Chapter 6

About the rotten feet on the sheep, which animal I by nature despise, on account of its cowardice and a tremendous silliness, the one running after the other, but if a man _will_ plague himself with farming who has been a sailor from his mother's apron-string, he must keep these beasts and others like his neighbours, although he understands nothing, or very little, about the whole tribe. So I have upon my small patch of ground two good ewes, with little wit, but wool, and I sent them long before Yule to a ram at Börevig, one of the fine kind from Scotland, as folk bothered me that I must do it, because of the breed and the wool and many things, but not a rotten foot did I hear of until after much jangling among folk and a great to-do among the learned and such like, which is nothing new to me in that kind of folk, who always and always stand behind each other's backs, crying with a loud cry, 'It was not my fault,' but, faith, it was. So I say to myself, 'What shall I do with these rotten feet from Scotland, if I get the disease ingrafted, and likewise upon the innocent offspring,' who are already toddling about all three, because there were two in the one ewe. But foreign sickness is not a thing to be afflicted with, at a time when we have scab among our sheep and much else, and more than I know of, and thus I turned my look again and again to that Government, to see if it will ever gather sense. But yet the Government had not so very rotten feet in that other important matter of a Sheriff, whom we got with unexpected smartness and promptness, much to our gain and the reverse, when we think of what the man now is, but there must be a skipper all the same. And now it is growing light all over the world; that is, in our hemisphere, for spring has come upon us with extraordinary quickness, and the ice, it went with Peder-Varmestol, [Footnote: February 22nd.] and the lapwing, she came one morning with her back shining as if she had been polished out of bronze, with her crest erect, and throwing herself about in the air like a dolphin in the sea, with her head down and her tail up, crying and screaming. But the lark is really the silliest creature, to sing on without ceasing the livelong day, and the sea-pie has come, and stands bobbing upon the same stone as last year, and the wild-goose and the water-wagtail. So we are all cheered up again, all the men of Jæderen, and the cod bites, too, for those who have time, but folk are mostly carting sea-weed, and ploughing and sowing, not without grumbling in some places, but the work must be done.

Yours very truly, L.B. SEEHUS.

KRYDSVIG, July 1, 1889.

MR. EDITOR,

Your letter of the 20th ult. received, and contents noted, and I now beg to reply that it is not very convenient, for the reason that old folk's talk is mostly about winter storms and seldom about summer, when the sun shines, and the lambs frisk and throw their tails high in the air. But, you see, they were tups all three, which was not unlooked-for after such a ram, and consequently no letter can be expected from me before autumn, when the sea gets some life in it and a grown man's voice, so to speak, for now it lies--God bless me--like a basin of milk, to the inward vexation of folk who know what the sea should be in Nature's household with ships and storms and wreckage, and a decent number of wrecks at those places where the structure of the coast permits the rescue of men and a distribution of the wreck if it be of wood, but some trash are now of iron. And I am now as parched in the hide as I was that time in Naples when the helmsman sailed the brig on to the pier-head because a hurricane had risen, and Skipper Worse and I stood on the quay and cried, though he swore mostly, and I had a basket on my arm with something that they called bananas, which they fry in butter. And it is not very nice nowadays, when the sun rises and sets in nothing but blue sky, and not a cloud to be seen, as if it were the Mediterranean of my young days, and I smell the bananas, but we here have no other stinking stuff, that I know, than ware and cods' heads. But, Mr. Editor, the young are dull and heavy with the sunshine; I myself went about singing, and wanted to show the flabby wenches of Varhaug how one once danced a real _molinask_, as it was Sunday and the young folk hung round the walls like half-dead flies in the heat. But there had been grease burnt, which made it more slippery than soft soap on the deck, and there lay the whole master-pilot in the middle of the _molinask_, and bit off the stalk of his clay pipe, but he kept his tooth, which has already been spoken about, and to his shame had to be lifted by four firm-handed fellows with much laughing, wherefore I have sat myself down in my chair to wait for the autumn, because I cannot speak or write about the drought, but only get angry and unreasonable.

Yours very truly, LAURITZ BOLDEMANN SEEHUS.

KRYDSVIG, October 20, 1889.

MR. EDITOR,

I could have continued my silence a very long time yet, for it has not been a great autumn either on land or sea, but little summer storms, as if for frolic, with small seas and loose wreckage, but unusually far out, about three miles from land. But the long, dark lamp-lit evenings are come, and this shoal of fish which I must write to you about and ask what the end is going to be; for now we almost think that the sea up north Stavanger way must be choke-full, as it was of herrings in the good old days that are no more, but it is now big with coal-fish, mostly north by the Reef, they say, but the undersigned and old Velas, who is a still older man, got about four boxes of right nice coal-fish yesterday, a little to the south-east. But half Jæren [Footnote: Jæderen, the coast district near Stavanger.] was on the sea, boat upon boat, for the double reason of the coal-fish and that they had not an earthly thing to do upon the land, for this year the earth has yielded us everything well and very early, but the straw is short, which, if the truth must be told, is the only thing to complain of. But the farmers are making wry faces, like the merchants in Östersöen when they complain of the herrings, for they must always complain, except about the sheep, which are going off very well to the Englishman, and I can't conceive what there will be left of this kind of beast in Jæren, but it is all the same to me, seeing that I have never liked the sheep at all until last year, when he paid taxes for all Jæren, which was more than was expected of him. And it would be well if any one were able to put bounds upon this burning of sea-ware, which the devil or somebody has invented for use as a medicine in Bergen--they say, but I do not believe it, because it has a stink that goes into the innermost part of your nostrils and into your tobacco besides. But then the east wind is good for something, at least, for it sends the heaps of ware out to sea, and I can imagine how it will surprise the Queen of England when she knows how we stink. And I have a grievance of my own, viz., boys shooting with blunderbusses and powder, and with so little wit that my eyes flash with anger every time I see them creeping on their stomachs towards a starling or a couple of lean ring-plovers, and I shout and cast stones to warn the innocent creatures, since the farmer of Jæren is, as it were, his thrall's thrall, and lets the servant-boys make a fool of him and play the concertina all night, which might be put up with, but no powder and shooting should be allowed, so that Jæren may not become a desert for bird-life, and only concertinas left and rascals of boys on their stomachs as above.

Yours very truly, LAURITZ BOLDEMANN SEEHUS.

KRYDSVIG, December 25, 1889.

MR. EDITOR,

After having, in the course of a long and very stormy life, given heed to the clouds of the sky and the various aspects of the sea, which can change before your eyes as you look, like a woman who discovers another whom she likes better, and you stand forsaken and rejected, because a girl's mind is like the ocean above-mentioned, and full of storms as the Spanish Sea, and I early received my shock of that kind for life, of which I do not intend to speak, but the weather is of a nature that I have never before observed in this country, with small seas, rare and moderate storms, and on this first Yule-day a peace on the earth and such a complacent calm on the sea that you might row out in a trough. The wreckage that came in on the 8th and 9th December last was the only extravagance, so to speak, of the sea this year, for there was too much in some places, and this will probably give the Lensmand a pretext for holding an auction, to the great ruination of the people, for the planks were rare ones, both long and good-hearted timber. But at an auction half the pleasure is lost, besides more that is very various in kind--for instance, brandy: and the town gentlemen who sell such liquor to the farmer must answer to their consciences what substances and ingredients such a drink is cooked out of, as it brings on mental weakness and bodily torment, proof of which I have seen numberless times in strong and well-fabricated persons, especially during the Yule-days. But this is not my friendship's time, for they say at the farm that the Oldermand [Footnote: Master-pilot] is haughty, and will not swallow their devil's drink at any price. But I sit alone before a bottle of old Jamaica, which is part of what Jacob Worse brought home from the West Indies in 1825, and I think of him and Randulf and the old ones, and the smell of the liquor seems to call up living conversations, which you can hear, and you must laugh, although you are alone, and you have such a desire to write everything down as it happened; but no more to the newspapers for this reason, that they have been after me with false teeth and a nice, neat widow, of whom nothing more will be said. And this extraordinarily mild winter has in some way kept the rheumatism out of my limbs; besides, I am strong by nature and no age to speak of; but, of course, it must be admitted that youth is better and more lively, of which, as above, nothing more will be said.

As the years go on, Mr. Editor, disappointments bite fast into us, like barnacles and mussels under ships; but we ourselves do not feel that our speed is decreasing, and that we are dropping astern, and, as already hinted, old age does not protect us against folly.

Yours very truly, LAURITZ BOLDEMANN SEEHUS.

OLD DANCES.

We really strove honestly, swung ourselves and swung our ladies, although many were stiff enough to get round. We were not invited to a ball; this dance was merely a surprise frolic.

We had dined in all good faith--at least, the stranger cousin had; and while I stood thinking of coffee, and dreading no danger, the house began to swarm with young folks who had dined upstairs or downstairs, or at home, or not at all, or God knows where. The dining-room doors were thrown open again, the floor was cleared as if by magic, partners caught hold of each other, two rushed to the piano, and--one, two, three, they were in the middle of a galop before I could recover my wits.

They immediately forsook me again, when I received a frightful blow in the region of the heart. It was Uncle Ivar himself, who shouted:

'Come, boy; inside with you, and move your legs. Don't stand there like a snivelling chamberlain, but show what kind of fellow you are with those long pipe-stalks that our Lord has sent you out upon.'

Thus the dance began; and although I did not at all like uncle's way of arranging matters, I good-naturedly set to work, and we strove honestly, that I can say, with the cousins as well as the lighter of the aunts.

By degrees we even became lively; and everything might have passed off in peace and joy if uncle had not taken it into his head that we were not doing our utmost in the dance, especially we gentlemen.

'What kind of dancing is that to show to people?' he exclaimed contemptuously. 'There they go, mincing and tripping, as spindle-shanked as pencils and parasols. No, there was another kind of legs in my time! Pooh, boys, that was dancing, that was!'

We held up our heads and footed it until our ears tingled. But every time that Uncle Ivar passed the ball-room door, his jeers became more aggravating, until we were almost exhausted, each one trying to be nimbler than another.

But what was the use? Every time uncle came back from his round through the smoking-room, where he cooled his head in an enormous ale-bowl, he was bolder and bolder, and at last he had aled so long in the cooling bowl that his boldness was not to be repressed.

'Out of the way with these long-shanked flamingoes!' he cried. 'Now, boys, you are going to see a real national dance. Come, Aunt Knoph, we two old ones will make these miserable youngsters of nowadays think shame.'

'Oh, no, my dear, do let me alone,' begged respectable Mrs. Knoph; 'remember, we are both old.'

'The devil is old,' laughed uncle merrily; 'you were the smartest of the lasses, and I was not the greatest lout among the boys, that I know. So come along, old girl!'

'Oh no, my dear Ivaren; won't you excuse me?' pleaded Mrs. Knoph. But what was the use? The hall was cleared, room had to be made, and we miserable flamingoes were squeezed up against the walls, so that we might be out of the way, at all events.

All the young ladies were annoyed at the interruption, and we gentlemen were more or less sulky over all the affronts that we had endured. But the lady who had to play was quite in despair. She had merely received orders to play something purely national; and no matter how often she asked what dance it was to be, uncle would only stare politely at her over his spectacles, and swear that this would be another kind of dance.

As far as Uncle Ivar was concerned, 'Sons of Norway' was no doubt good enough for any or every dance; and as to the dance itself, the music was really not so very important; for, you see, it happened in this way:

Uncle Ivar came swinging in with one arm by his side, and tall, respectable Mrs. Knoph on the other. He placed her with a chivalrous sweep in the middle of the floor, bowed in the fashion of elderly gallants, with head down between his legs and arms hanging in front, but quickly straightened himself up again and looked about with a provoking smile.

Uncle Ivar, without a coat and with vest unbuttoned, was a sight to see in a ball-room. A flaming red poll, one of the points of his collar up and one down, his false shirtfront thrust under a pair of home-made braces, which were green, two white bands of tape hanging down, a tuft of woollen shirt visible here and there.

But one began to respect the braces when one saw what they carried--a trousers-button as big as a square-sail, and another behind--I am sure that one could have written 'Constantinople' in full across it in a large hand.

'Tush, boys!' cried uncle, clapping his hands, 'now, by Jove, you shall see a dance worth looking at!' And then it began--at least, I _think_ that it began here, but, as will presently appear, this is not quite certain. It happened in this way:

The pianist struck up some national tune or other; uncle swung his arms and shuffled a little with his feet, amorously ogling old Mrs. Knoph over his spectacles.

All attention was now concentrated upon Uncle Ivar's legs; it was clear that after the little preliminary steps he would let himself go! I stood and wondered whether he would spring into the air clear over Mrs. Knoph, or only kick the cap off her head.

That would have been quite like him, and it is not at all certain whether he himself did not think of performing some such feat, for, as will presently appear, we cannot know; it happened, you see, in this way:

As Uncle Ivar, after some little pattering, collected his energies for the decisive _coup_, he violently stamped his feet upon the floor.

But, as if he had trodden upon soft soap, like lightning his heels glided forward from under him. The whole of Uncle Ivar fell backward upon Constantinople, his legs beat the air, and the crown of his head struck the floor with a boom that resounded through the whole house.

Yes, there he lay stretched in all his _rondeur_, with the square-sail just in front of the feet of respectable Mrs. Knoph, who resembled a deserted tower in the desert.

I was irreverent enough to let the others gather him up. Of course he would not fall to pieces; I knew the Constantinople architecture. I slipped out into the corridor and laughed until I was quite exhausted.

But since then I have often wondered what kind of dance it could have been.

AUTUMN.

AARRE, October 7, 1890.

I had intended to send a few observations upon the wild-goose to _Nature_, but since they have extended to quite a long letter, they go to _Dagbladet_. It is not because I believe that they represent anything new that no one has observed before; but I know how thoughtlessly most of us let the sun shine, and the birds fly, without any idea of what a refreshment it is for a man's soul to understand what he sees in Nature, and how interesting animal life becomes when we have once learned that there is a method and a thought in every single thing that the animal undertakes, and what a pleasure it is to discover this thought, and trace the beautiful reasoning power which is Nature's essence.

And thus most of us go through life, and down into a hole in the ground like moles, without having taken any notice of the bird that flew or the bill that sang. We believe that the small birds are sparrows, the larger probably crows; barndoor fowls are the only ones we know definitely.

I met a lady the other day who was extremely indignant about this. She had asked the man at whose house she was staying--a very intelligent peasant--what kind of bird it was that she had seen in the fields. It was evident that it was a thrush--merely a common thrush--and she described the bird to him: it was about half as large as a pigeon, gray and speckled with yellow; it hopped in the fields, and so on.

'Would it be the bird they call a swallow?' suggested the man.

'Not at all,' replied the lady angrily. 'I rather think it was a kind of thrush.'

'Oh! then you had better ask my wife.'

'So she understands birds, does she?' exclaimed the lady, much mollified.

'Yes, she is mad with them, they do so much mischief among the cherries.'

With this my lady had to go. But the story is not yet finished; the worst is to come.

For when, indignant at the countryman's ignorance of the bird-world, she told all this in town, there was one very solemn gentleman who said:

'Are you sure that it was not a gull?'

This went beyond all bounds, thought my lady, and she came and complained bitterly to me.

When wild-geese fly in good order, as they do when in the air for days and nights together, the lines generally form the well-known plough, with one bird at the point, and the two next ones on either side of him a little way behind.

Hitherto I have always been content with the explanation that we received and gave one another as boys, viz., that the birds chose this formation in order to cleave the air, like a snow-plough clearing a way.

But it suddenly occurred to me the other day that this was pure nonsense--an association of ideas called forth by the resemblance to a plough, which moves in earth or snow, but which has no meaning up in the air.

What _is_ cloven air? And who gets any benefit by it?

Yes, if the geese flew as they walk--one directly behind the other--there might perhaps, in a contrary wind, be some little shelter and relief for the very last ones. But they fly nearly side by side in such a manner that each one, from first to last, receives completely 'uncloven' air right in the breast; there can be no suggestion that it is easier for the last than for the first bird to cut a way.

The peculiar order of flight has quite another meaning, viz., to keep the flock together on the long and fatiguing journey; and if we start from this basis, the reasoning thought becomes also evident in the arrangement itself.

Out here by the broad Aarre Water there pass great flights of wild-geese; and in bad weather it may happen that they sit in thousands on the water, resting and waiting.

But even if the flock flies past, there is always uneasiness and noise when they come over Aarre Water. The ranks break, for a time the whole becomes a confused mass, while they all scream and quack at the same time.

Only slowly do they form again and fly southward in long lines, until they shrink to thinner and thinner threads in the gray autumn sky, and their last sound follows them upon the north wind.

Then I always believe that there has been a debate as to whether they should take a little rest down on Aarre Water. There are certainly many old ones who know the place again, and plenty of the young are tender-winged, and would fain sit on the water and dawdle away a half-day's time.

But when it is eventually resolved to fly on without stopping, and the lines again begin to arrange themselves, it has become clear to me that each seeks his own place in the ranks slanting outwards behind the leaders, so that by this means he may be conducted along with the train without being under the necessity of troubling about the way.

If these large, heavy birds were to fly in a cluster for weeks, day and night, separation and confusion would be inevitable. They would get in each other's way every minute with their heavy wings, there would be such a noise that the leader's voice could not be distinguished, and it would be impossible to keep an eye upon him after dark. Besides, over half the number are young birds, who are undertaking this tremendous journey for the first time, and who naturally, at Aarre Water, begin to ask if it be the Nile that they see. Time would be lost, the flock would be broken up, and all the young would perish on the journey, if there were not, in the very disposition of the ranks, something of the beautiful reasoning thought binding them together.

Let us now consider the first bird, who leads the flock--presumably an old experienced gander. He feels an impulse towards the south, but he undoubtedly bends his neck and looks down for known marks in the landscape. That is why the great flocks of geese follow our coast-line southward until the land is lost to view.

But the birds do not look straight forward in the direction of their bills: they look to both sides. Therefore, the bird next to the leader does not follow right behind him in the 'cloven' air, but flies nearly alongside, so that it has the leader in a direct line with its right or left eye at a distance of about two wing-flaps.

And the next bird does the same, and the next; each keeps at the same distance from its fore-bird.

And what each bird sees of its fore-bird are the very whitest feathers of the whole goose, under the wings and towards the tail, and this, in dark nights, is of great assistance to the tired, half-sleeping creatures.

Thus each, except the pilot himself, has a fore-bird's white body in a line with one eye, and more they do not need to trouble about. They can put all their strength into the monotonous work of wing-flapping, as long as they merely keep the one eye half open and see that they have the fore-bird in his place. Thus they know that all is in order, that they are in connection with the train, and with him at the head who knows the way.