CHAPTER X.

BESSE SÆTER.

_July 28._--Our two men arrived while we were at breakfast this morning, and brought two sleighs in the boat with them; these they deposited on the shore, and then one of them departed into some secret haunt of his own in search of a horse. The last we saw of him was a wee dot struggling up over the mountain crest; and we began to feel what a hopeless sort of task was before us.

When we had finished our breakfast there were certain remnants of food, and these we offered to the other man, because he seemed to want something to do. We left him in the tent with a frying-pan containing two trout fried in butter, and a tin pot nearly full of soup. Some time afterwards we looked in, and saw him eating greedily off his knife-blade, and after a further interval we noticed that he had finished; then we examined the culinary utensils out of which he had been feeding, and found he had left the trout untouched, but the butter they were fried in he had utterly consumed off the blade of his knife, and also all the soup through the same medium. But there was not more than a gallon and a half of the latter, so we did not grudge it.

Apparently he was like a giant refreshed after his meal, and seizing one canoe he carried it up to the top of the mountain, and then came back for the other and did the same with it; after this he returned again and borrowed our axe, saying he wanted to make the path better for the sleigh. He disappeared among the stunted birches, and we heard him chopping and slowly getting further up the track for about an hour. We naturally supposed that he was clearing away trees that obstructed the path, but when we came to traverse that path ourselves, soon afterwards, we discovered that he had only been filling up holes in the road by felling trees across it. Now a road that can be improved by this process is in a very bad state and this one was decidedly improved.

Just before we started an English tourist came down the mountain and arranged with Siva (one of our men) to go down the lake in his boat. He was the first of our fellow-countrymen whom we have seen since Lillehammer, and proved to be the only one we met all through our trip in the mountains.

After some time we perceived three dots wending their way down the path again, and presently they arrived, proving to be our other man and two extremely shaggy ponies; and after the complicated Norwegian harness had been put on we began the ascent. The path was as bad as bad could be for a short distance, but when the level was reached it became much better than we had had hitherto; it was only the first climb up from the lake that presented any difficulty. The canoes could only have been transported as they were, on a man's back.

It continued showery, but we had a very pleasant walk, and launched our canoes on Sjödals Vand at about three o'clock. A short paddle across the lake, not more than three quarters of a mile, and we were at Besse Sæter.

Sjödals Vand is a long straggling lake, very much exposed to the wind, and not in any way beautiful except for its wildness, as its shores are almost treeless and rather flat. Its most remarkable characteristic is the colour of its water, which is a light greenish blue, like a starling's egg, and stands out in striking contrast against the yellow shore and dark mountain heights which surround it.

Besse Sæter is only three miles from Gjendin Vand--the haven where we would be; and the snow-capped mountains, which have been gradually getting nearer all the way from Olstappen, are now magnificently towering above us on three sides.

The Sæter is a hut, built as they all are, entirely of wood, and only inhabited during the summer months. The hut in which we are living is not strictly speaking a sæter at all, but has been built for the convenience of travellers, and the Tronhuus family are entrusted with the duty of taking care of those who come hither while wandering about this, the wildest and grandest part of Norway. The real sæter is a larger building about a quarter of a mile from this hut, and higher up the mountain. And further away still there is yet another building, or collection of buildings, also called Besse Sæter.

Our hut has three rooms, two of which--a bedroom and eating-room--are occupied at present solely by us: in the other room dwell two girls, apparently guests of the Tronhuus. Peter Tronhuus himself and his numerous family live in a one-roomed hut just opposite this. At present the family appears to consist of two men, five women, and two children, relationship to each other unknown.

Peter and his son Jens--who was with us on a former expedition--are both away at present; the latter engaged in procuring various articles for us, such as potatoes, men, ponies, and dogs, about which we wrote to him from England; and he is expected back to-morrow.

In spite of the crowd of people living here, everything is beautifully clean and tidy, and our eating-room looks very nice, with its floor always covered with fresh juniper sprays, and a cheerful fire burning in that most charming of fireplaces, the primitive Norwegian corner-hearth, which is being rapidly superseded everywhere by horrid tall, black, iron stoves, that look like coffins set up on end, and smell like flat-irons and rosin when they are lighted.

We shall have to make this place our home until Jens turns up; and we are not at all sorry to do so, for they take the greatest trouble to make us comfortable, and the trout, fladbrod, and coffee are simply perfection. Besides, we are only a short day's journey from Memurudalen, where we intend to camp, and there is nothing to be gained by getting there before August 1, the opening day of the reindeer season.

After supper we sallied out, the Skipper with rod, Esau with gun, to see what we could catch. Esau landed on the marsh at the head of the lake, to try and circumvent some duck he had descried; in this he failed, but shot a greenshank, of which there were several flying about.

The Skipper fished the river without success. Sjödals Vand is a fine lake, but not much good for fishing, because of the great amount of netting that is carried on in the summer by the dwellers in the Sæter; nevertheless there are good fish in it, as we have seen many of two and three pounds weight, that they have caught in the nets.

_July 29._--A friend of ours began the opening chapter of his virgin novel with the words 'It was a thoroughly cussèd morning towards the latter end of July.' The same applied exactly to this morning: but the arrival of Jens encouraged us; and Esau walked outside to look at the sky; where, thrusting his hands in his pockets and lodging an eye-glass in his eye, he focussed the heavens generally, with a cruel, inquisitive stare; and shaking his head knowingly, indulged in a prophecy concerning the weather--'that the wind now being in the west, there would be continuous sunshine for three weeks at least.' Then he walked in again, and we all shivered over the fire.

Jens arrived at breakfast-time, and after greetings had been exchanged, reported all his achievements on our behalf. He had secured for us a stalker, one Öla, a hewer of wood and drawer of water, by name Ivar (his last office seems likely to be a sinecure, but we can work him double at the first-mentioned employment), a horse, and a sack of potatoes; all of which will arrive at Memurudalen in time for August 1. We hoped for a dog for Ryper, but he had not been able to get one.

Esau is always bemoaning the law which prohibits him bringing dogs from England; it is suspected that he has a large collection of useless animals there, that he wishes to import into Norway and sell to the guileless and unreflecting native. Unassisted by any of the canine tribe, however, we have now accumulated what we call 'a good larder of bird-meat;' for certain wild fowl were observed to-day to secrete themselves in the marsh at the head of the lake, whither we followed them with all our dread artillery, and we now have a lot of teal, greenshanks, sandpipers, and a ring dotterel stowed away and engaged in preparing themselves by decomposition for our consumption. Some of these birds are almost unknown to the table of the ordinary Briton; but if he will consider that our daily food depends entirely on what we shoot or catch, we hope, as the writers of books say, 'the kind reader will excuse' the sandpipers and dotterel.

We were wet through on the marsh, and not at all sorry to return to a comfortable fire in a warm room, instead of the streaming sides of a cold and cheerless tent. Shooting as we did above our knees in water, the rain did not make any appreciable difference in our great wetness. After the point of saturation is past, we have discovered that the human frame is as impervious to moisture (external) as a macintosh.

This summer so far has been remarkably wet and cold for Norway, but we have now the inexpressible consolation of knowing that they are in worse case at home; for we have received our first batch of letters and papers from England, which have been a fortnight _en route_.

_July 30._--Prophets are without honour in these parts; they are also without truth, honesty, or any good quality or proper feeling. This day is worse than usual, and the good people here have been going about with blanched cheeks, whispering with bated breath of a great flood which occurred in the time of one Noah. We spent all the morning trying to teach the cows, goats, and poultry to walk two and two in case of any emergency arising, and the Skipper--who was engaged in building what he called a Nark--was repeatedly coming into the Sæter to ask how many yards there were in a cubit. However, at lunch-time the land was still visible, so we sallied forth into the marsh again, and secured some more teal; and then Esau went off in his canoe after some scaup ducks on the lake; and brought home two, after following them--according to his after-dinner account of the struggle--for about six hours, while they swam, and flew, and dived; and he paddled, and swore, and shot. They appear to have roamed over the whole extent of this vast lake, seeking safety from his unerring barrels. And he now points to a little hill, far below the distant horizon, beneath which he affirms that he brought the last victim to bay and slew him. He was absent on the expedition an hour and a quarter; a canoe will go about five miles an hour; and the lake is seven miles long. But we did not come out here to do arithmetic.

We settled not to go to Gjendin ourselves to-day, as the weather was so very unfavourable, but we packed and despatched some of our luggage this evening, and purpose following it to-morrow.

Before doing this we had a long interview with Jens Tronhuus, with the main object of settling all accounts. Now a long interview between three men who cannot speak two words of each other's languages is a somewhat intricate business, and would be decidedly amusing to beholders. How we got through it is beyond the wit of man, but nevertheless the fact remains that everything is beautifully arranged; we thoroughly understand each other; both sides are satisfied; and we concluded everything without the aid of that potent mediator, Whisky, the Great and Good.

Besse Sæter grows upon one: the people are all so simple and kind, and cook our food so well, that we shall be quite sorry to leave, even though trout and reindeer are in prospect.