It always pays to master something well, and it is strange how one comes across things again and again through life. When I had been very ill in 1909, and was ordered to Woodhall Spa for a course of baths, the delightful Bath-chair man who conveyed me to the pump-room, suddenly exclaimed, “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you the Mrs. Alec Tweedie that writes?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“I wondered if you were immediately I heard your name,” he said, “because I owe you a lot, ma’am.”
“Owe me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “seven or eight years ago there was a sale near here and a lot of books were sold. I bought a dozen old copies of Murray’s Magazine for a shilling, and a shilling meant a good deal to me in those days, but reading meant more. In them I read articles by you on Nansen, Björnson, and those Norwegian fellows, and I got so interested in Norwegian literature and the North Pole that I have read everything about them I have been able to lay my hands on ever since. The Squire has been awfully good in lending me his books on Arctic travel, and if it had not been for you I should never have begun to take an interest in such things.”
It was really quite touching. How little one knows when one takes up one’s pen what good or ill those inky scratches may do.
On the heels of A Winter’s Jaunt to Norway, written for pleasure, came Wilton, Q.C., or Life in a Highland Shooting-Box, written for gain, which The Times was kind enough to praise for its instruction as well as amusement, saying the author appeared to have a sound knowledge of all varieties of the chase. This was the outcome of those sporting articles in the Queen written when I used to follow the guns with my husband. It was followed by a booklet on Danish versus English Butter-making, reprinted from the Fortnightly Review. This subject interested me so greatly that it was most cheering to find the big “dailies” taking up with zest my lecture to our slack farmers at home. A leading article in the Daily Telegraph said, “Those of our readers who wish to learn how the thrifty, hardy, and industrious Danes have grown rich during the last quarter of a century we refer to Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s instructive exegesis.” And the Review of Reviews affirmed, “It is a discourse much needed in the present day by our agriculturists.” But I am running too far ahead. Life is often ruled by chance, and that Danish subject which brought so much kudos at the time was taken up by chance because of a stray remark at a big dinner in Copenhagen.
Apropos of the simplicity of life in Norway, it was rather amusing to note the despair and worry caused over the dress allowance of the maids-of-honour appointed to attend upon the young English Princess, who had, in 1906, but recently taken her seat upon the throne of Norway.
It was decided that a certain amount of Court etiquette must be kept up. Accordingly, a high official from the Court of St. James’s went over to Christiania to see what could be done. It is a rule that a maid-of-honour should be paid a sum sufficient to dress upon, a sum which in England amounts to £300 a year, although a maid-of-honour is no longer given a thousand pounds as a marriage portion; all she carries away is her badge, with permission to wear it as a brooch since it is no longer required as an Order.
Being anxious to make all arrangements as satisfactorily as possible the Englishman visited a well-known gentleman in the capital, who had several daughters and went much into Society. Touching the subject, he asked, “What would be a reasonable figure for a Norwegian girl to dress upon?” and explained his reason for wishing to know.