I did not remain much longer on the bank of the river, and desiring a change, I walked towards the road that ran parallel with the stream. A Norwegian peasant, driving a carriole soon overtook me, and asking him in the most grammatical and simple manner I could, if he were returning to Larvig, he made me a long speech in reply; but beseeching him in my second address to give me a monosyllabic answer, either affirmatively or negatively, as I was a foreigner, the man bowed his head till his chin came in contact with the bone of his chest, and said,
"Ja!"
I then asked him if he were as desirous of letting his carriole, as I was of hiring it; and he again said,
"Ja!"
I tendered several small silver coins, amounting to an ort, a piece of Norwegian money equivalent in value to eight-pence sterling, and begged the peasant to tell me if the offer were sufficiently generous. He counted the coins in the palm of my hand. When he had done so, he smiled, and said,
"Ja, tak;" and shaking hands with me, he gave me the rope reins.
The carriole is an elegant, comfortable, but most unsociable vehicle; for it is as unfit to hold two persons, as an ordinary arm-chair. To sit properly in a carriole, you should be rather round-shouldered, as its shape is not unlike half a walnut, scooped out. The post-boy sits behind, or stands up, as a groom does in England; but his position must be uncomfortable in the extreme, as the carriole has no springs, and bounds and jumps heavily over ruts and pebbles, causing him to fidget at intervals, and make an exclamation of discomfort most irregularly. The shafts and wheels are slight, and the body painted uniformly of a chocolate colour. The foot-board is not larger than a tea-tray, about six inches square, and in order to reach it, the legs are so extended as to bring the tip of the toes and the apex of the knees on the same plane. Nor does the driver look down on his horse, as he would in England; but the eye has a level view along the back of the animal, and his neck, or wooden collar obstructs any further perspective.
I could not make the man, or skydsgut, as he is called, who accompanied me, understand ten consecutive words I spoke; but asking a multitude of questions, I thought I must have collected a multitude of information. Disliking the dulness of my companion, I drove at a swift pace, but the skydsgut did not seem to like it, and several times I could guess from his manner, that he was expostulating with me. The Norwegians love their horses with the strong, feminine devotion of Arabs, and it is not an uncommon sight to see the skydsgut, if he be a boy, burst into a passionate fit of tears should you lash his horse twice in a mile. He will strive to tell his grief, but if the language of his sorrow be not understood, he will cover his face with his hands, and weep aloud by the road side. The Norwegians have given Englishmen the credit of being impatient travellers, and from their desire to pass over the greatest quantity of ground in the smallest quantity of time, they are said to use the whip more frequently than is necessary. I do not know that this is an incorrect opinion. As one man has peculiarities that another man has not, so one nation may be noted for eccentricities, of which another nation is devoid; and, for my own part, I am inclined to think, that, however superciliously Englishmen may regard the usages and habits of foreigners, there are no people who give strangers a truer idea of maniacs than Englishmen themselves.
R—— and P——, returned in the evening with a boat full of salmon, and one fine fish, weighing nearly thirty-two pounds, was smoked and prepared to be sent as a present to England. I passed the whole of the subsequent day at Larvig, and the Consul begged, that as I was alone, I would dine with him. I accepted his invitation. After dinner, in the cool of the afternoon, his daughters, two very lady-like and pretty girls, requested me to join an excursion they were about to make across the fiord, to the opposite shore. These ladies would insist upon rowing the boat the whole distance, upwards of two miles, themselves. I objected for a time; but when they told me it was the custom of the country, and, that the art of sculling was as much an accomplishment as the softer allurements of the harp, or guitar, I felt more reconciled, and fully appreciated an honour that could never be offered to me again.
At half-past ten o'clock, shortly after we had returned from our trip, and while I was standing on a high rock, from which an extensive view of the fiord could be seen, and talking to the Consul and several ladies, a gun was fired from the yacht.