A Trip to Norway in 1873

then you must be there early, for there is no late autumnal fishing in Norway; and so much the better. Who but a barbarian cares for catching those great-heavy with spawn-discoloured brutes?

CHAPTER VIII.

THE "KELPIE."

was a wild-looking morning, after the beautiful evening of the day before, as I awoke with the pleasing, or mournful, recollection—according to tastes-that it was my birthday, and that I had arrived at the past patriarchal age of seventy-four, and very pleased and grateful I was at being able to walk, though after a fashion, a hill, still, and keep my dog in sight, when not in too exuberant spirits. I pondered, also, on where and how I spent my last birthday, and how those with whom I spent it had been stricken, and their young branches swept away, while I, a sapless old trunk, was still allowed to cumber the earth. On the whole, however, I did not feel at all displeased to be as I was, and what I was; for there is a real enjoyment in the act of living; above all, when you are able to enjoy that act.

All this was passing in my mind, accompanied with thoughts of perhaps seeing again that big

stag, when my equanimity was disturbed by my friend's servants coming in to announce that the Tolk had arrived with the little steamer to take us away from our present pleasant home, and that, though there was no hurry, it was as well to be off as soon as we could. I heartily wished the steamer anywhere but where she was, for I had got rather attached to our new quarter, to the advocate, to his old mother, and, above all, to the deer dog. But there was no help for it. So I dressed and came downstairs.

There was no mistake about the day. It looked wild and dirty, and even in our little sheltered corner we felt the wind, and the top of the mast of the little steamer was bobbing and jumping about, though the hull was snug behind the high protecting rocks. I did not like the look of it. It was a new moon that day, and there had not been stumps of rainbows, and showers, and squalls, for the last two or three days of the last moon, all for nothing. The gulls would not go out to sea, and the sheep about our house were feeding ravenously. I did not like it at all, and was pleased to hear the captain say he thought it would not do. In about an hour, it was then almost twelve, he said he thought it would,

if we started at once. Of course we were not quite ready. Whoever is, for a steamer or a transport? And we did not get off before past one. The advocate's mother and I, as I said before, had struck up a friendship. She was sixty-eight, I seventy-four, and as they knew it was my birthday, I had to drink the Waes Hael cup with them before starting. Cream, sugar, eggs, and Norway Brantwein, beaten up into a substance something like real, good clouted cream-enough to kill even the Danes. Were it not for a large jorum of cogniac, over and above, poured on this mass, it would be certain death. I drained it to the bottom to the health of the household, not forgetting the deer dog and his great friend the little grandson-the hope of the family. It was very potent, that beverage, but for all that when I went aboard the Kelpie, the little steamer's name, I did not like it. The skipper did not like it. The old seaman and his boy (the crew) did not like it. The two engineers did not like it, and talked to the captain. My friend and his servant did not like it. The dogs did not like it, as they were in the bows, and did not approve of the washing they seemed in for-and yet we started.

The moment our moorings were loosed, and

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