there was no road nearer than forty miles. Are their names not written in the chronicles which adorn the walls of the hut, and carved on the profile fishes which decorate the floor?
In the other hut—which is little more than a boat—there are living Jens Tronhūus, our old stalker; ‘Siva,’ the man who carried our canoes up the mountain at Sikkildal, and another native, also the dogs; besides bottles and churns, grindstones, pack-saddles, saws, axes, and all the other heterogeneous articles which accumulate in a place of this kind. It looked full.
We found the party just sitting down to breakfast after a rather unsettled night, as they had been roused about half-past two in the morning by some one hammering at the door, and found it was a young Norwegian, named, let us say, Coutts, who was making a walking tour, and was more or less lost. They succoured him with coffee and other refreshments and sent him on his way with Jens to guide him. Coutts’s intention was to struggle on to Besse Sæter, but we had seen nothing of him there.
We stayed some time at the huts, talking and looking at all the memorable objects that were there under our régime (as we had occupied these huts and had the fishing to ourselves two years previously). There was Esau’s celebrated ‘biggest trout whatever was seen,’ carved on the floor; the Skipper’s favourite cast, and the ice safe that we cunningly devised and constructed in the lower hut. The Thomas’s are in even worse case than we, for like us they have seen no deer, and they have so many more mouths to feed. However, they have any quantity of fish, for Rusvasoset is as good a place as the Sjoa at Gjendesheim, which is saying a great deal.
About one we commenced the homeward journey. Two of Jens’ sisters had come with us, nominally to see their brother, but really—John asserted—for the purpose of flirting with him. He was extremely polite to one of them—though of course he could not speak to her—and would insist on carrying her shawl and other impediments; and he confided to us afterwards that ‘women were generally a good deal taken by that sort of mute homage.’ She was a dear little girl, and we called her the ‘Sæter darlen;’ which we believe to be the only Norwegian pun we ever attempted.[*]
[*] John said this pun might be elucidated with advantage to the British public, as he did not believe any one could possibly see it. Who cares? Down it goes, and we can assure any one who likes to wrestle with it that it is something very good indeed.
The walk home to Gjendesheim is a long one, and although it was Sunday Esau insisted on making a détour over the marsh with his gun, as he said he had lost his knife there yesterday and wanted to look for it. He arrived late at Gjendesheim with a satisfied air on his face; without his trusty steel, but with his pockets thrust full of too trustful teal, that had adventured themselves within his reach.
At Gjendesheim we found the young Norwegian who had roused up the Thomas’s at Rus Vand, and perceived that he was not without some peculiarities of character. Although the weather was as wet and cold as weather could be, he was attired in a suit of white duck clothes like an English mechanic; even his hat was of white duck, and Esau declared afterwards that his boots were made of the same material; that he had a cigar-case and cigars of it, and ordered white ducks for his dinner. The appearance of his head caused us to be very anxious about any little articles of value that we had about us, for it looked as if it had been shaved all over about two days previously to our making his acquaintance. He looked very strong, tough, and active, and no doubt was so, for he had just performed a most extraordinary walking feat. He is going over all the Jotun Mountains by himself, and yesterday morning he started from a place an unknown number of miles away at 6 A.M. He walked all day and all night, till it got dark, at which time he was somewhere near Glitretind, in a country he had never seen, with only a vague notion of where he wanted to get to and a pocket compass to do it with. The country about there is perfectly awful to walk over even by day; but he kept at it through the dark, following a torrent up till he crossed the watershed, and following another torrent down till he got to Rus Vand, and staggered into the hut there at 2.30 A.M. almost fainting, for he had had nothing to eat all day: true, he might have got fladbrod at the sæters during the day, but he said he did not care for fladbrod: certainly, he had plenty of chocolate in his knapsack, but he was tired of chocolate. At Rus Vand he got some coffee, as Thomas told us; and then he walked over the mountain with Jens to Besse Sæter, intending to sleep there: but we were snoring at our ease in all the beds of Besse Sæter, and he hated sleeping on floors, so he walked on again to Gjendesheim, arriving there at half-past five this morning.
Then he produced his knapsack, which he said weighed twenty-five lbs.: it seemed to be chiefly filled with packets of most delicious chocolate, some of which he gave us.
We thought him a first-rate fellow, but certainly a little peculiar. He has been all over the world, and is great at natural history, having stuffed many birds in foreign countries for the museum at Christiania.