Read Ebook: Forest Scenes in Norway and Sweden: Being Extracts from the Journal of a Fisherman by Newland Henry

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Ebook has 1619 lines and 144097 words, and 33 pages

mously assert, and they ought to know best,--at all events, ensuring a wet jacket to every one on board, be the weather as fine as it may, from the time they leave the port to the time they return to it.

Then came, crowding all sail and looking as if they were rigged for a regatta, with their butterfly summer gear and tapering spars, the lobster smacks from Lyng?r, and Osteris?, and Arendahl, and Hellesund: and a regatta it was on a large scale, with the wide North Sea for a race-course, omnivorous London for the goal, and its ever-fluctuating markets for a prize. These were sharp, trim-looking vessels, admirably handled, and not unworthy of a place in the lists of any Royal Yacht Club for beauty or for speed; somewhat less sharp, perhaps, than the Bergeners, but scarcely less weatherly or sitting less lightly on the seas.

The near approach to the land, which had been for so many hours looked for in vain, seemed to bring no great comfort to the unfortunate Skipper, who kept fidgetting about the decks with a perplexed and anxious countenance. Glasses were brought on deck, and rubbed and polished over and over again, and directed in succession to every mountain peak that showed itself, and every inlet that opened before them. Then, little mysterious consultations were held between the Skipper and his First Mate; then, one man was sent for, then another; then more whispering, and more mystery, more shaking of the heads and examination of charts; then an adjournment to the bridge, on which the Parson was then standing, taking his survey of the craft in sight, and enjoying the sunshine. At last, the whispering took a more objurgatory tone; more in the way of a growl, with now and then a short, emphatic sentence of eternal condemnation on somebody's eyes, or blood, or other personalities,--as is the custom of those who "go down to the sea in ships."

The first distinct words which met the Parson's ear, came from the lips of the Skipper, pronounced in a sharp, acid, querulous sort of tone; such as superiors sometimes indulge in, when they are fixing on the shoulders of an inferior the blame they shrewdly suspect all the while, ought, if justice had its due, to rest on their own.

"You are not worth your salt, sir," he said; "you are not worth your salt--you ought to be ashamed of wearing a blue jacket, you know-nothing, lubberly ..." and so forth; expressions by no means unusual at sea, certainly, but sounding somewhat misplaced in the present instance, inasmuch as if there was any one in the whole ship not worth his salt, the speaker certainly was the man, in his own proper person.

"Upon my soul, sir," said the man addressed, "if I tried to tell you anything about it, I should be only deceiving you. I know the coast about Christiansand as well as any man. I have traded to that port for years, and taken the old brig in and out twenty times; but the land before us is all strange to me. I never saw those three hummocky hills before in my life. This is not Christiansand."

"Well, but if it is not, does Christiansand lie east or west of us--which way am I to steer?"

The man raised his glass again, and took a long and anxious survey, but apparently with no better result.

"Really, sir, I cannot say. I cannot make it out at all; there is not one single sea-mark that I know."

"Then what the devil did you ship for as a pilot, if you knew nothing of your business?" Here followed another strong detachment of marine expletives.

"I shipped as a pilot for Christiansand, sir; and, for the Sound, and for Copenhagen; and can take the steamer into any one of them, if she drew as much as a first-rate; but this place is neither one nor the other of them, and I never called myself a coasting pilot."

"Well," said the Parson, "this seems to me sad waste of breath and temper; if you are a couple of lost babes, why do you not ask your way? There lies a pilot-boat, as you may see with your own eyes," pointing to a little cutter exhibiting in the bright sunshine a single dark cloth in a very white mainsail, which, with her foresheet to windward, lay bobbing about in the swell right ahead of them. "That is a pilot-boat, and I suppose she knows the way, if you do not--why do you not hail her?"

The Skipper looked askance at the Parson, as if he meditated some not very complimentary reply about minding one's own business; for, conscious of the estimation in which he was himself held by the fishing party, who were in no way chary of their remarks, he regarded them with anything but friendly feelings. But the advice was too obviously sound to be neglected, and the Skipper was not by any means anxious that the magnates on the poop should become acquainted with the fact that he was at sea in more senses than one.

In a few minutes the steamer was alongside the little shrimp of a cutter, taking the wind out of her sails by her huge unwieldy hull.

A short conversation passed between them, which as one-half was sworn down the wind in very loud English, and the other half came struggling up in broad Norske, was not attended with any very satisfactory results.

Birger offered his services.

"You may as well ask them what they will take us into Christiansand for," said the Skipper; "that will soon make them find their English."

A few more unintelligible words were exchanged, and Birger burst out laughing.

"They cannot do it," he said: "they cannot take us into Christiansand: not only they are not able, but they are not licensed to ply so far."

"Why! where are we, then?" said the astonished Skipper.

"Off Arendahl!" said Birger.

"Arendahl!" broke in the Parson, "why, that is fifty miles to the westward of your course."

"Well, I cannot conceive how that can be," said the Skipper. "Something wrong, I am afraid, with the compasses. We ought not to be so far out; we steered a straight course, and--"

"That did you not," said Birger, "whatever else you did; the Captain and I have been studying the theory of transcendental curves from your wake."

This the Skipper did know. A close survey of the remaining coals took place, and it was decided that notwithstanding the expenditure that took place on the day on the Shipwash, there might, with economy, be enough for six hours' consumption, Birger inquiring innocently, "whether the Skipper had not anything that would burn in his own private stores?"

The steamer's course was accordingly altered nine or ten points, for the coast from Arendahl to Christiansand trends southerly, and she had actually overshot her mark, and gone to the northward as well as to the eastward of her port, so that land which had hitherto lain before them, was thus brought abaft the starboard beam.

To those who, like our fishermen, were not exactly making a passage, but exploring the country, and to whom it was a matter of indifference whether they dined at five or supped at eleven, the Skipper's blunder was anything but an annoyance. It afforded them an opportunity, not often enjoyed, of seeing the outside coast of Norway; for in general, almost all the coasting trade, and all the passenger traffic, is carried on within the fringe of islands that guard the shores. An absolute failure in the article of fuel, and a week or so of calm within a few miles of their port, might have been a trial to their tempers; but there was no such temptation to grumbling on the present occasion; and, besides, the afternoon and evening were bright and warm, the wind had sunk to a calm, and though the ever restless sea was heaving and setting, the swells had become glassy, soft, and regular.

Cape after cape, island after island of that inhospitable coast was passed, and not a sign of habitation, not a town, not a village, not even a fisherman's cottage, or a solitary wreath of smoke was to be seen. The land seemed utterly uninhabited, and, as they drew out from the stream of trade, the very sea seemed tenantless also.

The fact is, that the whole coast of Norway, and of Sweden also, is fringed with islands, in some places two or three deep, which are separated from the main and from each other by channels more or less broad, but always deep. Of these islands, the outer range is seldom inhabited at all, never on the seaward sides, which, exposed to the first sweep of the southwester, are either bare, bold rocks, or else nourish on their barren crags a scanty clothing of stunted fir or ragged juniper, but afford neither food nor shelter, and where that necessary of life, fresh water, is very rarely to be met with.

The whole of the coasting trade passes within this barrier, and the houses and villages, of which there are many, lie hidden on the sheltered shores of the numerous channels; so that, however well peopled the coast may be--and in some places population is by no means scanty--neither house, nor boat, nor ship, except the foreign trade as it approaches or leaves the coast, is ever seen by the outside coaster.

The shades of evening were already falling, and that at midsummer in Norway indicates a very late hour indeed, when the glimmer of a light was seen through the scrubby firs of a cape-land island, occasioning a general rush of expectant passengers to the bridge, for some had begun to doubt the very possibility of discovering this continually retreating port, and to class it with the fairy territories of Cloudland and Cape Flyaway; while others, with more practical views and less poetical imaginations, had been contemplating with anxiety the rapidly decreasing coals in the bunkers. Both parties, poets and utilitarians alike, had their fears set at rest when, on rounding the point, the long-lost lighthouse of Christiansand hove in sight--tall, white, pillar-like, looking shadowy and ghost-like, against the dark background behind it. The poets might have thought of the guardian spirit of some ancient sea king, permitted to watch over the safety of his former dwelling-place, for Christiansand is renowned in story. To the utilitarians it might, and probably did, suggest visions of fresh vegetables, and salmon, and cod, and lobsters, for all of which that town is famous.

A bare, low, treeless slab of rock forms its site, a mere ledge, about a quarter-of-a-mile long, and sufficiently low, and sufficiently in advance of the higher islands, to form in itself a danger of no small magnitude during the long winter nights. It maintains on its withered wiry grass half-a-dozen sheep and a pig or two, the property of the lighthouse-keeper, which being the first signs of life and vestiges of habitation which had greeted the travellers during the afternoon's steaming, were regarded with an interest of which they were not intrinsically deserving.

In a very few minutes, the heaving of the outside sea was exchanged for the perfect calm and deep stillness of the harbour, with its overhanging woods, its long dusky reaches, its quiet inlets, and mysterious labyrinthine passages, among its dark, shadowy islands. These became higher and more wooded as the steamer wound her way among them, deepening the gloom, and bringing on more rapidly the evening darkness. All, however, looked deserted and uninhabited, till suddenly, on opening a point of land, high and wooded like all the rest, the town of Christiansand lay close before them, dark and indistinct in the midnight twilight, without the twinkle of a solitary lamp to enliven it, or to indicate the low houses from the rocks which surrounded and were confused with them.

"Hurrah!" said the Parson, as the plunge of the anchor and the rattle of the chain cable broke the stillness of the night. "Some of us are not born to be drowned, that is certain."

CHRISTIANSAND.

"Dark it is without, And time for our going."

But through it all the three friends sat on their carpet bags of patience, smoking the cigar of peace, now and then making a joke among themselves, as the steward's lantern flashed upon some face of unusual solicitude, but totally unconcerned amid the fluctuating hubbub that surrounded them.

"Well," said the Captain, "I have had enough of this fun, and am hungry besides; I vote we go on shore. I suppose your man is here?"

The Parson got up, and, putting his head over the side, shouted in a stentorian voice, through his hand, which he used as a speaking trumpet--"Ullitz! Ullitz!"

"Hulloh!" returned a voice from the dark waters, in the unmistakably English man-of-war's fashion--"Hulloh!" repeated the voice.

"Shove alongside here, under the quarter," said the Parson. "Who have you got in the boat along with you? Tom Engelsk for one, I am sure."

"Only Tom and Torkel; I thought that would be enough," said a voice from the waters below, in remarkably good English, in which the foreign accent was scarcely perceptible.

"Quite enough," said the Parson; "look out there!" as he hove the slack of the quarter-boat's after-tackle fall, which he had been making up into coils as he was speaking. "Tell English Tom to shin up that, and come on board: it is nothing for an English man-of-war's man to do, and one of you hold on by the rope."

Tom, active as a cat, and delighted at being spoken of as an English man-of-war's man before so many English people, scrambled up the side and stood before them, with his shallow tarpaulin hat in hand, as perfectly an English sailor, so far as his habiliments were concerned, as if he had dressed after the model of T. P. Cooke.

The man's real name was Thorsen, and his birthplace the extreme wilds of the Tellemark; but having served for five years on board an English man-of-war, he had dropped his patronymic, and delighted in the name of English Tom; by which, indeed, he was generally known.

"Tom," said the Parson, "you see to this luggage; count all the parcels; see that you have it all safe; pass it through the custom-house, and let us see you and it to-morrow morning. And now, he who is for a good supper, a smiling hostess, a capital bottle of wine, and clean sheets, follow me."

As he spoke, he dropped his carpet bag over the side which Ullitz caught, and disappeared down the rope by which Tom had ascended, followed implicitly by his two companions.

"Shove off, Ullitz," said he, as the Captain sat himself down and poised Tom's oar in his hands, pointing it man-of-war fashion as Tom himself would have done, and when Ullitz had got clear of the steamer, seconding ably the sturdy strokes of Torkel. In a few moments the boat touched the quay of the fish market, and the party sprang on shore with all the glee that shore-going people feel when released from the thraldom of a crowded vessel.

Ullitz and Torkel remained behind, in order to secure the boat in some dark nook best known to themselves; for there were several idlers on the fish-market quay, who, except for want of conveyance, would have been at that moment unnecessarily adding to the crowd on board, and were not very likely to be over-scrupulous about Torkel's private property.

The three friends, in the meanwhile, in order to extricate themselves from two or three groups of drunken men , pressed forward, and walked ankle-deep through the sandy desert, which, in Christiansand, is called a street, the Captain stuffing the little black pipe which, as was his wont, he carried in his waistcoat pocket.

"Well," said Birger, "no one can appreciate a blessing until he has been deprived of it. I declare, it is a luxury in itself to be able to go where one pleases, after having been cribbed and cabined and confined as we have been, and to plant one's feet on the solid earth once more, instead of balancing our steps on a dancing plank."

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