And he pointed to the high peaks of the mountains that soared half-way up to the clear, blue firmament.
"Let us not go unarmed," he continued, "for there are wolves and bears; and the nightly destruction of our flocks gives us need of men who love the chase like you. I, myself, will bear you company. Come, let us go."
The intimation that bears and wolves congregated on the level lands above was quite sufficient to decide our wavering mood; and ordering the crew to return with the gig to the yacht, and bring our rifles, we wiled away the intermediate time by sitting at a window that opened upon the waters of the Fiord, and afforded us a splendid view of the limitless range of mountains on the opposite shore, called the Reenfjeld.
The morning was sometimes bright and clear, and sometimes the sky was dimmed by large, dark, solid masses of clouds. It was very beautiful to see the mountains glittering with their white summits in the strong sunlight, while their bases were blackened with a shower of rain. These showers were partial, and all things around so still, that we could hear the rain drops pattering among the leaves of the trees that grew on the sides of the mountains two miles from the spot where we sat rejoicing in the warmth and cheerfulness of a summer's sun.
At eleven o'clock the boat returned with rifles, and powder enough to blow up the village of Auron. Our host, who had disappeared for some little time, now came back decked out like a chamois-hunter. His hat had been exchanged for a red cap that fitted exactly to his skull, and a velvet jacket buttoned up to his throat, defined a tolerable expanse of chest. Across his back, from the right shoulder towards the left heel, his trusty gun was slung, muzzle downwards. A leathern belt went entirely round his waist, and pressing a brace of horse-pistols and a wonderfully large knife to his left hip-bone, was clasped in front with an embossed silver buckle. A red handkerchief, spotted white, hung by a knowing loop from the right arm, contained provender and a flask of liquor for the inward man. This last piece of accoutrement had the evident impress of a woman's clear-sightedness; for while our friend fortified the outward walls of his person with guns, pistols, and knives, his wife, knowing how useless all these preparations were without suitable attention to the repletion of the cisterns and stores of the citadel, had suggested, with affectionate devotion no doubt, this trifling bundle as being necessary to the conquest of present labour and future danger. The very knot bore the combined neatness and strength of female ingenuity, and its complication looked endless as conjugal love.
The Norwegian, our three selves, and King, formed the whole party. Our ascent of the mountain, I need scarcely say, put the sinews of our thighs to a severe test; and the higher we mounted, the more frequent were the expressions of fatigue. When we had clambered a quarter of the way, we came suddenly upon two sheds built of wood, and appropriated to the use of a little girl and half a hundred pigs. I do not know whether the swine squeaked their surprise more at seeing us, than the cheerless child looked it. King, who had been ailing occasionally for some days, now fell to the rear, and said, that, he was incompetent to proceed any farther, and the permission to descend, which he solicited, was granted.
All larger vegetation now began gradually to disappear, and though I had hardly marked the trees dwindling from the cherry to the filbert, and then to long tufts of grass, the bare rocks strewed over an endless tract of gravel made me stop and look about. When I cast my eyes above, the mountains still towered half a mile higher, and gazing downwards I could see the different kinds of trees and shrubs changing in size and colour of their foliage, as the space between me and the low lands increased. I do not remember that I had ever exceeded in elevation the point to which I had now risen; and perhaps the appearance of the valleys, the water, and habitations of men might have been more novel than to persons who are accustomed to crawl to the tops of mountains. I must confess I remained perfectly lost in thought for some minutes; nor did I ever feel, or could imagine so distinctly, how the stupendous and neglected works of creation are blended with the truest beauty; for, seen from the very mountains on which I stood, so rough, so barren, so bleak, the same rugged, straggling rocks, scattered over the opposite mountain, seemed soft as velvet and more delicate than the finished lines of a miniature.
Beneath the dark, blue surface of the Fiord I could discover shoals and rocks for which the mariner had sought in vain, and for many miles along the shore the shelving land showed, with a faint yellow tinge, the distance it stretched under the water that was otherwise of a deep azure shade. When from the deeply-dyed cerulean water, the valley with its different green colours of tree and grass, and the red tints of the atmosphere that rested round the sides of the remoter mountains, I lifted my eyes to the fields of snow that extended, to an incalculable extent, over the flat summit of the Reenfjeld, the contrast was so forcible, that while I gazed my very soul seemed to bound with delight it had discovered Sublimity was something material, and not an ideal torture.
"Hollo! Bill, keep moving," was shouted in a loud voice from some rocks above my head, and seriously interfered with any further contemplation.
"Here's a fox," continued the same voice, sustaining its sharp, resonant tone; "come, and smell him!"