Just before dark, I climb the hill with a heavy basket of fish. The
castle gate is open. The scent of chicken and pancakes salutes the
weary pilgrim. In a cosy little parlour, adorned with fluffy mats
and pictures framed in pine-cones, lit by a hanging lamp with glass
pendants, sits the mistress of the occasion, calmly triumphant and
plying her crochet-needle.
There is something mysterious about a woman's fancy-work. It seems
to have all the soothing charm of the tobacco-plant, without its
inconveniences. Just to see her tranquillity, while she relaxes her
mind and busies her fingers with a bit of tatting or embroidery or
crochet, gives me a sense of being domesticated, a "homey" feeling,
anywhere in the wide world.
If you ever go to Norway, you must be sure to see the Loenvand. You
can set out from the comfortable hotel at Faleide, go up the Indvik
Fjord in a rowboat, cross over a two-mile hill on foot or by
carriage, spend a happy day on the lake, and return to your inn in
time for a late supper. The lake is perhaps the most beautiful in
Norway. Long and narrow, it lies like a priceless emerald of palest
green, hidden and guarded by jealous mountains. It is fed by huge
glaciers, which hang over the shoulders of the hills like ragged
cloaks of ice.
As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live
in the ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far
above us, on the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the
summer sun, and fall from the precipice. They drift downward, at
first, as noiselessly as thistledowns; then they strike the rocks
and come crashing towards the lake with the hollow roar of an
avalanche.
At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous
amphitheatre of mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us.
Snow-fields glare at us with glistening eyes. Black crags seem to
bend above us with an eternal frown. Streamers of foam float from
the forehead of the hills and the lips of the dark ravines. But
there is a little river of cold, pure water flowing from one of the
rivers of ice, and a pleasant shelter of young trees and bushes
growing among the debris of shattered rocks; and there we build our
camp-fire and eat our lunch.
Hunger is a most impudent appetite. It makes a man forget all the
proprieties. What place is there so lofty, so awful, that he will
not dare to sit down in it and partake of food? Even on the side of
Mount Sinai, the elders of Israel spread their out-of-door table,
"and did eat and drink."
I see the Tarn of the Elk at this moment, just as it looked in the
clear sunlight of that August afternoon, ten years ago. Far down in
a hollow of the desolate hills it nestles, four thousand feet above
the sea. The moorland trail hangs high above it, and, though it is
a mile away, every curve of the treeless shore, every shoal and reef
in the light green water is clearly visible. With a powerful field-
glass one can almost see the large trout for which the pond is
famous.
The shelter-hut on the bank is built of rough gray stones, and the
roof is leaky to the light as well as to the weather. But there are
two beds in it, one for my guide and one for me; and a practicable
fireplace, which is soon filled with a blaze of comfort. There is
also a random library of novels, which former fishermen have
thoughtfully left behind them. I like strong reading in the
wilderness. Give me a story with plenty of danger and wholesome
fighting in it,--"The Three Musketeers," or "Treasure Island," or
"The Afghan's Knife." Intricate studies of social dilemmas and
tales of mild philandering seem bloodless and insipid.
The trout in the Tarn of the Elk are large, undoubtedly, but they
are also few in number and shy in disposition. Either some of the
peasants have been fishing over them with the deadly "otter," or
else they belong to that variety of the trout family known as TRUTTA
DAMNOSA,--the species which you can see but cannot take. We watched
these aggravating fish playing on the surface at sunset; we saw them
dart beneath our boat in the early morning; but not until a driving
snowstorm set in, about noon of the second day, did we succeed in
persuading any of them to take the fly. Then they rose, for a
couple of hours, with amiable perversity. I caught five, weighing
between two and four pounds each, and stopped because my hands were
so numb that I could cast no longer.
Now for a long tramp over the hills and home. Yes, home; for yonder
in the white house at Drivstuen, with fuchsias and geraniums
blooming in the windows, and a pretty, friendly Norse girl to keep
her company, my lady is waiting for me. See, she comes running out
to the door, in the gathering dusk, with a red flower in her hair,
and hails me with the fisherman's greeting. WHAT LUCK?
Well, THIS luck, at all events! I can show you a few good fish, and
sit down with you to a supper of reindeer-venison and a quiet
evening of music and talk.
Shall I forget thee, hospitable Stuefloten, dearest to our memory of
all the rustic stations in Norway? There are no stars beside thy
name in the pages of Baedeker. But in the book of our hearts a
whole constellation is thine.
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