A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden / 2nd edition

by William A. Ross

So ended the 1st of August, to live in our memories. In the evening we went to see King. He was so ill, that his medical attendant begged, while remaining in his bed-room, we would not speak. The poor fellow was delirious. When we came near to his bed-side, he stared at us; but could not remember who we were. Sailor, who managed to push his way up stairs, though we had taken the precaution to leave him out of doors, rushed up to the bed, and placed his paws on it; but a cuff on the head sent him to the other end of the room. King seemed to have recognized the dog; for he rolled his head from side to side on the pillow, as if in reprobation of the act to keep the animal from him; and although his left hand lay outside the coverlet, he was so exhausted, having been bled twice, that he could not stir it; but moved the forefinger, beckoning the animal to him. At the suggestion of the doctor we stood on one side, and opened a passage for the dog. The animal crouching in the farthest corner of the room, hung his head, doubtful of the duty required of him; but the moment R—— motioned with his hand, the dog in one bound reached the bed. The wan, vacant countenance of the sufferer, brightened with the hue and intelligence of health, for he smiled and moved his lips, though he had not sufficient strength to articulate a word. The dog sometimes licked his hand, and then with playfulness, took the moving finger between his teeth, and allowing it to slip from his mouth, would seize it again; and so, although both were speechless, both understood each other. At last some sad reflection, the thought perhaps of home, or the little chance he had more of sharing the affection of any human thing, as he did now, crossed his mind; for the sick man closed his eyes, while yet his finger moved as before and the noble brute still toyed with it, and oozing from under the shut lids, one by one, the tears ran over, and bathed his temples.

"We shall excite him, doctor," we said in a whisper.

"I think so," he replied; "leave him for the present."

We left the room; but it was with some difficulty we could get the dog to follow us. The attachment of animals is a common tradition, but I have never had the opportunity of seeing it so feelingly displayed as during the illness of King; nor did the rage of the elements, or the fear of death press heavier on my spirits than the mute love of Sailor and Jacko touched me deeply. No living creatures could have remembered with more devotional sincerity the acts of friendship and human kindness, or demonstrated their grief with greater effect and truth.

Our stay at Bergen was greatly lengthened by the illness of King; for R—— did not like to leave Norway without being assured of his ultimate recovery. During our sojourn, the guide, a Swede, whom we had hired, pointed out the house in which the Marquis of Waterford was lodged after his encounter with the watchman, when his life was nearly lost. Borne on their shoulders, the watchmen carry about with them a long staff, at the end of which is a circular knob full of small spikes that resemble the rays of a star, on which account the staff is called the Morning Star; and with one of these astral knobs the noble Lord, in a scuffle, was struck on the head. The inhabitants of Bergen still remember the Marquis; and while they condemn the conduct of their countryman, exalt the character of the young nobleman; and I believe myself, that the local trade of the town never received before his arrival, or after his departure, such an impetus as it did from the liberality and personal expenditure of Lord Waterford. Our guide did nothing else but talk of him, and laughed till he cried while recounting the comical freaks of "the sweet man;" or, as he phrased him vernacularly,

"Manen sött."

The lateness of the season made R—— anxious to quit Norway before the middle of August; and since King could not, under the most favourable circumstances, leave his bed before the end of the month, we thought of our return to England. On the afternoon of the 7th, King being pronounced entirely out of danger, and, as far as human wisdom could tell, certain of regaining his former health, we sailed; but R—— left in the hands of the British Consul a sum of money, to purchase whatever might be required for King's present use, and future passage to England; and writing a note which was to be given to him by the Consul, when he was sufficiently well to read it, R—— told the poor fellow not to be hurt at our departure; but that we had sailed from Bergen by compulsion, and not according to the dictates of our own hearts. Promising to touch at Harwich, and communicate to his wife the tidings of his convalescence, for we had written to inform her of her husband's desperate condition, R—— concluded by intimating, that the Consul would supply him with every luxury he desired, and he was not to hesitate in the expression of any fancy his sickly state might prompt him to make. R—— told him, also, to join the yacht at Cowes when he returned to England. King lived to see the English shores again, and gratefully, in the blunt, pathetic language of a sailor, to thank his amiable benefactor. He fills, at this moment, his old post.

Although the afternoon was calm, the cutter dropped rapidly down the Fiord, until within four miles of the sea. The pilot, one of the most expert at Bergen, had been very anxious to get the yacht clear from the land before night-fall, that he might be on his homeward way in good time; nor were we less desirous of taking our departure before set of sun. But Fortune seems ever to act towards some men with the sincerest malice. About half a league, as I have said, from the mouth of this Fiord, one of many that conducts to Bergen, and on the starboard shore, is a rock that juts towards the centre of the channel, and forms a small bay. Mariners know the spot well, and avoid it. The surrounding scenery, fraught with the natural softness of beauty and severe grandeur of Norway, resembles most other things that bear, seductively, external comeliness, and carry an antidote unseen. The bay is a whirlpool. Our hyperboreal Palinurus was perfectly acquainted with this modern Charybdis, and used every stratagem of which he was master, to escape it; but the wind being light, left the cutter to the mercy of the current. Nearly three hours the yacht did nothing else but revolve, as if she were fixed on a pivot, and not all the united exertions of the crew could tow her out of the eddy.

The unhappy pilot stamped his foot every time the cutter took a fresh whirl, and called his favourite Odin to witness his dilemma; but Odin paid as much deference to his prayers as Hercules did, of yore, to the waggoner who got the wheel of his cart in the rut. The cutter wearied not in her waltz; but, whether she felt the want of a partner, or the power of the wind, I know not; for when the pilot had lighted his pipe, and given his soul to its soporific ward, she darted unexpectedly out of the circling haven, and ceased not in her flight until the first wave of the Ocean leaped up against her bow with so much rude impetuosity that her hull staggered under its force, and her gaff-topsail shook with anger at such lack of gentleness.

Amid a multitudinous salute of "Farväl!" the pilot bundled into his pram; and even now I see him tossed about, looking the very configuration of "Gamle Norge."