Part 3 (1/2)

_Sunday, July 18._--It rained all night, but as Tweedledum said of his umbrella, 'not under here,' and a ditch we made last night kept our floor quite dry. Lighting a fire for breakfast was a toilsome business, but at last we found some wood dry enough to burn. It continued raining in a nice keep-at-it-all-day-if-you-like kind of manner, so we resided in the tent, and read, and indulged in whisky and water for lunch to counteract any ill effects of the reading--for some of it was poetry.

Our tent was about three-quarters of a mile from the end of Bred Sjo, and after lunch we both went in one canoe to reconnoitre the next rapid, which is a long one down to Olstappen Vand. We found that it is quite impracticable for canoes; the river simply running violently down a steep place till it perishes in the lake; about a mile of rapid with hardly enough decently behaved water in the whole of it to hold a dozen trout. But there _were_ a dozen, for we caught them, one wherever there was a little turnhole. How we were to get down that river was concealed in the unfathomable depths of the mysterious Future.

CHAPTER VI.

MISERY.

_July 19._--It rained all night again and all day. This was dreadful, and not at all like Norway.

We have always made a rule that we may fish on Sunday, but not shoot.

Some people draw an even finer distinction, and say it is allowable to shoot with a rifle, but not with a gun: this we have always thought too subtle. Now yesterday was Sunday, and Esau having observed two divers on the lake while the Skipper was out fis.h.i.+ng, went and secreted himself with a gun where he expected them to come over, hoping that they would be alarmed by the other canoe on its return. This soon happened, and they flew within forty yards of him. Both barrels were discharged, and Esau returned to camp, muttering something about 'birds of that kind having immortal bodies if they hadn't immortal souls.' The result of Sabbath-breaking was no doubt this miserable weather.

The camp to-day presented a most cheerless prospect. The canoes were drawn up on land and turned bottom upwards; the kitchen stowed away under a soaked sack; a very third-rate camp fire smouldering before the tent, surrounded by old egg-sh.e.l.ls, backbones of fish, bacon-rind, and some apology for firewood; our two rods standing up against the gloomy sky with the wind whistling through their lines, and all the scenery blotted out with rain and mist, and scudding, never-ending clouds that drifted down the valley, and gave very occasional glimpses of extremely wet mountains. The cook, clad in a macintosh with a spade in his hand, watching a pot which was trying to boil on the spluttering fire, his trousers tucked into his socks, and his boots s.h.i.+ning with wet, would have given any one a pretty good idea of the meaning of the expression 'played out.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: View of Breds...o...b.. Night]

The mosquitoes were bad here, and we spent much of our leisure time making war against them. Esau's favourite way of 'clearing the road' was to bring in a smoking log of pitch pine, close up the ventilation, and fill the tent with smoke. It forced us to quit, but not the mosquitoes, as they appeared to fall into a deep and tranquil sleep, from which they awoke refreshed and ready to renew the attack just a few minutes before the tent again became habitable for human beings. Prowling round the tent and squas.h.i.+ng them with our fingers was perhaps the best plan, but we were obliged to sleep with a rug over our heads and covered up at every point, to avoid their intrusion at night.

_July 20._--Still rain, and nothing but rain; it stopped for an hour or two last night, and the lake looked uncommonly pretty among its dark surroundings, but the downpour soon began again.

In our desperation yesterday afternoon we arranged with a native, whom the Skipper discovered, to bring a horse and sleigh to-day to meet us at the next rapid, and help us down with our baggage to Olstappen.

Therefore we got up early and were down at the rapid about ten o'clock, where we found our man waiting. The rain at this period was the worst variety we have yet seen, and it has tried all kinds during the last four days. We packed everything on the sleigh, covered it with our ground sheets, and then put the wheels on our canoes, and followed down the track.

There is a saw-mill halfway down the river which is simply perfect.

It is perched on piles over the middle of the stream, where it dashes through a rift in a huge black cliff, and the water goes tearing past down a long shoot made of logs, and plunges down at the end churned into a ma.s.s of white foam, with noise and spray that quite bewilder one.

We got down to Olstappen at last, not without a good deal of hard work, and paid our man 4s. 6d. On our way we met a Norwegian tourist, who was on a walking tour with his sister, and had left her rained up, so to speak, in a Saeter, and was strolling about in the forest to wile away the time: he spoke a very little English, and we had a long talk with him; as he had a fellow-feeling for us, and was quite ready to curse the rain with us or any one else.

The Norwegians, men and women, seem to go a good deal on walking tours, and probably know infinitely more of their fatherland than does the average Briton of this island, the superiority of which he seldom fails to impress on the long-suffering foreigner.

At midday we launched our canoes on Olstappen, which is a fine wide lake, and not so rainy as Bredsjo, being several hundred feet lower.

We paddled across to the mouth of the Vinstra River, a rather perilous undertaking, for where the wind met the river there was a nasty sea on, and we s.h.i.+pped some water, but got safe to land. We could not find a decent camp till we had walked a quarter of a mile from the lake up the river. There we found a nice sheltered place, pretty, and close to the river, made our portage, and pitched the tent, and with tea our drooping spirits began to revive (who is proof against a hot meal of trout and bacon, b.u.t.tered eggs, and tea?), even though our clothes and equipments were all wet through, and we had a damp change of raiment, sleeping rugs, and boots. But now the wind had changed, and we looked forward to the morrow as the wearied traveller always _does_ look forward to the morrow.

There were many sandpipers at the mouth of this river; we caught one young one, and had serious thoughts of taking its innocent life for our tea, but better feelings prevailed, and we released it as an offering for fine weather, and caught four trout instead.

_July 21._--Hurrah! the rain stopped during the night, and this morning actually the sun shone out now and then. We heaped up a huge fire and dried all our belongings, and then had nearly a whole day before us free for fis.h.i.+ng.

A voyaging day is a big business. We calculate that it takes us two and a half hours to pack up from an old camp, breakfast, and get aboard s.h.i.+p; but to pitch the camp in a new place takes much longer. First you have to find a suitable place, often a matter of great difficulty in a country like this, where level s.p.a.ces a yard square are very rare; dig a trench; pitch the tent, and arrange everything in it; collect firewood, and make a place for the fire; see that the boats and everything about the tent are safe from harm should the stormy winds begin to blow; and then cook dinner. All this cannot be done under three hours of hard work; so that if in addition you propose getting over a considerable amount of ground, it is sure to be a long and toilsome day. But the following day you wake up with a glorious feeling of duty performed and pleasure to look forward to.

The Skipper, with a hankering after cleanliness, washed a lot of clothes, and himself, having left the rain to perform the latter operation for the last two or three days; but Esau, not being troubled with any such absurd remnants of civilisation, went up the river reconnoitring in his natural condition. He came back to dinner in a perfectly rapturous state, having caught a remarkably nice bag of fish, got a beautiful view of the Jotunfjeld Mountains, and found a waterfall, which he said was the best in Norway, and therefore in the world. The Skipper had tried the lake in the afternoon without success, so after dinner we both went out and soon discovered the reason. Seven boats full of natives were out with a huge flue net, which they shot in a circle, and then beat the water enclosed till all the wretched fish were in the net. We saw them get thirty in one haul, and besides this there was a boat 'ottering;' and although we captured a few fish, it was obvious that with all this netting it would be impossible for the lake to be good.

CHAPTER VII.

HAPPINESS.