On reference later to the said Phrase-book we find that some very appropriate and useful sentences may be gleaned from its fertile pages. For instance, ‘Who are you? What sort of weather is it to-day?’ (these two remarks are introductory, as it were, and to inspire confidence in the person addressed). Then we come to the point: ‘Will you lend me a dollar? Be quick! Thank you, you are very kind.’ Here the speaker would turn to Ragnild and proceed thus: ‘Put this in my carpet bag. Make haste and bring me a light, open, four-wheeled phaeton carriage, drawn by one horse.’ Then to Mr. Fox, ‘Good morning; I must go, but I shall return in a month.’ Then the speaker might wink at John and depart.
Now came the most awful pause that the history of the world in its darkest moments can yet point to. We coughed and glared at each other, and felt in our pockets as if we might find something to say there; and then the Skipper had a brilliant idea, and said, ‘Ask Mr. Fox how long he intends to stay here.’ But Ragnild at once replied, ‘Only two days,’ without referring the question to him at all; so that remark was wasted, and our embarrassment became worse than ever; for now not only had we to invent subjects of conversation, but also to put them in such a form that Ragnild should not be able to answer them without taking Mr. Fox into her confidence. He all the time was most annoying, as he would do literally nothing to keep up his end of the conversation, and replied to our lengthiest and most brilliant efforts of exuberant verbosity by monosyllables and inarticulate grunts.
At last, in desperation we presented him with a very nice new English knife, for which he did not seem to care at all; and so we parted, both sides feeling that the interview had been a failure.
The following note is extracted from one of the journals:—‘The common cheese of Great Britain is unknown in Norway, but in the roadside inn, the smallest sæter or farmhouse, and the humble cottage dwelling, the traveller can always obtain that excellent substitute, the goat’s-milk cheese of the country.’ The colour of this excellent substitute is that of Windsor soap; its consistency, leather; and its scent, decomposed glue, which causes the natives to keep it under a glass shade. If you eat it, your own dog will shun you; if you avoid it, you starve.
September 7.—
Esau always wakes up in the most boisterous spirits, and as the partitions between the cabins are only made of thin boards full of knot-holes, he can be heard all over the house the first thing in the morning jeering at John, who sleeps next door, whistling, and crowing like a baby in his cot: he continues these little games long after breakfast-time, and though he is wide awake, will not get up. All this sounds very pleasant and cheery to talk about, but the Skipper, who usually wakes in a temper the reverse of angelic, being influenced by an unequal liver, wishes that these walls were twice as thick, and that Esau was at Hong Kong.
Generally he tries little stratagems to induce Esau to get up, dressing operations having a tendency to quiet him. Sometimes he enters the room sniffing, and remarks, ‘How deuced good the coffee smells roasting!’ or ‘We’re going to have a tip-top fish for breakfast, but there’s very little of that pie left; enough for two of us p’raps’ (this would mean about eight pounds). Or he looks out of the window, and assuming an attitude of intense surprise, hanging on to the frame like Irving in ‘the Bells,’ says, ‘By George, Esau! there’s a fellow just below looking through a binocular that can give yours six lengths for mechanism.’ If all these expedients fail, he gives in, and dresses quickly with his ears full of tow, leaving Esau aloft, and gets into the eating-room, where the floor and ceiling between put a soft pedal on operatic selections.
Esau says all this ill-feeling arises because the Skipper cannot whistle Berlioz’s ‘Faust,’ and is jealous.
Andreas and Ragnild are making preparations for their departure, which takes place to-morrow; then Gjendesheim will be closed, the door fastened, the windows shuttered, and the place will be left to itself until next June. Very soon now Gjendin will be covered with ice and snow: most of the good folks in the sæters have already gone to the valleys for the winter.
We thought it would be more convenient for them if we took our departure to-day, so packed our goods on the pony and said ‘Farvel’ to Gjendesheim. Our last view of Gjendin, as we turned to look from the top of the pass, was just as it appeared when we first saw it—black, gloomy, and forbidding, with the cold north wind sweeping in a hurricane over its waters, and heavy rain-clouds hanging over its mountain shoulders, making a scene as awfully lonely and desolate as it is possible to depict.