CHAPTER XXI.

FISHING.

_August 20._--The first thing this morning we sent Öla to Gjendesheim with some venison for the people there, who have been very kind in sending milk, eggs, rice, onions, &c. to us. We have more meat than we shall be able to eat if the weather continues as fine and hot as it is at present.

We three walked over the mountain to spend the day at Rus Vand, taking our lunch with us. We got there about half-past ten, and the fish were then rising well, so we separated and commenced fishing, the Skipper and John taking the north side of the lake, Esau the south. After catching a few fish the rise stopped, as it always does on these lakes about midday.

There is no doubt that on a Norwegian lake the fisherman should above all things 'make haste while the fish rise.' It is all very well for the ancient sportsman to remark, 'Take your time, my young friend, there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.' It is no doubt true enough; but at this time of year they will not rise to fly for more than about a couple of hours twice a day, and if you do not make the best of your opportunities then, where are you? Put yourself in the place of the fine old veteran three-pounder who has got into the habit of taking his meals at regular hours for fear of spoiling his digestion, and has selected the hours between 10 and 12 A.M. and 4.30 and 6.30 P.M., because he knows from long experience that these are the most likely times to find flies on the water. He has come in from roaming in deep waters to the shades of the rocky coast, and has a certain appetite to allay after his bath and morning stroll. There he waits, and thinks of old times, and of how fat and shiny his tummy became the last hot summer there was, when flies were plentiful, and he had not to resort to this abominable device of catching small trout and eating mice[*] to keep him in daily food, as he nearly always has to do now that the summers are so wet, and he is no longer active enough to compete with his younger relations in the struggle for existence. 'What times those were, and how he wishes he were a year or two younger again, and not crippled with useless length; and, by George! now he comes to look at his reflection against that stone, he's getting quite yellow and bilious under the belly, and----' But he can't stop to moralise, there is a luscious March Brown of unusual solidity skating right over his pet rock, and he can't let it pass. So up he comes and gulps it down, with a lazy flop of his tail that leaves quite a swirl on the lake surface. 'Why, the thing's got no flavour, and how I've hurt my jaw with it!' Poor old chap, his day is over, and after ten minutes' struggle he has left his favourite haunt to be occupied by another tenant, and is safe in the landing net, a good three-pound fish, but, like most of those who have reached this size, not quite in as good condition as he was at 2½ lbs., and just a shade longer than he ought to be. Don't stop to gaze at him, put him in the bag with all speed--it is necessary to hurry up and fish on while the rise lasts.

[Footnote: We have found as many as three mice in the stomach of a Rus Vand trout.]

But all this time the hours have been slipping away, and we have lunched, and smoked, and sketched till the rise began again soon after four, and though there was a strong cold west wind, the change seemed to encourage the fish to feed more greedily than usual, for trout are terrible Radicals, and rejoice in any alteration of the existing condition of things.

Our old experience of Rus Vand taught us that one side was sporting-looking and interesting, while the other was bleak and ugly; but Esau, who took the ugly side, had much the best of it to-day, as the place seemed alive with fish, and he kept catching them all the time, so that his little ten-foot rod was continually to be seen in the form of a hoop, from which position it reassumed the perpendicular in a way that reflects no little credit on Mr. Farlow.

When we met again at the end of the lake on our way home, we found that we had twenty fish, weighing just 44 lbs., of which Esau had caught fifteen weighing 32½ lbs., the Skipper four of 9 lbs. weight, and John, who was very unlucky, only a single two-and-a-half-pounder. The smallest of the bag was a little over a pound, the largest three pounds, which was reached by more than one; and nearly all were caught in water so shallow that the dorsal fin of the fish was often visible in his mad rushes hither and thither; this made it extremely difficult to prevent the tail-fly being hung up on a rock whenever the fish was hooked on the dropper, and not a few were lost in this manner. All were caught on two patterns of fly, namely----No, philanthropy has limits, and no man can expect to be told patterns of flies. Go to Norway, and the time and trouble spent in acquiring that knowledge will be amply repaid by the pleasure that no one could fail to derive from a visit.

No doubt, with the usual discontentedness of man we shall regret for ever that we did not all go to the ugly side of the lake, of which Esau was obliged to leave the best piece untouched as he came back, from sheer inability to carry any more fish over the rough ground. But the ways of fish are inscrutable; we hardly ever caught any number on that side before, and probably shall not do so again. It was just Esau's day. Kismet.

After weighing our catch, we cleaned them and cut off their heads to lighten them for the journey over Glopit, and even without this extra weight we were a good deal troubled and felt overburdened on the uphill side, which is terribly steep and rough, only just practicable for a man on foot.

When we got back to camp we found that Öla had not returned from Gjendesheim, which caused us some sorrow, as Esau wanted to go out stalking on the morrow, and could not go alone. At least, he would be extremely unlikely to see any deer, for the reindeer being exactly the same colour as the mountains among which they live, it is almost impossible to see them before they see the enemy and depart hastily.

These native hunters are wonderful at the profession, and seem to know by instinct when they are in the vicinity of deer, as if they could feel their presence in the air. No doubt they really see indications that we should never observe, for they always begin to go cautiously, crouching and peering over rocks when deer are about, long before we amateurs are aware from the ordinary signs of footprints, nibbled reindeer flowers, or newly moved stones, that there is likely to be any sport.

[Plate: ON THE TOP OF GLOPIT. RETURNING FROM RUS LAKE.]

_August 21._--It was cold and windy last night, so we turned into bed early and lay in luxurious comfort while John read out choice bits, all of which we know by heart, from the works of Mark Twain. We all think Mark Twain the best writer for camp life that has yet been discovered, and we have three or four of his books here. Besides these our library of light literature consists of Shakespeare, Longfellow, Dr. Johnson's Table-talk, and novels by Whyte Melville, Walford, and Thackeray. But Mark and William get more work than all the rest.

It is quite dark now during the night, and we have made a wooden chandelier out of a curiously bent piece of birch wood, which holds two candles and hangs down from the ridge pole by a string. In the daytime it is hoisted up to the roof, but at night we let it down till it swings about two feet above our heads as we lie in bed. This contrivance is capital for reading, and also affords considerable diversion to the last man into bed. The candles are just too high to be reached with a puff easily from a recumbent position, and yet we persistently try to blow them out without moving. Just as sleep is creeping over two of the wearied sportsmen, the last man begins blowing and cussing at these candles every night regularly. The scene is generally this. Skipper and John just dropping off to sleep. Esau lies down, makes himself extremely comfortable, and then--puff, whoo, whew, puff,--gasp for breath, rest a moment. Pouf. Chandelier swings round under the impulse of the strong wind thus created. Esau makes a brilliant flying shot at one candle, as it circles swiftly past. Skipper: 'Thank goodness.' Pause. Esau: Poof, whoo, whoof. John: 'Dash it all, get up and put it out.' Esau: 'Get up yourself.' Skipper: 'Let me blow it out.' Pouf, puff, whoosh. Chandelier swings madly round, drops grease on John's nose. John: 'Tare an 'ouns.' Throws tobacco pouch at it, more grease all over the place, tobacco pouch rebounds from tent into Esau's mouth. Recrimination for five minutes. Chandelier at last stationary. Everybody at once: 'Puff, boo, pouf, whew, ---- it, ---- it, pouf, ---- it, ---- the ---- thing -- -- -- pouf. Thank goodness;' and we all turn over with a sigh of relief, to repeat the performance the following night.

Öla not having turned up, there could be no stalking, so the beautiful morning was wasted. The Skipper got so angry about it that he said he would go in his canoe to find the absentee, and take at the same time a lot of our surplus fish for the people at Gjendesheim.

Leaving the tent on its grassy sunlit lawn he walked down to the edge of the great lake, and turning over the smaller of the two canoes, which were lying bottom uppermost, launched her and got in with rod and fishing bag, and pushed off into the deep. Opposite to the place where the canoes were drawn up, and apparently only a hundred yards distant though really more than a mile away, were the snow-capped mountain steeps that rise almost perpendicularly from two to three thousand feet out of the lake; and for these he made, gradually becoming a mere twinkling speck till he faded out of sight from the tent. The lake was as smooth as glass, only occasionally rippled as some monarch of the deep, excited for once in his life by some specially fascinating fly, condescended to make a rush for it instead of the gentle suck by which he usually took his food, and the Skipper paddled leisurely along within twenty yards of the rocks, with his rod bending over the stern, and trailing behind a couple of flies in the hope of catching a trout without the trouble of angling for him.

It is very pleasant to be alone once in a way in this overcrowded world. Not alone as it is possible to be in England, but absolutely alone, with no living thing near except the trout, the insects, and one's image in the water. Oh, blessed Norway! when we get back to the turmoils, troubles, and pleasures of a London season how we shall long for you! There is only one word to express this existence, and that is Freedom--freedom from care, freedom from resistance, and from the struggle for life. What a country! where civilised man can relapse as much as seems good to him into his natural state, and retrograde a hundred generations into his primeval condition.

But we forget that the Skipper is coasting up towards Gjendesheim in search of the miscreant Öla.

He proceeded for a couple of hours, catching a few fish now and then, but presently as midday approached, the sun became too hot to be pleasant, the fish would not move, and the Skipper began to get impatient and annoyed at not meeting Öla. After a while a black speck with two flashing arms appeared rounding a promontory; this was Öla in the boat. The Skipper was boiling with rage under the influence of various incentives as he approached. Öla, like most Norwegians, was calm, placid, and utterly unconscious of the flight of time and the shortness of life. The Skipper had been primed to exploding point by his two friends before starting, and as he had now paddled five miles from home without meeting the adversary, he was, to put it mildly, 'indignant.' So, when he found Öla smoking serenely, and sculling along as though his brief span were going to stretch through the unending cycles of eternity, he gave way to the most horrible outbreak of temper in English, which must have lasted four or five minutes, and then telling the caitiff in Norwegian to take the fish to Gjendesheim and return to camp by five o'clock whatever the weather might be, he turned and left that hardy Norseman open-mouthed and bewildered, looking as though he had seen the Strömkarl, or had had an interview with his mother-in-law.

Then a great wind arose, and blew against the Skipper all the way home, but he arrived in the most beatific frame of mind in spite of it; the relief of the storm of temper and bad language had been so great to him, that he was filled with a blessed joy. He said it was the most invigorating and refreshing pastime he ever indulged in, for Öla could not understand a word of it, and therefore no remorse could follow the outburst, not a thoughtless expression or hasty word could go home to his heart and there rankle, to recoil on some future occasion, but the whole vial of pent-up wrath could be emptied on its object without fear of retribution.

The explosion must have been something very fine to enable the Skipper to make light of the head-wind, for a wind on Gjendin is not to be scoffed at in any boat, and least of all in a cockle-shell of a canoe. The mountains are so high and steep that the lake lies as it were in a trench, and any wind always draws straight up or down the length, and soon gets a big sea up. All the Norwegians we have seen say it is the height of madness to go on Gjendin at all in such boats, the sudden squalls are so dangerous; and neither of our men can be persuaded to go a yard in them.

Esau and John, for want of better employment, after fishing a little, began to bake, and had laid out a goodly show of dainty confections, two dozen rolls, four wimberry tarts, a lot of biscuits, and a venison pie of the ordinary size (9 inches diameter). When the Skipper returned it was decided to make another, as we imagine the meat has a better chance of keeping when hoarded up in pies than when left in its raw state.

So we each took our usual share in the construction of a PIE, before which all other pies should be as nought.

It was made in our largest baking tin, 12 inches across, and contained nearly a hind quarter of venison, our last six eggs, a heart, a liver, and about 1½ lb. of bacon. The crust was put on about nine o'clock, and after we had all gazed at it and unanimously agreed that it was the 'boss pie,' we bore it proudly but gingerly to the oven, heated by John seven times hotter than before, and now gaping to receive it; a great full moon rose up from behind the mountains and seemed to smile on our good work; the bright fire shed a red glow over the three figures bending o'er the simmering treasure, and a more peaceful, domestic group it would be impossible to conceive.

About eleven John and the Skipper turned in, but outside could be seen for some time the solitary form of Esau still crouching over the expiring embers of the oven, and tending with a mother's care the tempting food that he already tasted in imagination.

[Plate: BAKING BY NIGHT IN MEMURUDALEN.]

Most of the berries of the country are now just at their best, and Memurudalen is a grand valley for all of them, except of course the strawberry and raspberry, which will not grow at this altitude. But we have 'klarkling' (the English crowberry) in great abundance; blau bær (wimberry), the finest and best ever seen, in quantities; also 'skin tukt,' another blue berry rather larger than a wimberry, and with a thicker skin and wonderful bloom on it; this we think does not grow in England. Then less numerous are a berry something between a raspberry and a red currant, but of better flavour than either of them; and the great and glorious 'mölte bær' (cloudberry); to say nothing of 'heste bær,' and 'tutti bær,' and several others of unknown names. The last one grows in England, but we have forgotten its name; they make jelly from it here, and prize it highly for its acid taste.