A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden Part 20

P----, too, no longer retained that upright, soldierly att.i.tude for which I had always admired him, but leaned so much backwards, that, should the good rod, I thought, give way, nothing on earth can save him from falling on the hinder part of his head. R---- wound up his line, and sat down in his pram to watch P----.

It is the custom, the instant the salmon takes the fly, for the rower to pull towards the sh.o.r.e with as much celerity and judgment as possible, neither to drive the boat too swiftly through the water, or loiter too slowly, both extremes endangering the chance of capturing your salmon.

That part of the stream where P---- fished, was about forty yards below a rapid, and, indeed, ran with the current of a sluice; and the reader may imagine, that, a very little impetus given to the pram against this current, would increase the pressure of a large salmon on a small gut line. Directly the boatman discovered that P---- had a bite, towards the bank he commenced to row; but not with that degree of expedition P---- desired. Although I was some distance from them, I could perceive the energetic signals of P----'s left hand to the Norwegian to pull ash.o.r.e more briskly. Every now and then the rattling of the reel would keep P----'s excitement alive, and as he gradually wound up the line, the salmon, making another start, would threaten to run away with every inch of tackle. Warily the Norwegian rowed, scarcely dipping his sculls in the water, lest their splash should startle the most timid of fish; but his cautious conduct made no impression on P----, for I could still see him motion angrily to the Norwegian to be more speedy.

The bank of the river at last was reached, and stumbling over sculls and baling ladles, for these prams leak like sponges, and getting his foot entangled in a landing net, P---- contrived to step on sh.o.r.e; but barely had he stood on land again, than the line snapped, and the rod flew to the perpendicular with a short, sharp hiss. Imagination cannot sympathise with P----'s feelings, when, after travelling over a thousand miles, or more, for the sake of entrapping salmon, he should break, through the stupidity or slothfulness of a Norwegian boatman, his best gut line, and lose the finest salmon in the whole Larvig river. P----'s eyes wandered to the summit of his rod as it shot, like a poplar, straight into the air, and saw the remnant of his tackle, not half a yard long, flowing in every direction to the varying puffs of wind; and turning his head slowly round towards the astounded Norwegian, gave him a mingled look of inexpressible contempt and anger; and then, casting his rod violently to the ground, stamped his foot, and vowed he would never fish again.

"You stupid a.s.s!" I heard him shout to the Norwegian, perfectly ignorant whether P---- was addressing him with excess of pa.s.sion, or a tornado of praise; "didn't I tell you, as well as I could, to pull faster? Do you think cat-gut is made of iron?"

"Ja[3]," said the gaping Norwegian, catching a very vague idea of his meaning.

"But it isn't, you d----d fool!" exclaimed P---- angrily. "Why don't you do what you're told?"

"Ja----," again began the unhappy boatman.

"But you didn't," shouted P----, cutting him off in the midst of his reply.

"Ja, ja," interposed the Norwegian, "I pool pram."

"Yes, you did 'pool pram,' and a pretty mess you have made of it;" and P---- put his hands in his trowsers' pockets, and began to walk up and down on the bank.

"What's the row?" called out R---- from his pram, floating in the middle of the river; "Have you lost your fish?"

He had witnessed the whole transaction, as well as I.

"It's hardly credible," answered P----, stopping in his walk, "that these Norwegian fools can live in a country all their days, and have salmon under their noses, and not know how to catch them. Curse the fools! the sooner one leaves them the better."

"So I think," acceded R----, sitting down quietly in the after part of his pram, and dangling his crossed leg. "For my part, I don't think there are any salmon at all. _I_ can't get a _rise_. I wouldn't mind betting an even crown you had hold of a weed!"

"Pooh! stuff!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed P----, starting off in his see-saw ambulation again. "I saw the fish;--'twas fifteen pound weight at least."

"Oh! if you saw him, that's another thing," said R----; and taking his pipe out of his pocket, began to soothe his nerves by blowing off his disappointment in the substantial form of pure Oronoco tobacco-smoke.

Half an hour afterwards, P---- was hard at work as ever, perfectly regardless of the solemn attestation he had volunteered to Jupiter.

The four sailors who had rowed the gig from Larvig, had, with the ingenuity of their cla.s.s, constructed a tent, lighted a fire, and were preparing breakfast, both for us and themselves. This was the first time I had breakfasted in the open air, and it is not so unpleasant as might be imagined, particularly should the morning be so calm, and clear, and warm as this one was. Shaded by a high mountain, fresh with the foliage of fir, birch, and filbert trees, the morning sun reached not our encampment. The balmy air, the dew and early vapour upon the gra.s.s, the humming sound of the bee, the low of cattle, the l.u.s.ty salutation of peasants as they met each other, proceeding to their labour, and, above all, the murmuring river, were sounds and things as pleasant to hear and see as always to remember.

R---- and P---- were unwearied; nor did they yield to fatigue until the sun had risen so high, that its heat sent the fish to respire at the bottom of the river, and the animals under shelter of the trees. After we had breakfasted, R---- and P---- exchanged a few remarks on the art of angling, felt the fatigue of rising at two in the morning, and fell fast asleep. I possessed the wakefulness of a second Cerberus, and allowed not Morpheus to approach my eyelids; but loitering, up and down, under the shady boughs of the trees, listened to the sweet silvery rippling of the river, as it crept between the rocks, or bubbled over its s.h.i.+ngly bed. Overpowered at last by the fury of the vertical sun, I entered the tent that had been formed by raising the gig's sail on the four oars.

R---- and P---- were still slumbering, and I was lying under the tent, on the ground, reading the Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. The sailors who had formed the boat's crew were sauntering about along the banks of the river; and the c.o.c.kswain, who generally on such excursions as the present performed the part of cook, was seated on a piece of rock which projected into the bubbling stream, busily occupied in the preparation of dinner. Whistling, and humming, by fits, one of the sea-songs of his country, he wore the time away while peeling some potatoes, which, one by one, as his large knife, slung from his belt by a piece of yarn, deprived of their jackets, he threw into an iron pot, having rinsed them previously in the flowing river. Within his sight, lay, on a white towel, a leg of lamb, bewitchingly sprinkled with salt, all prepared to be cooked, but only waiting for the potatoes to bear it company to the fire. Absorbed in my book, I paid little attention to what was pa.s.sing around me, except by an occasional glance, until I heard a loud, shrill scream, and then a louder rustling of feathers, as if this was the noon of the last day, and Gabriel having blown his trumpet without my hearing it, had actually reached the earth. I jumped up, and running out of the tent, saw the c.o.c.kswain standing like a nautical statue, motionless, gazing upwards, and with a stick grasped firmly in his hand. Following his example, I turned my eyes reverentially to the skies, and distinguished, from the blaze of day, a most l.u.s.ty eagle, making the best of his way towards the residence of Jove with the leg of lamb in his beak; and, as if conscious of the superiority his position had given him over us, waving the white towel, grasped with his talons, hither and thither in the air, like a flag moved exultingly by conquerors after victory.

"It's gone, sir," said the sailor, lowering the uplifted club, "and, blow me, if I ever heerd him coming."

I shall not forget the utter disgust of R---- and P----, when, like a couple of Samsons they awoke, and found that their hair was certainly untouched, but that the most positive support of their strength had been cut off irretrievably, and their dinner of lamb gone where all innocence should go. Some bread and cheese, together with a few eggs which the boatmen purchased for us at a neighbouring cottage, supplied the loss of our lamb. The coolness of the afternoon gave R---- and P----, an opportunity to renew their ardour, and at six o'clock they both might have been found encouraging the habit of patience in the art of angling.

The rattling of their reels, gave, at almost every half hour, the announcement of a bite, and hurrying in their prams to the sh.o.r.e, my friends, after the torture of another half hour, would, with the a.s.sistance of a gaff, place the unhappy salmon among the long gra.s.s growing on the river's brink.

The Norwegians, and I believe, all persons who have the sense of taste developed to a most extraordinary nicety, say that the fish which are caught with the hook, are not to be compared in flavour to those taken in the net. Though I cannot account for the exquisiteness of taste, that can distinguish between one and the other plan of catching the salmon, I can very easily suppose that the pain, more or less, given in the destruction of an animal, may increase or decrease the flavour of the flesh, when used as food. A fish drawn backwards and forwards through the water with a hook piercing its gills, or the more tender fibres of the stomach, till it is almost jaded to death, and then lacerated with such an instrument as the gaff, must endure such an acc.u.mulation of the most intense pain, that the sweeter juices of the flesh escape during the throes of a protracted death, and render its taste more stale and flat. But the fish, taken in the net, suffers no injury; and free from pain is instantaneously deprived of life, while the muscular parts retain all the rigour and nutriment requisite for human food.

R---- and P---- caught eight fish between them, varying from fifteen to twenty-five pounds' weight each; and, striking our tent, we returned in the twilight of evening to the yacht at Larvig.

Nothing daunted, R---- and P---- rose again the following morning at two, and collecting their fis.h.i.+ng apparatus, began to prepare for another jaunt up the river. They were very desirous that I should accompany them; but having had insight enough into the stratagem of salmon-fis.h.i.+ng for the next three days, I declined.

"Well! ain't you going to get up? It's past two," I heard some one say; but not quite certain whether I was dreaming, or really awake.

"Hollo! sleepy-head!" another voice shouted, and a strong arm shook me.

"Eh? what is it?" I asked, rubbing my eyes, entirely bewildered as to the cause of such rough usage.

"Come! look alive, if you're coming. The sun's up, and we must be off,"

the last speaker continued. I could not conceive where I had promised to go; nor could I make out what the sun had to do with my movements. A second violent shake roused me.

"I am awake!" I said pettishly. "What do you want; who are you?"

"Get up, you great m.u.f.f!" the loud voice again exclaimed from the centre of the cabin. I sat up in my bed. From my berth I could see into the main cabin. R---- and P---- in their short fis.h.i.+ng coats, and jack-boots, were standing round the cabin table, and drinking some preparation of milk, rum, and egg.

"It's capital, isn't it?" I heard P---- say.

"Splendid!" R---- replied. "Let's have it every morning."

"Ha! many a time," P---- continued, "I have swallowed this just before going to morning parade. It's the best thing in the world on an empty stomach. Here's a little more." And he filled R----'s gla.s.s.

"Where are you going so early?" I asked, quite forgetful that we were even in Norway.

"Why, to fish, of course," replied R----.

"What else do you suppose we are going to do? Come along."

"No; not this morning," I said, falling back on my pillow. "I am tired."

"Pooh! what humbug! you've been in bed ever since twelve. What more do you want?" replied one of them.

"A little more," I answered, making myself as snug as I could; for I had really not slept an hour.

"That's just like you, always pulling another way," R---- observed.

"What's the good of remaining here all alone, when you might gaff for me? It's so unsociable!"

"Hang the gaffing!" I answered.

"If you don't like to gaff," suggested R----, "take the little rifle and shoot an eagle or two. That's better than remaining behind; and we can go to bed early to-night."

"Why can't you go without me?" I said. "I don't care about fis.h.i.+ng, and I do about comfort; for I feel now as if I had not been to bed at all."

This indifference to a sport, they both deemed the most exciting, caused them to upbraid me, till half-past two, with such epithets as, "an old woman," "a shocking c.o.c.kney," "a fellow only fit to wear white kid gloves," "a Regent Street swell," "a land lubber," "a milk sop," and a mult.i.tude of other curious idioms, that rather made me merry than clashed with my pride.

About ten o'clock, I received a note from the Consul, intimating that a party of ladies desired to see the yacht, and requested he might bring them on board. I replied that I could, in the absence of R----, undertake to say how cordially he would have granted his permission, and flatteringly he would have felt the compliment, had he been present, and I begged that the Consul would act as if the vessel were his own. Three hours afterwards, I saw several boats, filled with ladies, shoot out from a little bay, on the starboard bow of the yacht, and gliding as swiftly through the smooth water as the two rowers to each boat could force them, soon cl.u.s.tered round the gangway. Thirteen young ladies, the Consul being the only gentleman among them, jumped lightly on board; and as they followed, interminably, one after the other, I never felt the responsibility of any position so impressively, as I did the present one. The young ladies, however, were all Norwegian, except one; so that I had not much trouble in talking to them, their native tongue, or the German, being the only two languages they could understand, and of both of which I was almost ignorant.

Although I could not enter into conversation with them, I felt it was my bounden duty to contribute by some device, or the other, to the entertainment of these young ladies. Knowing the partiality of my own countrywomen to music, I hazarded the idea, that the Norwegian ladies were filled with an equal admiration for waltzes and polkas; and being fortunately possessed of two very large musical boxes, I wound them up.

When these boxes began to play, my fair visitors were much delighted with their ingenious mechanism, and for some short time listened to them with wonder and delight; but at last, in harmonious movement to their sweet notes, these children put their little arms round each other's waists and began to dance. The elder girls, catching the mood, clasped their companions by the hand, and begged them to join the merry group.