Henry Newland

“ A short canal and a single lock passes me into the great lake Wener, where I command some of the best rivers and some of the best bear-country in Sweden. If I want to smell salt water again, I have but to put my cutter in tow of the market-tug, and to steam away to Gotheborg; and when I want to be sulky, here I am, looking after my menagerie of Scandinavian birds and beasts, and adding odds and ends to my museum. I dare say people wonder at the old flag ‘that braved a thousand years, the battle and the breeze,’ as they pass backward and forward in the steamers ”

“ The Parson, who was not less thirsty and exhausted, evinced a little more moderation than this “hog of the flock of Epicurus;” he was content with filling his horn occasionally at the milkpail, and floating in it a handful of cranberries, bushels of which were growing wherever a glimpse of sunshine could penetrate the canopy of foliage, “incarnading” with their red berries the turf of the whole forest, “and making the green one red.”
The refreshment was, as Torkel had observed, better than brandy, and both felt quite sufficiently invigorated for a fresh journey ”

“ While they yet gazed, the tree tops, which, beyond the reflection of the fires, had hitherto been one unbroken sea of blackness, came gradually into view: first the spiry tops of the firs, then the rounder and softer outlines of the birch and ash, grew more and more defined; then the character of the foliage became distinguishable,—the glaucous white of the poplar and the fringiness of the ash and rowan: then a soft pale light, interspersed with deep broad shadows, was cast over the scene, slightly dimming the glow of the watch-fires, and contrasting strangely with their yellow light ”

“ He recognised the place well enough, there was no missing that; there was the deep still lake, the waters of which contained no living thing,—there it was, as black as ever; there, too, was that old mass of whinstone, which used to form the back of the hut, and always had a stream of moisture trickling down it, but no house was to be seen, and, what made matters worse was, that a thick mountain mist had come on, with driving rain, which felt as if every spiteful little drop was a needle. ”

“ The coast of Sweden and the banks of the Gotha below the town, offer a striking contrast to the lovely scenery they had left. There are the rocks and the fringing islets, as in Norway, but here they are all flat, and most of them absolutely bare. The coasts, too, where they could be seen, exhibited ledges of rock and wastes of sand, with just enough cultivation to make the desolateness painful, by connecting it with the idea of people living there. ”

“ Work and exercise were a pleasure, not a toil; and if the Parson did stretch himself out under the shade of the great birch tree, it was the natural result of a well-spent morning of downright hard work. Wielding a flail is a trifle compared to wielding a salmon rod; and he and the Captain had, both of them, wielded it that morning to some purpose, for the salmon had not been unmindful of the soft breeze and the cloudy skies, but had risen to the fly with appetites truly Norwegian. ”

“ Tom, Torkel, and Piersen can carry the fishing-rods and our knapsacks, which we must pack in light marching order. Jacob shall provide for the kitchen, and we will each of us take a day’s provisions in our havresacs, and our guns on our shoulders; the odds are, we knock over grouse and wild fowl, by the way, enough to supply us nobly. And even if we do not meet with sport, we shall at all events have a pleasant pic-nicking trip, and see something of the country, while the Parson, who is so fond of open air, may indulge himself with sleeping under a tree, and contemplating the moon at his ease. ”

“ The banks of all these canals are planted with trees, and arranged as shaded footways. All this sounds as if the place ought to be pretty, but, though every word of this is true, the reality falls far short of the ideas it conveys. The houses are mean and low, and, the windows being flush with the sides, the whole appearance is pasteboard-like and unsubstantial, which the reality is not. The Swedes build their wooden houses in very good taste, and they harmonise very well with the scenery, but they should stick to that—ne sutor ultra crepidam: let not the carpenter aspire to be a mason. ”

“ The afternoon was spent in a lazy, lounging way; the shoal, if shoal it can be called, where the bottom was evidently jagged rock and the depth never less than twenty fathoms, lay just off the island where they were, and the boats had but to pull out a cable’s length to be in the very best of the ground; but it is not a very exciting amusement to be continually hauling in little fish about the size of whiting, as fast as the lines could run down. ”

“ The room into which they entered was the summer parlour, whose French windows, shaded by gauze curtains, were wide open, looking on a broad lawn and a sparkling little stream beyond it; a good sprinkling of juniper twigs took off, in a great measure, from the bare look of the carpetless floors which always strikes an English eye. It is a great absurdity, in a country which is not favourable for sheep, and whose woollen manufactures seldom go higher than the wadmaal, that the duty upon English woollens should be so absurdly high. ”

“ John’s Eve in these parts,” said Birger, laughing. “I am afraid our legends are a good deal more Pagan than Christian. That which you saw was the ‘Bale-Fire,’ by which our people commemorate the death of Baldur, and the boat was his ship, the Hringhorn. You will see plenty more of them when the night draws on;—every town and every village, and almost every hut will have its bale-fire, and many of them its boat too. It is a singular thing that Pagan legends should have so much more hold on the minds of the people than anything derived from their Christian history, but so it is.” ”

“ Before long the left wing, the advanced flank of which was under their feet, made itself to be both heard and seen. The ground here was much more difficult, because at the immediate foot of the cliff the debris of ages had formed themselves into a very steep slope. This part, rugged and uneven with fallen blocks of stone, was covered with a close brake of underwood, not only of juniper, but of hazels and rowan bushes, all matted together by brambles,—as well as birch and ash, the last of which, winding its long roots among the stones, had in most places attained the dignity of timber trees. ”

“ Their journey through the forest was little more than a counterpart of that of yesterday,—now traversing spaces roofed with gloomy fir, and beech not less gloomy when you see their undersides only and breathe nothing but the confined air below them,—now breathing freely in a glade or svedgefall, and gathering a handful of whorts or cranberries by the way,—now pushing through a belt of under-stuff, thick enough to conceal an elephant, but all the time meeting with very little game. ”

“ Just then the Stockholm steamer, Daniel Thunberg, hove in sight, with her light blue pennant of smoke, so unlike the black volumes that roll from the chimneys of coal-burning Englishmen.
“They have got something on board for us,” said Moodie; “that calico concern on her foremast is their best Swedish imitation of our English jack, and they always hoist it whenever they have got a letter or parcel for me. There goes a gun; those rascals are always glad of any opportunity for making a bang. Hallo, there! Nils!” ”

“ Fire away! most of us like a broiled grouse for supper.”
“Here goes for the bird of Yggdrasil,” as a magnificent peregrine falcon came floating through the air, as if by the mere act of volition; “he shall never sit again between the eyes of the eagle.” [53]
Birger had, however, miscalculated his distance, for the bird, taking no more notice of his shot than if they had been hailstones, sailed quietly on his course, without turning to the right or left.
“The bird of the gods bears a charmed life,” said the Parson, “it is no use firing at him. Come, load away! ”

“ Fresh butter, just from the churn, is not altogether uneatable even in Sweden, and besides, hunger is not nice; the Parson consumed, with considerable relish, his own share of the grouse, and only wished they had been as big as black game, or tjäder. Brandy there certainly must have been somewhere in the hut, for there never was a Swedish hut without; but so well was it hidden, that all Torkel’s experience failed to bring it to light, and, very much to the Parson’s delight, they were reduced to milk, of which there was enough to supply the whole skal. ”

“ Without looking behind him, the Parson, who had now finished fitting his flies, took his place in his own boat, and, directing Torkel to shove off to the other bank, threw his line across the mouth of a small tributary to the great river, which he had marked the year before as abounding with trout. Jacob looked for a moment inclined to rebel, but no man was more alive to his own interests than the ex-smuggler. He had engaged in the trip, not like Tom and Torkel, from sheer love of sport and adventure, but as a profitable speculation. ”

“ He was caressing a particularly ugly dog, which he called Garm,—an appellation which proved him to be what in England would be called a fast man; it is much as if an English young gentleman were to call his dog Satan. He was haranguing, of course, on the vast superiority of Norway to Sweden, and the infinite degradation which the former country had received from the union of the crowns,—that being not only the most favourite topic of Norwegian declamation, but, in the present instance, at all events, the most injudicious and unsuitable subject in which to exhibit before so mixed an audience. ”

“ On it came, breaking over the taffrail and deluging the idlers on the poop, but at the same time giving her the final shove off the ridge. “Off she goes! Shout, boys, shout! and wake up that Skipper, wherever he is!”
And amid the most discordant yells that ever proceeded from heterogeneous voices—Danish, Dutch, Swedish, German, and Russ, above which, distinct and ringing, rose the heart-stirring English cheer—the steamer, once more under command of her rudder, buzzed, and dashed her way into the open sea. ”

“ There was no lack of fuel: there never is in Norway, where outsides of timber float down the rivers unheeded; and trees, uprooted by the winter storms and land-slips, rot where they fall. Before half the things were out of the boats, three or four fires were throwing round their cheerful light, some for cooking, some for wantonness, for the evening was anything but cold. Birger, however, who, as a Swedish soldier, had had a good deal of experience in bivouacking,—an exercise to which they are all regularly drilled,—set his own two men to gather and pile fuel enough to last through the night ”

“ Soiled, and wet, and dirty they looked: a Swede is rather a picturesque animal, when you are far enough off not to see his dirt, particularly when there is any general muster of them, for as each parish weaves its own wadmaal, or coarse cloth, and each wears it of a particular colour or pattern, the commencement of a skal looks, at a little distance, like a muster of regular troops, in regular, though rather eccentric uniforms: but the rains, and the dirt, and the mud-stains had reduced this to a very general average,—a sort of forest uniform of neutral tint. ”