Part 24 (1/2)

_September 23._--We found Christiania this morning almost as hot as we left it, the streets all dry and dusty, and the trees parched for want of rain; and the suns.h.i.+ne was very pleasant as we wandered about the town into the various shops, purchasing articles by the a.s.sistance of which we hoped to attain popularity among our relatives on our arrival in England.

The shopkeepers were almost all very slow; in fact, the transaction of any business is not the hardy Norseman's strong point. We copy this extract from the Skipper's journal:--

'I went to the bank this morning to get some circular notes changed, and they kept me there fussing over them for fifty minutes before I got the money. During this time of expectation I read two letters from home through, and had a chase after a torpid fly on the floor with my stick: considering his languid condition this fly showed great spirit, but after following him about three feet along the floor and nine inches up the wall, I made a fortunate dash at him, and concluded his existence.

Then I thought for a while and stared all round the room, and cut my nails with my knife. Then I counted how many boards there were in the floor, and how many nails there were on an average in each board, and made a little calculation on these figures to discover how many nails there were in the whole room, and what they weighed, how much they cost, how many miles they would reach if laid end to end, and how many men at how much an hour for how long it had taken to drive them all in. Then again I thought for a while, but still the money did not come, and my moral reflections on men and things had just led me to the conclusion that all mortals were but desolate creatures, and that I of all men was most desolate and abandoned, when at the end of forty minutes an official arrived with a sort of cheque. And after that it took ten minutes more to change the cheque into money in a lower room, where the clerks had their hair so beautifully brushed and were so haughty, that instead of being angry I could only thank them profusely for giving me the money at all.'

After finis.h.i.+ng our hunt for curios, it occurred to us that we ought to see the vikings' s.h.i.+p recently unearthed somewhere on the fjord, so we walked down to the University, where we were told by a student that it was not yet open to the public, but that if we would ask the Professor of Archaeology, whom John profanely designated 'the boss that runs the antiquity show,' he had no doubt that, being strangers, we should be allowed to see the s.h.i.+p.

Would the fact of a man being a foreigner obtain his admission to a private view of an English curiosity, save perhaps the plans and mechanism of an iron-clad or torpedo? Probably not.

Revolving these thoughts within our minds we sought the professor, and he at once left the work upon which he was engaged and took us to the s.h.i.+p, which was locked up inside a wooden building that has been erected for it.

Very interesting it was, the preservation of the wood and also the ironwork being wonderful. Unfortunately, some archaeologists of earlier date than the present had also made some excavations in search of memorials of the past. They had cut a large hole in the side amids.h.i.+ps, for the purpose of carrying off the ornaments and other valuables by which the dead viking was surrounded, in the chamber constructed for his body right in the centre of the boat. The modern archaeologists call their predecessors 'sacrilegious robbers,' but we are averse to the use of strong language among men of science.

However, the rest of the s.h.i.+p was perfect, even to the s.h.i.+elds which used to adorn the gunwale, which are now seen to have been made of thin wood, and were probably only ornamental. She was a good big boat, rather flat-bottomed and low in the water, but with great breadth of beam, and built on lines that left no room for doubt as to her seagoing qualities.

The whole day was occupied by this shopping and sight-seeing, and we went to bed more exhausted than by a hard day's stalking at Gjendin, and not half so much satisfied with our achievements.

It is almost unnecessary to mention that we found at the hotel a note from the Skipper, begging us to bring home a waterproof sheet and a few clothes that he had been obliged to leave there. We think that this young man must have shed nearly all his raiment before leaving Norway, and gone home clad in a yellow ulster which we know he had left at the hotel in July; for, judging from the fragments that we have picked up from time to time on our homeward route, he cannot have much other property with him except his gun, rifle, and fis.h.i.+ng-gear.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

HOME AGAIN.

_September 24._--To-day our Norwegian friends who lent us the hut at Rus Vand came to dine with us, and then saw us safely aboard the 'Angelo,'

and at five o'clock, in the presence of an immense crowd which covered the whole quay, some of the people cheering, but many more weeping, we steamed out of the harbour.

As the sound of the last bell died away, and the last gangway fell with a crash on to the landing-stage, a hatless, breathless man rushed up the companion and darted at the spot where he supposed the gangway to be: seeing that he was too late, he yelled to the people on sh.o.r.e, and made as though he would have cast himself into the water, but was restrained by the pa.s.sengers. Meanwhile a fleet of little boats endeavoured to catch a rope and be towed until he could be lowered into one of them; but all failed, and the unfortunate man was carried off to Christiansand, so that on his involuntary voyage he would have leisure to meditate on the folly of a too prolonged farewell.

With a gentle breeze we steamed down the fjord, which never looked more lovely than on this evening; and so beautiful was the night, so warm, so radiant, and with such a depth of glorious colouring from the departed sun, that people crept away into the shade out of the _moonlight_, from pure force of habit, after the heat of the summer.

The influence of such a night, together with a certain sense of something completed; the calm ocean all round us, and the soothing, monotonous throbbing of the untiring screw, produced a longing for confidence in John's bosom, so that he gave utterance to his sentiments as he leant with Esau over the rail of the hurricane deck, and watched the ever-sparkling phosph.o.r.escent lights caused by the pa.s.sage of the vessel through the quiet water.

'Yes, I'm sorry to be leaving Norway, for, you know, there's something delightful to me about the simplicity of the people' (Esau's mind reverted to Ivar Tofte and his plate cupboard); 'they seem to place a childlike confidence in a stranger, which is quite incomprehensible to me. Then there is an unwordable calm, an indescribable tranquillity, which seems to cling both to the country and its inhabitants; even the houses seem to possess an imperturbable serenity of demeanour which you will not find on any other island in Europe. In fact, y'know, Esau, it's a country where one might live quietly and die in peace, where ”moths do not corrupt, neither do worms break through and steal,” don't you know, Esau? And I'm deuced sorry to have to count among past memories the time we have spent here, where the unbroken harmony of existence is that repose for which my soul has longed these many years; but never until now, no, by George! never, has it been able to discover the most uncertain tracings of its ideal.'

Here Esau, who had his deck shoes on, seeing what sort of a mood John was in, stole away quietly towards the cabin, and left him prosing on to the German Ocean. He paused, however, a moment before descending the companion stairs, and caught a few more words which, as the moon had now set, John was confiding to the darkness.