'You will not ride alone?'
'Ay; not even Jordan with me. I may ride to Lincoln Castle.'
Kingston rose. 'Ye shall not have the chance. I am your cavalier, Deb.'
'As it please ye!' And away went Deborah, singing.
[A SUMMER HOLIDAY IN NORWAY.]
A summer holiday in Norway can scarcely be otherwise than delightful. This beautiful northern land has attractions for all classes of tourists. In few other regions in Europe can there be found commingled such picturesque firths, such clusters of rocky islets, such lofty mountains, such exuberant sunshine, and such a bright ever-changeful sea. Interesting to all, it is peculiarly attractive to the lovers of Izaak Walton's gentle art. To the angler, a Norwegian lake or river has long been an aquatic Paradise. What a blissful experience it must be to hook a twenty-pound salmon, or even a five-pound grilse; to feel it rush like an arrow through the pellucid flood, and to dash away after it through a cool forest of sedges, or over a subaqueous Stonehenge, with the pleasant hum of the line as it spins out into the river, resounding in your ears. While high overhead the lark sings in the clear air, and the silvery mists creep up the steep hill-sides, and the golden sunlight streams down through the thickets of birch and alder, dancing on the ripples of the gladsome river, and shining right down into the angler's gladsome heart. This is an experience worth all the elixirs that were ever invented. It braces the nerves, it expands the lungs with full draughts of the healthful mountain breeze, and makes the sinking heart bound once more elastic with the buoyant unforgotten lightness of boyhood.
Mr Arnold, in his Summer Holiday in Scandinavia, has done ample justice to the great and varied natural charms of Norway. Unhappily for some travellers at least, it cannot be approached without a longer or shorter sea-voyage, the pleasure or discomfort of which depends very much upon the weather. Our author in this respect was not very fortunate, for the sun kept resolutely out of sight. The sky, the dim haze-covered land, and the surrounding waves, were all one dull uniform gray; but even with this drawback, he was struck by the rugged grandeur and beauty of the sea-wall of Norway, one of the noblest in the world. Frowning, it rises a rocky rampart of gray beetling crags, fantastic buttresses, and cliffs of limestone, embosomed in masses of delicate many-toned hues of verdure, as the silvery gray green of the birch, the brighter shade of the hazel, or the more sombre colouring of the pine, predominates in the foliage of the copse-wood, with which every available nook and cranny is crowned. Jagged peaks and serried promontories fashion themselves in the most picturesque fashion out of the gray limestone crags, sheltering lonely sequestered bays of wondrous beauty; while beyond rise long ridges of lofty hills, their brown sides covered in great part with odoriferous pine-forests, checkered with vivid green patches of corn-land and pasture; with here and there a cluster of little quaint wooden red-tiled houses, lending to the beautiful wild scenery the interest of human life and industry.
At Christiania Mr Arnold and his party landed amid a group of placid onlookers; and having, chiefly by their own efforts conveyed their luggage to the custom-house, found that dreaded ordeal to be in Norway mere child's play. 'An old official,' says our author, 'with a flat cap, looking remarkably like a Greenwich pensioner, patted some of the luggage, and said in good but brief English: "Tourists?" "Yes," replied our spokesman. The old official then bowed, intimating obligingly that Norway was glad to see us, and waved his hand for the next lot.' A month was the time that the party had to spend in Norway; and after mature consideration, they decided that the best route for them would be from 'Christiania by Lake Miosen to Giovik and the Fille Fjeld viâ Fagernœs, and so to Bergen by Lœrdalsoren, returning by the southern road and Lake Kröderen.' What they could not determine was, whether to walk or ride or drive; but at last they decided that it was best to do at Rome as the Romans do, and wisely fell back upon the native carrioles.
As these are quite an institution in Norway, they merit a few words of description. Imagine a low light wooden conveyance, somewhat spoon-shaped, with an upright splash-board in front, two very large wheels, and a big apron buttoned down on both sides around the traveller. A sensible conscientious cream-coloured pony is attached to it in front; and behind, perched on a shaky projecting board, is a fair-haired, sallow, phlegmatic-looking peasant, boy or man as may be, who is called a skyds-carl. You may drive yourself, if you choose; and if you do, you may possibly flatter yourself that you are lord, if not of all you survey, yet still of the cream-coloured pony in front of you, and may make the pace according to your liking. Never was a greater mistake; the skyds-carl perched behind is that pony's master, not you; and if he chooses to utter in a low tone bur-r-r-r-dar-r, you may flog until you are weary; neither whipping nor coaxing will make the sagacious creature quicken its pace an iota. The stol-kjærre or country cart is a square wooden tray with large wheels, and a low-backed seat across the centre, sometimes with and sometimes without springs. The posting stations are more or less picturesque as regards scenery, but are all built upon one plan, of red pine logs, around a spacious yard, which may be tidy or untidy according to the taste of the inmates. Barns or other outhouses form two sides of the square, the house makes the third, and the fourth is supplied by the road. The buildings are roofed very generally with sods of turf, forming a plateau on which long grass and wild-flowers wave luxuriantly. The food to be procured at these stations is good of its kind: salmon, trout, reindeer venison, mutton; and wild-ducks in abundance if the tourist can shoot them—all very tolerably cooked. By way of dessert, there are wild raspberries, strawberries, and molteberries, a yellow insipid fruit of a pale amber colour, which tastes like a rain-soaked raspberry. The only bread to be procured at the up-country stations is flad-bröd to whose qualities Mr Arnold bears the following affecting testimony: 'It is thin, dry, dusty, full of little bits of straw, and quite tasteless, like the bottom of a hat-box with the paper torn off.'