n "n - W illi n : ■*i« M^""^ l |n LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ChapH2.S.:Xopyright No... Slielf„,5-4_4. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 1 THE BODLEY BOOKS. This series of books consists of five volumes, each independent of the others, but since the characters are the same in all there is a natural connection between them, and the order of their appearance indicates also the gradual growth of the children who make up the younger members of the Bodley Family. The series is as follows : — I. DOINGS OF THE BODLEY FAMILY IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. This contains some of the doings of Nathan, Philippa, and Lucy Bodley, their father and mother, the hired man Martin, and Nathan's Cousin Ned, upon their removal from Boston to Roxbury. It introduces, also, Nathan's pig, the dog Neptune, Lucy's kitten, Lucy's doll, Mr. Bottom the horse, chickens, mice; it has stories told to the children by their parents, by Martin, and by each other. Martin's brother Hen is referred to occasionally. II. THE BODLEY S TELLING STORIES. In this book Nathan's cousin, Ned Adams, a young collegian, is shown as much of the time living with his cousins, and Nurse Young becomes a part of the family. The children are entertained with a good many stories, especially from American history; they have a Mother Goose party, and go on a journey to Cape Cod. Hen remains in the background. III. THE BODLEY S ON WHEELS. The family enter a carryall and drive, accompanied by Ned on horseback, along the coast of Massachusetts Bay from Boston to Gloucester, and thence, through Ipswich and Rowley, to Newburyport, and so home again. Their drive leads them through historic places and by spots made famous in poetry and legend. On their arrival home they find Martin's brother Hen in the barn, just back from a long voyao-e. IV. THE BODLEY S AFOOT. Hen entertains the children with yarns, and, Ned Adams suddenly appearing, it is pro- posed that he and Nathan should take a walk to New York. They set out by Declliam and the old road to Hartford, through Pomfret ; but at Hartford, where they stay a few days with some old relatives, they are joined by Mrs. Bodley, Phippy, and Lucy, who go down the Connecticut River with them to Saybrook, and then go back to Boston, leaving the boys to continue their walk to New York. They are stopped, however, at New Haven, by a dis- patch from Mr. Bodley, which brings them back at once by rail. V. MR. BODLEY ABROAD. The reason of the dispatch is that Mr. Bodley is unexpectedly called to Europe, and in this final volume of the series he goes abroad, while the rest of the family at first vo for a fortnight to Cape Cod, and then return to Roxbury. Mr. Bodley does not return till Thanks- giving time, but he writes letters home, and, after he returns, tells stories of Europe. The children, besides, have their own journeys and adventures, so that Europe and America ap- pear in equal proportions. Mrs. Bodley, who stays at home, has been to Europe before, so that she is able to enlarge on what Mr. Bodley writes home, and Hen, who has gone off on a voyage, stumbles upon Mr. Bodley abroad, and comes back before him with fresh yarns. The time of the five stories is about 1848-1852. A NEW BODLEY SEEIES. It was intimated at the close of Mr. Bodley Abroad that the children might themselves go to Europe when they had grown up. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that thirty years after the days when they were Bodley children they had children of their own, and thus a new series of adventures and stories have begun. Nathan and Phippy Bodley, having married a sister and brother, are now the heads of families themselves, and a new career opens in I. THE BODLEY GRANDCHILDREN AND THEIR JOURNEY IN HOLLAND, the first volume of the second series. In this volume the two families, with the grand- children, start from New York, after first making themselves acquainted with the doings of their Dutch ancestors there in the days of New Amsterdam, and spend several weeks in Holland, seeing sights, taking an object lesson in history, and especially making the connection between American history and Dutch history. They are Americans visiting Europe not merely for the pleasure of travel, but for the purpose of tracing back the footprints of their ancestors. II. THE ENGLISH BODLEY FAMILY. After a summer spent in Holland, the grandchildren and their parents go to England with their appetite whetted for new feasts in historic fields. By a singular chance they fall in with an English family bearing the name of Bodley. Their long-lost ancestors have been found, and the descendants of these ancestors, though' very distant cousins, prove to be hospitable and friendly. The autumn is spent in historic pilgrimages, and the connection between English and American life, as discovered by youngsters of both nations, gives an interna- tional character to the story. The time is the summer and autumn of 1881. III. THE VIKING BODLEYS. The family party, with the exception of their Cousin Ned, after a winter spent in Italy, return to England and cross the North Sea to Christiania. They go as far north in Norway as anybody c°an go, and then return after having done their best to discover their Viking an- cestors among the fjords of Norway. From Christiania they go to Copenhagen, visit the haunts of Andersen and enjoy Denmark. They have now, after seeing Scandinavia, got at the earliest European life which was connected with America, and they return home, never again to set forth on their rambling journeys. This is the last of the Bodleys. The time is the summer of 1882. COURTYARD OF VICTORIA HOTEL. THE VIKING- BODLEYS AN EXCURSION INTO NORWAY AND DENMARK BY ^ y HORACE E. SCUDDER AUTHOR OF THE BODLEY BOOKS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street Clje Bitoersttie Press, dDambriJg* 1885 JtSTo THE LIBRARY or CONGRESS WASHINGTON Copyright, 1884, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & Co. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. PILGRIMS GOING BACKWARD 9 II. CHRISTIANIA 23 III. DUE NORTH 39 IV. THE MIDNIGHT SUN 53 V. SOUTHWARD BOUND . 75 VI. ACROSS LOTS 93 VII. OVER THE FILLEFJELD 109 VIII. THE HOME OF ANDERSEN 129 IX. RAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN .145 X. BERTEL THORWALDSEN . 159 XL ANDERSEN'S BIRTH-PLACE 173 XII. THE END OF JOURNEYING 185 THE VIKING BODLEYS. CHAPTER I. PILGRIMS GOING BACKWARD. LITTLE party sat on the deck of the Rollo, which lay, with steam up, in the dock at Hull, just casting off for a short voyage. It was the pleasant end of the last day of June, 1882, and the calm sky promised an agreeable passage across the much-dreaded North Sea. It was not yet dark, and the American travelers — for such they were — watched the progress of events with inter- est. The Rollo was a long while getting out of the dock, two other boats being in advance. A series of wooden piers extended down the middle of the dock, to enable ships to warp out, and a boatman rowed to one after another, taking the Rollo's hawser, making it fast, and afterward casting it off. At last the final gate was passed, the tug which had been lending a helping hand turned aside, and the Rollo steamed down the Humber. " Charles is getting ready to ask a question," said Sarah Van Wyck, the growing young girl of the party, the little snubber, as 10 THE VIKING BODLEYS. her cousin sometimes called her. " I can see it in his contempla- tive face." "He inherits the faculty of asking questions, Sarah," said her mother. " Your Uncle Nathan and I used to be called the bothering Bodleys, because we were always teasing to find out something." " That is the reason, Aunt Phippy," said Charles Bodley, " why you and father can always answer our questions now. If you had not bothered grandfather and grandmother, you would be always making us read books, instead of telling us what we want to know. I like to find out things from people a great deal better than to read about them in books." "If we don't forget what is told us," said Sarah, "we shall be mines of information to our children. Just think ! We know all that our fathers and mothers have told us, and they knew what grandfather and grandmother told them." " Don't put us to the test," laughed Mr. Yan Wyck. " To be sure, I am to be counted out, for I had not the benefit of a Bodley education, and had gained my small stock of knowledge by more painful means." " We had the ' Rollo Books,' Philip," said Mrs. Bodley, who was his sister. " Yes, we had the ' Rollo Books/ Blandina, but so had the Bod- leys." " Now that reminds me," said Charles. " I was not going to ask a question at all, as Sarah supposed. I was going to make a philo- sophical remark. Cousin Ned Adams used to have a good deal to say about the influence of the New World upon the Old. I 'd like to know if it is n't a fine thing for a steamer running between Hull and Christiania to be named after a boy in an American story- book ! " Mr. Bodley laughed. PILGRIMS GOING BACKWARD. 11 " Are you sure the boy was not named after the steamer ? " he asked. " I always did wonder," said Mr. Van Wyck, " how Mr. Abbott came to name his very peaceful and reasonable Rollo after the old Northman." " By some law of contrasts, I suppose," said his wife ; " but I am not sure that I know exactly who Rollo was, Philip. Did he come from Norway ? " " He belonged to the race who have Nor in their name, but when he came to settle down after his rude rovings, he softened into a Norman. Rollo was his Latinized name. He was Rolf Ganger, or Rolf the Goer, when he was a Northman, and the French called him Rou. That is where Rouen gets its name, I suppose, for it was the capital of the duchy which Charles, the King of the West Franks, gave him, when Rolf was baptized and married Charles's daughter. I fancy that Rolf did not lose all his old Norse blood when he was softened into Rou and Rollo, for the story goes that when he received his duchy he was bidden to kneel and kiss Charles's feet, in token of allegiance to the king. But Rolf stoutly refused to kiss any man's feet, and told one of his soldiers to do it for him. The soldier, thereupon, not having had experience in courtly ways, seized the king's foot and raised it to his lips. The poor king, who was sitting on his throne, was nearly tipped over backward by such a rough salute. The soldier, you see, should have kneeled." " There was not much likeness between old Rollo and our friend," said Sarah. " But, father, why was he called the Goer ? Did he go it all over Norway ? " " He was called the Goer, because he had such long legs that when he mounted one of the little Norwegian horses his feet touched 12 THE VIKING BODLEYS. the ground. The Northmen had a great way of nicknaming each other, and I suspect the biggest of them laughed at Rolf when he first set off: on the back of a horse, and called him Rolf Ganger the rest of his days." " And now his name is Rollo the Steamer," said Charles. " Such are the changes of history ! " " And we are all visiting Rolf's old home," said Sarah, in the same philosophic tone, " and have come to it from beyond the seas. It is the return of the Vikings." " Yes," said her mother; "your Uncle Nathan has always wanted to get back to the very beginningest of American history, and I am sure he is on his way when he goes to the fjords of Norway." " Don't let us go too fast," said Mr. Bodley. " While you have been talking all this nonsense I have been trying to make out the shore line in this dusky light. Do you know, we cannot be far from the place where our Pilgrim ancestors tried to make their es- cape from England in 1607. They had bargained with a Dutch captain, who had a ship at Hull and was going back to Holland, to take them in at a point between Grimsby and Hull. Bradford says there was a large common there a good way from any town. I suppose he means an open tract of land where any one might go. They could not board the vessel at Hull, for the authorities had once before stopped them when they tried to sail from Boston. So they sent the women and children and goods down the river in a boat, while the men went by land, very likely in small companies and in the night-time. Everything turned out wrong. The water was rough, and the women and children were so sick that they per- suaded the seamen, who took the boat down, to put into a creek and lie there in quiet water. The ship came along the next morning, PILGRIMS GOING BACKWARD. 13 but unfortunately it was low tide, and the boat with the women and children could not get out of the creek. Meanwhile the men were on the shore, out of reach of the women, and the captain thought he would better be getting them on board while he was waiting for the tide to float the boat off, so he sent his own boat for the men. He had brought off one boat-load, and was about to send back the boat for another, when he saw a great company of armed men, some on horse and some on foot, coming across the country. It was clear that the news of this exodus had spread, and the Egyptians were after the poor Israelites. The Dutchman was no Moses, however. He hoisted his anchor, swore a big oath, set his sail, and was off for Holland. He had no mind to get into a scrape, and cared very little, apparently, for the poor Pilgrims." " But what became of the poor fellows who were left on shore ? " asked Sarah. " And what became of the women and children ? " asked Charles. " And what became of those who were carried off by the Dutch- man ? " asked Aunt Blandina. " And what became of the Dutchman himself ? " asked Aunt Phippy. " And what is to become of us, if you answer all these ques- tions ? " asked Mr. Van Wyck. " Have patience," said the story-teller. " You shall hear all. We are now, let us say, steaming past the flat land where the rest of the men were left. "We can't see it, but it lies off yonder, where that dim light is on shore. When the Dutchman sailed away, the men who were left behind, seeing the plight they were in, scat- tered in various directions, a few only remaining to help the women and children as best they might. These, poor things, were helpless 14 THE VIKING BODLEYS. enough. They fell to weeping and wringing their hands ; < their poor little ones were hanging about them, crying for fear and quak- ing with cold,' as the old historian says. The posse of men with bill-hooks and guns who had scared the Dutchman away had no one to lay hold of but these poor women and children and the few men who stayed to help them. They marched them off to a magistrate, and he sent them to another. What to do with them no one knew. It never would do to put them in prison. They had no homes to go to, for these had all been broken up ; and so at last, after the poor things had endured all kinds of trouble, they were left to shift for themselves, and made their way, one by one way, one by an- other, till they had joined their husbands in Holland." " Then their husbands did get to Holland ? " " Yes, though they had a sore time of it on the way. They met a terrible storm, and were driven about the North Sea for fourteen days before they reached their port. They came close to the coast of Norway, and for a week saw neither sun, moon, nor stars. The sailors gave up more than once, and I suppose the Dutchman had some bad moments, thinking he was being punished for his coward- ice, but the Pilgrims kept up their courage, and prayed to God, and cheered on the sailors much as the Apostle Paul did in his ship- wreck." " And was that the way the Pilgrim Fathers left England ? " asked Charles. " Yes. Their troubles began at the start, but I think the failure of their attempt to make one general removal led them to get away after that singly and in small companies, so as to escape observa- tion." " What stories the old men in Plymouth must have had to tell to PILGRIMS GOING BACKWARD. 15 their grandchildren ! " said Mrs. Bodley. " I fancy they must have thought very often of St. Paul's words, i in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the hea- then, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea.' " v\ The Vikings crossing the North Sea. " There is not much peril in this sea," said Charles. "Not on this voyage," said his father, " but the North Sea is gen- erally a terror to travelers. I have crossed it when it was in a very disorderly state." 16 THE VIKING BODLEYS. The Rollo had steamed well past the scene of the Pilgrims' ad- venture. The twilight, which still lingered, gave way slowly to night, and the air was so quiet and cool that all were loth to turn in for the night. They sat, a little group, by themselves, and soon the talk drifted back to Rollo and the Norse-folk. " This is a peaceful voyage," said Mr. Van Wyck, " but I should think the good people of Hull must have looked out once upon the Humber with a deal of anxiety when they heard that the Vikings had been seen coming toward the coast." " Yes, I always think of them as great birds of prey, swooping across the North Sea and pouncing down upon the English coast," said his wife. " They must have had that look, Phippy, with their high-beaked vessels, and their broad sails. When they wished to make a pro- digious onset they lashed three vessels together. The prow some- times bore a dragon's head, or a serpent's ; for when men make a great deal of fighting, I have noticed that they are very apt to make common cause with animals, and call themselves lions or tigers or serpents or hawks or eagles or vultures or panthers or wild-cats or" — " Do stop, Uncle Philip, before you have named a whole menage- rie," said Charles. " Very well, I '11 stop ; but I beg you all to notice what pleasure we take in looking on, at the safe distance of eight hundred years or so, at those dreadful Vikings who used to cross this North Sea in their Berserker rage. It is the very gentlest of our poets who has turned the old sagas into musical verse. Think of Longfellow look- ing out of his window upon the winding Charles, with its mud-scows and stone-sloops, and writing the poems in which he sets forth King PILGRIMS GOING BACKWARD. -in Olaf and his doughty deeds ! It is the contrast that delights me Listen, while I repeat his poem." THE BUILDING OF THE LONG SERPENT. Thorberg Skafting, master-builder, In his ship-yard by the sea, Whistling, said, "It would bewilder Any man but Thorberg Skafting, Any man but me!" Near him lay the Dragon stranded, Built of old by Raud the Strong, And King Olaf had commanded He should build another Dragon Twice as large and long. Therefore whistled Thorberg Skafting, As he sat with half-closed eyes, And his head turned sideways, drafting That new vessel for King Olaf Twice the Dragon's size. Round him busily hewed and hammered Mallet huge and heavy axe ; Workmen laughed and sang and clamored ; Whirred the wheels, that into rigging Spun the shining flax ! All this tumult heard the master,— It was music to his ear ; Fancy whispered all the faster, " Men shall hear of Thorberg Skafting For a hundred year ! " Workmen sweating at the forges Fashioned iron bolt and bar, 2 lg THE VIKING BODLEYS. Like a warlock's midnight orgies Smoked and bubbled the black cauldron With the boiling tar. Did the warlocks mingle in it, Thorberg Skafting, any curse ? Could you not be gone a minute But some mischief must be doing, Turning bad to worse ? 'T was an ill wind that came wafting, From his homestead words of woe ; To his farm went Thorberg Skafting, Oft repeating to his workmen Build ye thus and so. After long delays returning Came the master back by night ; To his ship-yard longing, yearning, Hurried he, and did not leave it Till the morning's light. " Come and see my ship, my darling ! " On the morrow said the king ; "Finished now from keel to carling ; Never yet was seen in Norway Such a wondrous thing ! " In the ship-yard, idly talking, At the ship the workmen stared : Some one, all their labor balking, Down her sides had cut deep gashes, Not a plank was spared ! "Death be to the evil-doer!" With an oath King Olaf spoke; "But rewards to his pursuer! " And with wrath his face grew redder Than his scarlet cloak. PILGRIMS GOING BACKWARD. 19 Straight the master-builder, smiling, Answered thus the angry King : " Cease blaspheming and reviling, Olaf, it was Thorberg Skafting Who has done this thing ! " Then he chipped and smoothed the planking, Till the King, delighted, swore, With much lauding and much thanking, " Handsomer is now my Dragon Than she was before ! " Seventy ells and four extended On the grass the vessel's keel ; High above it, gilt and splendid, Rose the figure-head ferocious With its crest of steel. Then they launched her from the tressels, In the ship-yard by the sea ; She was the grandest of all vessels, Never ship was built in Norway Half so fine as she ! The Long Serpent was she christened, 'Mid the roar of cheer on cheer ! They who to the Saga listened Heard the name of Thorberg Skafting For a hundred year ! " After all," said Mr. Bodley, " there is not so very terrible a pic- ture drawn. It is a New England ship-builder and a Boston mer- chant who are represented, with a little veneer of antique rage." " But I don't understand who cut and gashed the Long Serpent," said Charles. " Thorberg says he did it, but why should he have done it ? or why should he have said he did, if he did not ? " 20 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " I suspect," said his uncle, " that the mysterious hints of some warlock, or wizard, are intended to intimate that the mischief was done when Thorberg was away, and that he took the blame on himself to defeat the purpose of the wizard ; but I confess I am not learned enough in this lore to give a satisfactory explanation. It is well that our pleasure in poetry is not measured by the accuracy with which every point is made." " Did the Vikings ever really reach America ? " asked Sarah of her father. " Fortunately we do not know, Sarah," he replied. " There is a delightful uncertainty about the matter, and we can discuss it and inquire into it to our heart's content. The probability is very great that they did land on our coast ; but although the Northmen had a very powerful influence on Europe, the time had not come for Amer- ica to be discovered for settlement. Greenland was long a part of Europe ; it is only in modern times that it has come to be placed on a map of the Western Hemisphere." " How differently we must look as we return to Norway," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " from what our Viking ancestors did when they came to America ; for I insist upon it, we are going back to hunt for our Viking ancestors." " And very rightly, Phippy," said her brother. " The Northmen or Danes, for they were all one people, made very decided settle- ments on the east coast of England. All those towns whose names end in by " — " Grimsby," said Charles. " Yes, Grimsby is a case in point. The by is Norse for town, and the by towns show the marks of their Norse origin. Now our Pil- grim fathers came from Scrooby and neighborhood, and may easily NATHAN BODLEY IN THE CHARACTER OF A VIKING. CHRISTIANIA. 23 have been of Norse descent, so that we can trace through them, if we do not wish to make a violent leap to Thorfinn and the rest." " Imagine Uncle Nathan as a Viking ! " said Sarah. " I should probably wear a belted shirt, Sarah, and carry a shield and sword, and a horn. I should wear a sort of metal helmet, and instead of a scarf pin carry an eagle, which your Aunt Blandina would embroider on my shirt-front. And all little girls would be terribly afraid of me." " Well, we bring back the Eagle, at any rate," said Charles. " Even if we do sail for the time being under the Union-jack, and are protected by the Lion and the Unicorn." " Do you know what time it is ? " suddenly asked Mrs. Van Wyck. " It is the tenth or eleventh century," said Mrs. Bodley. " It is the tenth or eleventh hour, Phippy, and your child and mine ought to be abed." And to bed went the Vikings, old and CHAPTER II. CHEISTIANIA. All day Saturday the Rollo was crossing the North Sea, and the passengers sat comfortably in steamer chairs or walked the deck, and read, chatted, played checkers, or crocheted and knit. It was a summer sea over which they were steaming, and it was hard to believe that so often the waves were churned into a mighty pother. There was no adventure. One or two wearied sparrows lit upon the deck and dropped their little tails in an exhausted fashion ; the 24 THE VIKING BODLEYS. other steamer of the line was passed midway, bound to Hull, and various sail were discerned near or far. Saturday passed, but when the passengers woke on Sunday they had reached the Norwegian coast. Charles, raising himself in his berth, looked out of the port-hole, and saw cold, rough rocks within biscuit-throw. He occupied the same state-room with his father, and they were shortly on deck, where the others joined them. It was only seven o'clock, and the steamer was making fast to the pier at Christiansand. They fortified themselves with coffee, and finding there was an hour to wait, went ashore and sauntered through the town. The first glimpse of a new country always quickens the traveler's sense. He expects so much more strangeness than he finds ; he does not take into account the likeness that man has to his neighbor. There was at first glance a curious suggestion of New England in the plain wooden houses which they saw. Except for their tiled roofs, the houses would have been at home in a Maine village. There was one difference, however ; nearly every window had plants in pots. The houses and shops were mingled together, the shops distinguished only by modest signs and small show of goods in the windows. " How few people there are about," said Charles. " What would you have ? " asked Sarah. " It is only seven o'clock, and Sunday morning too. Don't you suppose they breakfast half an hour later Sunday morning in Christiansand ? I wonder, though, why they have so many shops for the sale of oil." " You must begin your Norwegian studies, Sarah," said her father. " That is ale or beer that looks on the signs like oil." The streets were straight and broad, and the little town was quickly surveyed. They came to a bridge crossing an arm of the CHRISTIAN1A. 25 sea, and on the other side found themselves more in the country. They followed a little lane which led to a pile of rocks where a poor farmer was raising a few cabbages, and from the top of the rocks they had a pretty extensive view of the town and surrounding coun- try. The sky was overcast, and the view was a somewhat dreary one. " This is not the country in which to look for large towns," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Christiansand is one of the larger sort, but it is not so large that one could easily be lost in it." " We must go back to the boat," said his prudent sister ; " but I suppose that if we were to spend the summer here and get acquainted with the people, we should get very much attached to Christiansand, and be sorry to leave." " What a charitable imagination you have, Blandina ! " " Mother never wants to leave a place," said Charles. " She al- ways begins to think about the people and how they live, and adopts one or two forlorn children, and then she is ready to settle down for the rest of her life." The party found the Rollo ready to leave the pier when they re- turned, and when they went below to breakfast the boat had already steamed out of the harbor. All day long they coasted, sometimes near, sometimes at a distance from the land. The smaller steamers ran in and out among the islands, calling at fishing villages and little stations, but the Rollo made its way, without stopping, to Christiania. At dinner-time it passed round the point into Christi- ania fjord, and then land could be seen on either side, the shores gradually drawing closer together. For the most part pine-clad, rocky hills rose with more or less abruptness from the fjord, though now and then some gentle slope would appear, some nicely kept place, or a little village would peep from behind an island. 26 THE VIKING. BODLEYS. " So this is a fjord," said Sarah, after they had been sitting some time in silence. " I always wanted to see a fjord since I read Miss Martineau's ' Feats on the Fjord.' " " I don't think we see the characteristic fjord landscape here, Sa- rah. We must wait until we get farther north." " But, Uncle Nathan, what is a fjord ? what makes a fjord ? why do not we have them in America ? " " If we had mountains coming down to the sea, with arms of the sea running up into the land, we should have them. The word is the same as firth or frith in Scotland. The Frith of Forth is a fjord." " I suppose it is the fret of the sea," said Mr. Van Wyck, " or the land fretted by the sea." " But why are not the lamps in the light-houses lighted ? " asked Charles. " What need ? It is daylight still, though it is past eleven o'clock. They put out their lights on the coast when summer-time comes, but they make up for it by keeping them lighted a long time when winter returns." Not a light was to be seen in the city which now lay before them, dimly descried, to be sure, for the sky was over- cast, and it was not so light at this hour as it might otherwise have been. As the Hollo rounded an island and came within the inner harbor, the people on board the steamer could make out the build- ings, and could see persons moving about the streets and on the quay. The tide was high, and the Kollo, as it was warped up to the quay, towered high above it. Our little party was somewhat taken by surprise. They had been so occupied with watching the shore and trying to make out the ob- jects in the strange twilight, that it had not occurred to them, until just as they came near the quay, that they need not pass another CHRISTIANIA. 27 night on board the steamer, and now they hurried together their wraps and small articles, meaning to leave their larger pieces on board until the morrow, while they made their way to the Victoria Hotel for the rest of the night. With other passengers, they passed down the steep gangway to the pier. It was nearly twelve o'clock. The streets were lively with people walking about ; even small chil- dren were out, but no lamps were lit. " Do you suppose all these people are homeless ? " half-whispered Sarah to her cousin. " They are probably all returning from various excursions into the country, Sarah," said her father, who overheard her. " But how spectral it is," said Mrs. Van Wyck, in a low voice. " These people look like ghosts, gliding along the streets. Will it be no darker than this to-night ? " " No. It will remain very much like this for an hour, when it will begin to grow lighter again." "It is not exactly twilight," returned Mrs. Van Wyck. "I can't describe it, but there is a mystery over everything. All the shades are deepened. Look at those green trees ; they have almost a pur- plish tinge." " Yes," said her husband. " It is as if Nature drew a veil over her face, and you could not quite make out her features." It was not a long walk to the hotel, and the party was soon dis- tributed for the night. They drew shutters and curtains and dark- ened their rooms, that they might not wake too early, but some- thing in the fresh, exhilarating air made long sleep impossible, so that they were all at breakfast in good season, and ready to see Christiania. The city itself did not detain them very long. They walked up the broad Carl Johann Gade, and looked at the outside of 28 THE VIKING BODLEYS. the palace, which stood on an elevation at the head of the way, and they stopped to look at the statue of the Norwegian poet Werge- land, which had been erected the year before, and was still shining in the brightness of new bronze. "How new everything is," said Charles. " I thought Christiania would look like an old place." " We are in the newer part of the town," said his father ; " but I suspect this northern air preserves buildings, and makes even the old ones look young. I think we get into the way of fancying that A Street in Christiania. all European towns were made several hundred years ago and have not been touched since." In their walk about town they stumbled upon one quaint and old- fashioned street, and they entered a church where workmen were making repairs. It was filled with staging and platforms so that they could see but little, though, to be sure, there seemed little to see. One oddity was a private box for the royal family, perched up against the side of the wall vis-a-vis with the pulpit, so that the CHR1STIANIA. 29 royal family must certainly receive all the sermons full in the face ; but then it was furnished with glass windows, and in case of a se- vere pelting it would only be necessary to close the windows. They visited the Viking ship also, which had been dug up a couple of years before at Sandefjord. It was under cover of a shed which had been built over it, and the various fragments found about it had been carefully preserved. " It is only the bones of the poor old vessel ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " How long did you say it had been buried, Philip ? " " It is estimated that it was buried eight hundred or a thousand years ago." " No doubt," said Mr. Boclley, "it is one of the very boats which used to make their way to Vinland." " But how did it get buried, father ? " asked Charles. " The explanation is, that when one of the great Vikings died, his boat was dragged up upon the shore, his body was placed upon it with his weapons, and the whole covered with a mound. The ear- liest were burned, but after Christianity came in burning gave way to burial. Horses and oxen were sacrificed. They hung war shields upon the vessel, also." " But this boat can't be as large as the Long Serpent," said Charles. " No. This vessel is less than eighty feet on the keel, and the Long Serpent, you know, was ' seventy ells and four.' ' " And how much is that ? " " That depends on the measure. An English ell is forty-five inches, but an English ell is equal to one and a quarter Danish ells ; and if Mr. Longfellow used the Danish ell, then he used an ell of three feet, and the length of the Long Serpent was — how much, Sarah ? " 30 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Two hundred and twenty- two feet," said she, promptly. " Just so, and that was a sizeable sort of boat." " I should like to have seen one of the boats all manned," said Charles. " Well, this boat had sixteen oar-holes on each side, for they de- pended on oars a good deal of the time, though they had sails also. We can imagine the Viking standing by the side of the boat and The Vikings setting sail. flourishing his sword, while his men, each with a sword and shield, stood about him and swore to stick by him and help carry off all the plunder they could find." After our friends had walked about Christiania, and had visited the art gallery, they went back to their hotel for lunch, and then sallied out on an excursion to Oscar's Hall. They chose to walk to Skarpsno on the fjord, meaning to cross in a boat to the wooded pe- ninsula where Oscar's Hall stands. It was a pleasant walk up Carl CHR1STIANIA. 31 Johann Gade, and by half rural lanes when they had passed beyond the city limits. As they came to the top of a little elevation they found themselves by a gateway opening into a court-yard, before which they lingered to steal a glimpse of the pleasant bit of home- life which they saw. On each side of the court-yard was a long, low building, roofed with red tiles, and apparently used for the farm utensils and the cattle stalls. A fountain was playing in the middle of the yard, and at the end facing the gateway was the manor-house itself, a long, generous-looking building surmounted by a bell-cupola. A piazza extended along the front of the house, and a young girl was sitting in a comfortable chair, with some work in her hands, while on the grass in front three children, two boys and a little girl, were playing. One of them, a little fellow with a broad-brimmed straw hat, as soon as he caught sight of strangers at the gate, began running toward them as fast as his sturdy little legs would carry him. " Horace ! " they heard the maiden on the piazza call ; but Hor- ace paid no attention to the voice, but kept on, slackening his pace as he drew nearer, however. " I am afraid we are interfering with family discipline," said Mrs. Bodley. " It certainly is rather rude, too, for us to be staring in here at a gentleman's place. Let us move on." So they turned away, and presently they heard the little fellow calling loudly to the other little boy, — "Allyn! Allyn ! " " Well, we know two of their names," said Charles. " Horace does n't sound like Norwegian, but Allyn does." " I wish we knew the people who live there," said Sarah. " I should like to go inside of a real Norwegian manor-house, and that 32 THE VIKING BODLEYS. looks like a very substantial and comfortable old place. Did you notice that the Norwegian young lady on the piazza had a lap-robe over her and was propped up in her chair ? " " Yes, and she did not chase the little boy," said Charles. " Of course she would not, if she could," said his cousin. " Young ladies don't rush after small boys, when they run away." Their walk brought them to the foot of the hill, to Skarpsno, where they crossed a railway track and found themselves on the bank of the fjord, with Oscar's Hall in full view upon the opposite side of the stream. While waiting for the ferry-boat to return from the other side, they saw some boys come out of a bathing- house which stood near the boat-landing. One of them was about Charles's age, and as he passed them Charles declared he heard him talking English. " Very likely," said his father, " for English is taught in the Nor- wegian schools. Run after him, Charles, and ask him whose house it was that we passed.' 5 Charles stepped quickly along, and came back in a moment. " He says it is called Frogner, and he lives there. I think his name is Hermann, for the other boy called him so, or else he said something about Hermann Street, but I could n't make it out. I know the Norwegian for street." " You are making rapid progress in Norwegian, Charles," said his father, laughing. " You have learned one word already." " I should think he would have talked with you," said Sarah, " if he could speak English. Why did n't you ask him some more ques- tions and draw him out, Charles ? " " I would have, but the other boy kept jabbering in Norwegian." " We shall see him again," said Sarah, philosophically. " We al- ways do see them again in our travels." CHRISTIANIA. 35 They were soon ferried across to the promontory on which Oscar's Hall stood, in a little park. It was a white, castellated building on a small scale, perched on a wooded knoll, and surmounted by a tower. It was built originally in the middle of the century by King Oscar for his son, but sold by his son, King Carl XV., to the Storthing, or Norwegian congress, which holds it as a piece of pub- lic property. The building itself has little to commend it, except its trimness and neatness, but it offers fine views from the tower, -,/-.: :} : ::Ci- ii~ -•■sBb^H^PWms,-* ■■■■ Oscar's Hall. and it has a collection of characteristic Norwegian pictures and stat- ues, as well as a number of portraits of the various members of the ruling family. The most interesting of the pictures was a series by a Norwegian artist named Tidemand, representing characteristic scenes from peasant life. " It is a whole history, is it not ? " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " See ! here are two children playing in the sand. Then the same chil- dren have grown in the next picture." 36 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Yes, and then they are married," said Charles, " and the bridal procession, I suppose it is, is escorting them to their home, and here is the first child in the cradle." " Now I will take up the parable," said Mr. Bodley. " Here is the first sorrow, and here is the mother teaching the little girl, while the father initiates the boy into the mystery of fishing." " My friends," said Mr. Van Wyck, " behold the adieus given to the last to leave the home, and the old couple comforting each other in their loneliness by reading the Bible aloud." " You must not make fun of the pictures, Philip," said his sister. " They make a charming series, and they tell such interesting sto- ries. I think if we went no farther into Norway than this, we could say that we had seen Norwegian life." " As for that, Blandina," said her husband, " we might even bet- ter have stayed in America and read Bjornstjerne Bjornson's stories. They seem to be more strictly native than Tidemand's pictures. These pictures are painted as a German might paint them, but Bjornson has given an air of reality and poetry to his stories of peasant life which does not make us think of Auerbach or any other German story-teller." " That is very true," said Mr. Van "Wyck, " but Blandina is right in thinking that even a glimpse of Norway helps one to understand Norwegian art. If we had seen Tidemand's pictures in America, we should not have seen them half so clearly as we see them now by Christiania fjord, and every hour almost since we touched at Christiansand, I have been reminded of Bjornson, though we have scarcely seen anything as yet of real peasant life." " Bjornson learned his art at home. Tidemand learned his at Dusseldorf. That makes the difference," said Mr. Bodley, senten- tiously. CHRISTIANIA. 61 It was half-after eight before the party returned to Skarpsno, yet the sun was still above the horizon. It seemed strange indeed to have such long, leisurely days, and to feel for once, Mrs. Bodley said, that there was plenty of time for everything. " Blandina would like to do her house-cleaning in Norway, I am sure," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Then she would be able to catch up with her work, and she could see to do it." " We shall have more daylight still when we go to the North Cape, Phip- py," said Mrs. Bodley. There was one further excursion which the par- ty took when they were in Christiania. They drove to the top of a hill, six or seven miles from the town, from which they were told they should have a fine view. " Do you know what the place is, Sarah ? " asked her father learned something when I was reading the guide-book." " Somebody said it was Frognersaeter, and the name sounded half familiar." Bjomstjerne Bjornson. I 38 THE VIKING BODLEYS. "No wonder, for the first half of the word was familiar. The hill, or perhaps only the top of it, used to be a part of the estate of Frogner. You know we saw the manor-house of Frogner when we went to Oscar's Hall. The saeter is the name given " — "Oh, I remember now!" interrupted Sarah. "It was all in * Feats on the Fjord.' The saeter is where they pasture the cows in the summer, and the peasant girls go up there to take care of them and make cheese." " To be sure, and this place is still called Frognersseter, al- though it no longer belongs to Frogner, and I believe there is no real, bond fide saeter life there. It is the property of the Swiss consul, who is a banker ; he has made a kind of rustic retreat of it." The drive led them through almost numberless gateways, at each one of which was a little boy or girl, waiting to open the gate. " It is fortunate that I have so many ore in my pocket," said Mr. Bodley, " and it is very fortunate that they have a coin in Norway so small as an ore-piece, if there is to be a gate every few rods." When they came to the sseter they found a little collection of rustic houses, in form such as the peasants build, but finished with much carving, and furnished with all manner of quaint Norwegian articles. It was as if one were invited to a fair to see the way in , A Store-House. DUE NORTH. , 39 which people lived. There was a bed built into the corner, as in peasant houses, but it was vastly better appointed than a poor peas- ant's bed would be. A balcony in front, from an upper story, gave a fine view, and close at hand was a store-house for grain, built after the fashion of peasants' store-houses, but of wood which was well finished and carved and oiled. For a more complete outlook, they drove a quarter of an hour farther to the top of the mountain, where there had been built an observatory of open timber. They climbed to the top and clung to a staff, while they enjoyed a fearful pleasure in looking off, for the wind was blowing a gale, and the observatory rocked back and forth. The fjord lay below, and moun- tains were behind, while pleasant valleys separated the hills, and Christiania was spread at their feet. CHAPTER III. DUE NORTH. Christiania was only a starting-point for our friends, but they were old enough travelers to take everything leisurely, so they loit- ered about the city, picking up information, accustoming themselves to Norwegian ways, and even making little excursions into the Nor- wegian tongue. Mr. Van Wyck, indeed, had read some Danish, and had once had lessons in the language, but he was shy about making experiments in speech, especially when he was with the others. Sometimes when he was alone he made brave attempts. To use his 40 THE VIKING BODLEYS. own words, he picked his way across the stream of conversation by means of stepping-stones of nouns and verbs. They were all interested in what they saw of Norwegian man- ners. At the hotel there chanced to be a Norwegian family, and after dinner the children marched up to their father, and each held out his hand, saying, apparently, " Thank you for the excellent din- ner which I have just had." The people in the streets took off their hats to each other and bowed very civilly, and in the shops gentle- men always removed their hats when they entered, and made a courteous farewell when they left. Our friends quickly caught these ways, and Charles grew so ceremonious that Sarah offered him an ore if he would put his hat on between one shop and the next. On Thursday they set off for the north. The chief part of their proposed excursion in Norway was to be a steamer jaunt to the North Cape, but they meant to avoid the long sea trip from Chris- tiania to Throndhjem, by taking the railway that connects the two towns, the only long railway in a country which is too mountainous U> permit that mode of travel. It was a twenty-four hours' journey, for though only about three hundred and fifty miles, the train runs slowly, makes many stops, and tarries long enough at meal-times to give travelers a rational meal. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the train rolled slowly out of the station. The carriages were like those on English roads, and the party filled one com- partment very comfortably. At a station called Hamar they were called upon to change to a narrow gauge, and here, also, they took supper. They were a little puzzled at first, as they sat at a table, to know what they were to do. The table was set with plates, knives, forks, and napkins, and had also a provision of cheese and bread and butter, but there seemed to be no waiter in the room, only one DUE NORTH. 41 or two girls stationed behind counters. Pretty soon, however, they discovered what the other passengers were doing, and followed suit. Each was expected to help himself. The meats and fish and vege- tables were at side-tables, and the passengers went about, as if they were at a party, with plates in their hands, filling them from this dish and that, till at last they bore them triumphantly to their places, and then set off again for cups of coffee or tea. Then, when they had ended the supper, they stepped to the counter, where each gave an account of what he had helped himself to, and paid the score. " Truly a most hospitable fashion," said Mr. Bodley, " and one that speaks well for the honesty of the people." It was, of course, still daylight, but their watches told an hour which would do very well for bed-time, when one was not likely to get a very sound sleep. There was no sleeping-car on the train, but fortunately they were able to secure three carriages, and that gave them each a seat on which to lie at full length. The railway company had thoughtfully supplied each carriage with two leather bolsters, and two rugs ; so making up a bed with their wraps and cloaks and coats, our six friends disposed themselves for the night. The train jogged along very slowly and with a great deal of jolting, stopping repeatedly at small stations ; indeed, there were no large stations the whole length of the road, and it was very evident that, except for the support of government, the road would be a sad failure. They were all tired enough to sleep soundly in spite of the fre- quent stoppages. It was always light enough, whenever any one woke, to see what time it was ; but at last, about six o'clock in the morning, they roused themselves, and though a little cramped 42 THE VIKING BODLEYS. and cold, were in pretty good humor when the train drew up at Tonsaet for breakfast. They got out from their several carriages and greeted each other good - morning. They found themselves among higher hills, and saw patches of snow lying on the tops ; nor did the snow again leave them on their journey to Throndhjem. It came down into the valleys, and was seen in large fields. They all gathered into one carriage again for the day's journey, and had a pleasant trip of it. There was a capital provision for the needs of travelers who always want to know where they are and how far they have to go. In each compartment was placed a large card containing a full list of all the stations, the distance from one to the other, the time when the train was due, and where they were to stop for breakfast, dinner, and supper. Besides that, each station-house bore on its front a large sign giving its name, its distance on one hand from Chris tiania, on the other from Throndhjem, and its height above the level of the sea. It helped to pass the time, especially for the children, to consult the card and their watches, and study the sign whenever the train stopped. But the country through which they passed made the day delight- ful. It was, as Mr. Bodley said, singularly like Berkshire County in Massachusetts, where they had passed many summers ; or the val- ley through which the Connecticut Western railway passes, bolder, indeed, in places, but with much the same kind of scenery. They overlooked deep gorges and broad valleys ; waterfalls sometimes foamed across the path, and they could follow the great curves by which they wound in and out of the broad mountain basins. A river, the Gula, grew wider and more smiling as they drew nearer to Throndhjem. At a point not far from Tyvold they passed the water-shed, where the streams separated, one flowing to the Chris- DUE NORTH. 43 tiania fjord, the other to the Throndhjem fjord. A great stone had been set up by the railroad, with an inscription recording this fact. There was little richness in the soil, but they passed a number of scattered villages, some with churches, and some having substantial looking farm-houses. "It is interesting," said Mr. Bodley, as they looked out of the window, " but I must say that there is, according to our ideas, an air of poverty rather than of comfort about these farms. Look at that Throndhjem. group of houses. You cannot tell which is the house and which the stable." " And see the turf on the roofs ! " exclaimed Charles. " And there is a bush growing out of the roof," added Sarah. " I should n't wonder if we were to see sheep pasturing on the roofs soon." " Some of these cabins are almost buried in the earth," said Mr. Bodley. " They make more picturesque objects than good houses to live in with a large family. The station-houses really are the most airy and attractive buildings, to my thinking." 44 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Oh, you are a confirmed American, Nathan," said Mr. Van Wyck. " You want things to be spick and span." " If I am to live in them, I do. If I am merely to look at them, give me the tumble-down and picturesque." As the train drew nearer to Throndhjem, the country became more open, the houses were no longer timber-houses, but built with frames and supporting tiled roofs, and the roads had the look of suburban roads. The Gula was crossed twice, and fine views were Throndhjem Cathedral. had of the city, the fjord, and the distant mountains. Just a day after leaving Christiania the train entered Throndhjem, and our party at once drove across the town to the Jonas Lie, the steamer in which they were to make their home for three weeks or so, while they journeyed to the North Cape and back. They found that the boat was to leave at ten that night, so they bestowed their bags and boxes in the state-rooms which they had secured, and set out for a ramble through the town. DUE NORTH. 45 They sought the cathedral, which was the most conspicuous object in town, and found it lively with workmen who were busy within and without. The hoary square tower which rises above the centre of the church gave the whole structure both dignity and the air of age ; but the new stone which was used in the restoration, and the parts of the old work which had been scraped, gave a very zealous look to the cathedral. They went where they could within the building, and looked down into the water of St. Olaf's well, for St. Olaf was the patron saint of the church. " You have heard of the three tailors of Tooley Street, Charles, have you not ? " asked his uncle. " No, Uncle Philip ; who were they ? " " I can't give you their whole history, but there were three tail- ors of Tooley Street in London, who once addressed a petition to the House of Commons, beginning, i We, the people of England,' and they were very much laughed at for their grand salute. So the story goes. But what puts them into my head ? " " I 'm sure I don't know." " St. Olaf's well, or rather St. Olaf himself. St. Olaf is Tooley. Attend. Olaf is pronounced Oolaf. Very well. Saintoolaf, s'ntoo- laf, stoola, Tooley. There you have it. So the story goes." " Must we believe that, father ? " asked Sarah. " Do as you please, Sarah. I shall not insist upon it, but it is credible." The children were really as much attracted' by the graveyard through which they passed as they were by the cathedral itself. It was not large, but full of graves lying by diminutive paths. There was scarcely a grave which had not flowers or wreaths upon it, and old stones were apparently scrubbed and kept in cheerful, repair. 46 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Women with children were scattered about, and it was the most ani- mated, bright little graveyard our friends had ever happened to see. They found walking in the town a somewhat difficult task. The streets were paved in the centre with small flag-stones, flanked by gravel sidewalks, and between the sidewalks and houses were cobble- stone pavements and open gutters, so that it was quite impossible to walk with any comfort. One was always getting amongst the cob- ble-stones or into the dirt. So they made their way back before long to the Jonas Lie, glad to rest from the bright sun. The steamboat had come from Christiania, and had taken on pas- sengers there, but chiefly at Bergen. The passengers had been ram- bling about Throndhjem, while the boat lay at the pier, and were now returning singly or in groups. Our friends scanned them with interest, for they knew that they were to be near neighbors for three weeks. The boats which run to the North Cape and back are not mere pleasure-boats. It is only within a few years that travel- ers have resorted to them for the excursion. They are the means by which the fishing villages which dot the coast and islands of Nor- way reach the centres of business. The steamers carry salt and flour and various provisions to these settlements, and bring back their products, chiefly fish and lumber. It often takes a long while to load the steamer at one of these little stations, and the passengers use the opportunity for a ramble inland. The telegraph runs every- where, and the wires are freely used, so that when a steamer has touched at a port, the captain frequently gets a dispatch notifying him that there is a cargo waiting for him at some remote village which he had not intended to visit. In this way the voyage is full of interesting surprises. Besides, the steamer is used by peasants who may wish to pass from one village to another, and very often DUE NORTH. 4»f by emigrants to America, who take it on the way back to Bergen, from which port they are to embark in some vessel or ocean steamer. The captains and mates often speak English. This was the case on the Jonas Lie, at any rate. " Before we go any farther," said Sarah, as the steamer got under way, about ten o'clock, " I wish to know who Jonas Lie was or is, that he should have a steamer named for him." " He is a Norwegian poet and novelist, Sarah," said her father ; " and you must not say Jonas Lie, but Yonas Lee. Remember, you are a modified vikingess, and must speak the language of your coun- try accurately." " Well, if I ever get so that I can pronounce the names of places which we visit in Norway, I will let the rest of the language go, for I have been studying the guide-book, and some of the words are simply unpronounceable." " They are harmless words, many of them, as soon as you trans- late them into their English equivalents. A good many, you notice, end in vik or mg. That is as much as to say creek in such words as Lime Creek, or Goose Creek. Some end in naes, as Saltnaes, or Saltnose, and some in vand, which is water." "Just as Mont Blanc is nothing more than White Mountain, though it sounds finer." "Exactly so." The Jonas Lie lay in the stream until midnight, so that our friends went below before they were fairly off, and when they came on deck the next day, a cold mist shut the steamer in. It lifted now and then, and they could see that they were passing by gray rocky islands and headlands. Occasionally they could spy fisher- men's houses on the rocks, and here and there a little farm upon the 48 THE VIKING BODLEYS. most barren-looking soil, where a ledge of rocks formed the bar- rier, and on the other the people had built, painfully, a heavy stone wall, to keep out other rocks, one would say. " See ! " exclaimed Charles, " there is a viking boat," as a fish- erman's boat passed them, low in the waist, and rising at stem and stern with a high poop. " Beg your pardon," said the captain, who was near by, and over- heard. " That is a viking boat. They are all viking boats. They are not carved as the old boats were, and they have no dragons at the bow, and no holes cut for the oars, but they are the same shape. You will see them all along up the coast." " Shall we see Torghaetta to-day ? " asked Mr. Van Wyck. " If it is clear." " But do you often have these mists ?" " I have been to the North Caj>e and back when it was mist all the way, all the way," said the captain, with emphasis. Our friends looked at each other with dismay. Suppose they should go to the North Cape and come back, and see nothing more than what they saw now ! But that was too disagreeable to be thought of. " What are those targets on the rocks for ? " asked Charles, point- ing to some black and white rings which he saw. " They show where iron bolts are driven in for boats to moor to," said the captain. The mist lifted more and more, and after dinner, when they were on deck again, there was lovely sunshine. " Ah," said Mr. Van Wyck, who had been secretly studying the guide-book, " there is the Giantess ! " " Whereabouts ? " asked his wife, looking among the passengers, as if she expected to see some good-natured Norwegian woman tow- ering above the crowd. DUE NORTH. 49 " Do you not see her off there ? " said Mr. Van Wyck, pointing to a rocky mountain in the distance. " You must know, children, that there was once a real giantess, full grown, and more beautiful than one can easily imagine. Her size added to her beauty. You sometimes see women with large, liquid, beautiful eyes, but the eyes in such cases are rarely larger than an almond. Now imagine a be- ing with the same kind of eye, only as big as a water-melon, and you can form some faint idea of the beauty of this giantess, who once stepped gracefully from one island to another on this rocky coast. You have seen a beautiful woman's beautiful taper fingers, but the most lovely hand of the most lovely woman you ever knew, — your mother, for example, — was not much more than six inches long. Now imagine our beautiful giantess with hands sixty inches long, and you can easily see that she was ten times as beautiful as either of your mothers. She was carelessly stepping along, playing with her parasol, the handle of which was made of a Norway fir, when she was aware that a very objectionable lover was chasing her. She did not need to look behind, for she knew it instinctively, so she lifted her skirt and began to run. Her brother, a giant who was at work getting out a glacier over yonder to put into his water-pitcher, dropped the glacier and began to chase the lover. The lover, who was on horseback, turned and shot an arrow at the giant, but he aimed too high. It went through the giant's hat, and made a dread- ful hole. The wind whistled through the hole in the hat so loudly that it disturbed the giant, and he dashed it to the ground. Just then the giantess, who was unused to running, began to grow very faint. The lover was gaining on her, when suddenly the sun, seeing the turn things were taking, sent a strong ray of light upon the hat and turned it into stone. At the same time a part of the ray went 4 50 THE VIKING BODLEYS. through the hole and turned the giantess and the horseman both into stone. The giant brother was not hit. Some say that the brother was the sun himself. Others, that he lost sight of the horse- man and went on chasing to the North Pole, where he was so satis- fied with the abundance of ice that he never could make up his mind to leave it. At any rate, here is the Giantess, to prove her Torghaetta. part of the story, lying you see at full length, just as she fell, ex- hausted by the race." " I certainly see her," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Now, Philip, when you show us the Hat with the hole in it, I shall believe that part of the story, also." " Very well ; wait till after supper, and if it is quiet we will not only see the Hat, but walk into the hole." They caught sight of the Hat before supper. There it was, to be DUE NORTH. 51 sure, — a great rocky mountain with a hole clean through it, and every one on board was on the qui vive to get a nearer view. It was a little after nine when the steamer lay to, and a boat-load of passengers, including all of our party, went ashore. The cap- tain acted as guide, and mar- shalled his forces of twenty- two, though when they were once on the island he found it difficult to make his company keep the right path, for all except a few docile ones were sure they could find a shorter cut than the captain took. They entered a little cove by a deserted house and barn, and clambering over a few rocks, crossed a pretty green meadow, yellow with butter- cups, which led to a higher ledge. Upon the other side of that was a marsh, over which they picked their way, L and so came to a ravine lead- ing up to the opening. It was not until they were upon the last steep incline that they discovered the opening in the mountain, and soon after stood at the entrance. " How high is the mountain, Captain ? " asked Mr. Bodley. " It is eight hundred feet ; you have climbed about half that dis- tance, and it is sixty feet from here to the top of the opening." The Hole in the Hat. 52 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Through the great hole they could see the ocean, dotted with isl- ands. One of the company fired a pistol, and flocks of birds came flying out from under the roof. Mr. Bodley and Mr. Van Wyck and Charles ran down from the opening, for the middle of the hole was lower than at either end. Then they climbed to the opposite extremity, and looked far below them at a cluster of houses and some boats on the beach. The entrance there was much grander, being more than two hundred feet in height, and arched. The walls were precipitous, almost plumb in some places, and near the en- trance, about twenty feet up, King Oscar had traced his name in bold letters, Oscar, 18-V— 73, or somebody had done it for him. " A cat may look at a king," said Mr. Bodley, and proceeded to score his own name more modestly, Nathan, 18-f-82. " Why don't you add Bodley, father ? " asked Charles, who had written his own name in full. " Oscar did not, and it would not be respectful in me to have a longer name than the king. I hope I know my manners, if I am an American and a democrat." They hurried back now to join the rest of the party, who had al- ready begun to descend the hill. The descent was quickly made, and when they reached the little cove they found they had only been absent an hour and a half. The turf was sprinkled with lovely flowers, anemones, orchids, heath, and buttercups, together with an unknown flower which Mrs. Van Wyck said was in half -mourning, since it had white petals and was almost black about the calyx. It resembled a blackberry blossom. The leaves were a little like those of the bunchberry, growing opposite each other about a short stalk. The steamer had gone off on a cruise to some village while the THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 53 party had been exploring the hole, and it was some time before it appeared again. " It is as good as being shipwrecked/' said Sarah. " We are on an island, and waiting very comfortably for our rescuers." " What an excellent end to the week," said her mother. " Scram- bling over these rocks after being penned up in the steamer gives one all the feeling of having done something very praiseworthy. I feel as if I could say, I have spent a virtuous day." "It is the air of the north, Phippy," said her husband. "Depend upon it, our virtue is all owing to that." After they had rowed back to the steamer, and the children had gone to bed, the older members of the party watched the sun for some time, scarcely able to decide whether it was setting or about to rise. It was only an hour and a half below the horizon at this point. As it was nearly twelve, however, they made up their minds to go to bed by sunset, rather than by sunrise, and so turned in to sleep and dream. CHAPTER IV. THE MIDNIGHT SUN- When the party returned to the steamer they found more pas- sengers aboard, but were chiefly interested in a Lapp, the first they had seen. He was a short man who wore a belted frock of some woolen stuff, while his legs were encased in leather leggings, and his feet were shod with reindeer-skin shoes. A sugar-loaf woolen head-piece covered his head, and his thin gray hair crept below it. 54 THE VIKING- BODLEYS. He appeared to be a pedlar ; at least, he carried a pack on his back. Sunday morning was bright and clear. The Jonas Lie was steam- ing up the Vefsenfjord, which showed high, snow-covered rocks on either side. There was an English clergyman on board, and it was proposed to have service, but the captain advised waiting until they should have left the next station, as there would be a good deal of noise in loading and unloading. It was eleven o'clock when they reached the station. Here were green hills and smiling fields, while upon the opposite side of the fjord were rocky cliffs, with snow lying in the ravines. The captain said they might be detained an hour or two, and so our party set off for a walk. " Let us go to that church," said Mr. Van Wyck, pointing to one which they spied a mile or so away, " and perhaps we shall be in time to see the service." " Don't you want to hear it, Uncle Philip ? " asked Charles. " Yes, if they sing ; but I am afraid my outward ears would not serve as very valuable conductors to my inner man." The road led through a little village, where they saw a number of little girls and boys at play, playing prisoner's base. Outside of the village the way was somewhat circuitous and very hot. Various carriages passed them filled with people going either to or from church, "I should think I was going to church in New England," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " I was myself thinking of Cape Cod this very moment," said her brother, " and wondering if we should not meet Uncle Freeman in his carryall, with the flight of steps on the side." " I remember those steps. They folded up with a series of bangs. THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 55 When you stepped on the lowest one, you were not sure but the carryall would tip over on that side. Dear me, it almost makes me homesick." The church to which they had come was a large, red-painted building, octagonal in shape, with four arms, and a sharp bell-tower in the centre. Near by was what appeared to be the parsonage, with barns and other buildings clustered about it. Horses were cropping the grass, unharnessed from the wagons and carioles which stood about on the turf. The shady stoops and benches were filled with men and boys whittling and talking idly, while women and girls stood in groups, or walked about. All had the air of knowing that they wore their Sunday clothes, though there was little that w T as distinctive in costume. The women, to be sure, wore handker- chiefs on their heads, some figured and some white, and the men thick woolen mufflers about their throats, hot as it was. " It must be between two services," said Mrs. Boclley, " for the people are all out in the church-yard." " I am not so sure," said her husband. " The church steps look as though there was a crowd inside." So it proved, for when they tried to enter the church they had to make their way through a throng of people, and once inside, they had to stand with many others. The pews were filled, while the centre aisle was lined with a row of boys on one side, and a row of girls on the other. An old clergyman in a black robe and white ruff, with ruffles also at his wrist, and wearing a skull-cap and gold spectacles, was slowly coming down the aisle. " He is catechizing the children," said Mrs. Bodley, in a whisper, to Mrs. Van Wyck. " We never can stay till he has gone down this long aisle and 56 THE VIKING.. BODLEYS. back," returned her sister. She gave a hint to the gentlemen, and they edged their way out of church again. "At all events, it was a characteristic spectacle," said Mr. Van Wyck. " We saw an old Norwegian priest catechizing his flock, and I could make out that he was asking a series of questions on the doctrines, to which the boys answered yes or no." " Your Norwegian is coming on famously, Philip," said his wife. " Oh, you must remember he was talking to children," said Mr. Van Wyck, carelessly. " Of course it was easier to understand." " Just hear him, Phippy," said Mrs. Bodley. " His pride of lan- guage goeth before destruction, I am sure." " Did you notice the ship which hung from the centre of the ceil- ing;: ? " asked Charles of his cousin. " Yes, it was full-rigged, and reminded me of the ships we saw hung in a Holland church, — at Harlem, was n't it ? " " There was a ship there, I remember ; but this one was not a viking ship, certainly." The walk back to the Jonas Lie was hotter than the walk to the church, and our party was glad of the sheltered awning. Later a breeze sprang up, and it was a pretty sight to see a fleet of twenty or thirty fishing-boats, with their square brown sails, go tripping down the fjord. The mist again settled upon the steamer as it went on its way. There was service in the cabin at four, when the Eng- lish clergyman, a kindly-faced man, read the service and said a few simple words. After supper there was a momentary hope of clearer weather. In the far north there was a broad beam of golden light, such as one often sees at sunset under the mist. The whole length of the sunlit band was a row of islands, covered with sharp hills, whose tops were outlined along the sky ; their forms were clearly THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 57 defined, and they were the islands of the blest to our eager travelers. They steamed toward them, and in the same direction was sailing, though nearer to the light, a flock of little Norwegian fishermen. The boats were marked against the sky, and appeared as spires and towers in the distant golden city. " What do you think ? " said Mr. Van Wyck. " The captain tells me that we are now crossing the Arctic circle, and see ! over yon- der is Hestmandso, or Horseman's Island." " And who, pray, was the horseman ? " asked his wife. " What ! have you so soon forgotten ? He is the gigantic lover who shot the arrow which pierced the hat and made the hole through which the sun turned to stone the flying gi- ant maiden." " Dear me ! I am looking very hard, but I find it strains my eyes to make out a horseman." " You must mix your sight with faith, Phippy. That is the horse- man, and it will not do to go by and not recognize him." " I think the Arctic circle makes my head go round," said Mrs. Van Wyck, plaintively, " and I must give it up." The rest all looked hard, but while they were disputing as to which was the head and which the tail of the horse, and whether the horseman had on a cloak or no, the mist again shut in about them. Hestmandso. Horseman's Island. 58 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " We are now within the region of perpetual snow," said Mr. Van Wyck. " And perpetual mist/' added his wife. " Here we have come to see the sun shamelessly shining at midnight, and we have hardly seen it shine at noon." u There is an Englishman on board, a doctor, who has a pocket barometer, which shows what the weather is going to be," said Charles. " I know that Englishman," said his father. " I don't believe in pocket weather. I have seen him consult the little thing. He might just as well look at his watch." "I know him, too," said Mr. Van Wyck. "We were walking the deck yesterday. We had been speaking of emigration to America, when he asked, * Is n't the land rather worn out in Philadelphia ? You would n't advise a farmer to go there ? ' If he had not been a modest as well as a stupid man, I should have answered him that in some parts of Philadelphia I believed the land was worth fifty dol- lars a square foot, but I spared his feelings and tried gently to lead him out of his ignorance. ' I was thinking, I suppose,' said he, i of the time of the civil war, when the armies went back and forth over Philadelphia.' " " The captain says," — began Charles. " Oh yes," interrupted Sarah, " I know what the captain says. He says we are going to have this weather right along, and he is very doubtful if we shall be able to ascend the North Cape." " How did you know the captain said that ? " " I guessed it. I 'm cross." " Well, he did say it." Indeed, it was little wonder that Sarah was cross, and that all the THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 59 party was somewhat discouraged. Mist, mist, mist, with occasional glimpses of the wonderfully wild scenery through which they were passing. Then the boat was constantly stopping to load or unload, and the steady rattle of the hoisting apparatus was like a tune played on one string. All this made delay, too, and it was Wednes- day noon before they had reached Tromso. " Tromso is called the Paris of the north," said Mr. Van Wyck, waving his hand toward the town. Tromso. " Uncle Philip, you got that from the guide-book," said Charles. "I read it there myself." " Well, Charles, I hope you will not be so fascinated by the gay- ety of the place that you will not wish to leave it. Let me make a proposition. It will surely be impossible for us to see this great Paris of the north in the few hours we have unless we divide our forces. Nathan, you might take Sarah and Charles ; Blandina and Phippy can make a second party, and I will make a third. Then, when we return we can report what we have seen." 60 THE VIKING .BODLEYS. This was agreed to. They reached Tromso in the middle of the forenoon, and were told that they need not return until four o'clock in the afternoon' Promptly at four they all met on the steamer. " Place aux dames," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Do you know what that means, Charles ? " " Make way for the girls," said the boy promptly. " Just so. Come, Phippy and Blandina, tell us where you have been." " Shopping, of course," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Is not that what people go to Paris for ? We have been in the silversmiths' shops, and we have found some lovely things. Look at this little cup ; " and she produced a silver cup, a little larger than a thimble. It was much dented, and had an inscription upon it. " Now, Philip," she said, " produce that precious Norwegian language which you use so cautiously, and tell us what it means when it says, as nearly as I can spell it, — " ' Drikk mig ud, Lag mig ned ; Staar jeg op, Saa skjenk mir.' " " Oh, I can make that out, — " ' Drink me dry, Lay me by ; Set me up, Drain the cup. 5 " " Well done ! Now see what I have," said his sister, and she pro- duced a silver porringer, about two inches in diameter, and a silver spoon with a flat bowl. " They are Lapp things. The man spoke beautiful broken English, and he told me so." " Did you ever measure a Lapp child's mouth ? " asked Mr. Van THE MIDMGHT SUN. 61 Wyck, looking critically at the spoon. " It must be of extraordi- nary width to take this in." " Oh, but we saw some real Lapps ! " said Charles, eagerly. " We saw a group of them, and we bought some shoes made of reindeer- skin, which they made." " And very pretty shoes they are," added Sarah ; " but I think I shall air mine pretty well before I wear them. Now, Charles, show what else you bought." "It is a top, a whipping- top, with a leather whip," said the boy. " We saw two little fellows whipping a top. I had read about whipping- tops in story books, but I never saw one in America, so I gave the boys ten ore for the whole establishment." " Two cents and a half," exclaimed Sarah ; " and I am morally certain that Charles cannot make that top go. I heard a banging noise in his state-room after we came back, and I think he was knocking that top about. Own up, Charles ! " " Get your top," said his uncle, " and show how finely you can spin it." " It 's in my pocket now," said Charles, reluctantly. Lapps. 62 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Whip it out." Charles produced it, and after much urging, put it on the deck and began lashing it. He knocked it here and there and plunged wildly after it, nearly throwing the top overboard, and going after it himself. It stood on its head. It fell on its side. It was every- where except on its stubby peg. Charles grew red, but continued to dance about, determined to make it spin. Such a pother was made that the captain, who was passing by, stopped to see what was the matter. " Beg your pardon," said he. He began most of his sentences in English with these words. " Beg your pardon. Let me try ; " and taking the top, he gave it a little twist, applied the lash deftly, and the top went whirling about like a dancer, rambling over the deck, and apparently very much at its ease. " Beg your pardon," said the captain, as he handed the whip to Charles. " I spun tops in Tromso when I was a boy. I was born here." " Well," said Charles, who kept the top on its leg by continuing to whip it, "that's some compensation for being born in Tromso." " There was a little boy of Tromso," said his father, suddenly, — " ' There was a little boy of Tromso, 'T was there he had his home, sir, He whipped his little top Till he was seen to drop, This dizzy little boy of Tromso.' Now, Philip, you have not told us what you did." " Oh, I took a bath." " Took a bath ! Why, you could have had one on the boat." " Exactly, but I preferred going to the Grand Hotel. I believe I THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 63 asked for a railroad first. I know the man looked surprised. I wanted a bane, I said. I looked in my dictionary afterward, and found that meant a railroad. I should have asked for a bad. How- ever, I added varmt vand, — that means warm water, Charles, — and my meaning was clear. The man brought up a big wooden wash-tub, such as we use at home for clothes. I think my time was well spent." " And that is all you saw of Tromso ! " said Charles, somewhat scornfully. After dinner that evening the passengers were in high spirits, for the mist was breaking away, and the captain promised them a fine night. They should certainly see the sun at midnight. So our young people took the precaution to take a nap in the evening. They were to be waked in good season before midnight. The rest of the party sat on deck and rejoiced in the wonderful beauty of the scene, as they crossed a broad confluence of fjords and came to Kaago Sund. In every direction were ranges of lofty, snow-cov- ered, rocky heights. Glaciers could be descried by their form, but only occasionally could the glitter of ice be seen beneath the weight of snow. The summits of these mountains were from two to five thousand feet above them, and rising as they did from the open sea, the effect was much more impressive than if seen from land. As they came toward Kaago Sund, a wild chaos of island and mountain forms was before them. It seemed almost impossible to penetrate that dark mass ; and as the boat went on and on, it looked as if it were diving into destruction. Silent did the four people sit in the midst of the glory and the gloom. " Ah ! " sighed Mrs. Van Wyck, at last, " to think that we shall forget this sight ! " 64 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Forget it, Phippy ? Impossible ! " " Yes, Blandina, we shall forget everything except the general impression. I know how it will be. There will be nothing but shreds and fragments of it left in our memories in three years." " Do not believe her," said Mrs. Bodley, earnestly. " Some day a picture, or only a thought, will throw open a door in her memory, and she will see this all in a flash." " I understand Tennyson's words better after this," said Mr. Van Wyck. " They have been sounding in my ears : — " ' Break, break, break, On thy cold, gray stones, O sea.' And I can understand how Dr. Kane kept saying them over to him- self in the Arctic. How this desolation does make one wish for something one has lost or left behind ! " " I really think we are getting sentimental, Philip," said his wife, energetically. "And besides, it is time to call the children." So the children were called, and they all watched with interest to see if the great event would come off. A heavy bank of clouds lay on the horizon at the north, and there was a good deal of doubt ex- pressed if the sun would not ungenerously get behind the cloud at twelve o'clock. Suddenly the captain gave orders to put the boat about, and it began steaming over the way it had just traversed. The reason was soon apparent. He said that if the steamer kept on its course it would get behind a rocky cliff where the sun could not be seen. The captain timed the manoeuvre admirably, for just at twelve o'clock, as all the company was assembled on the captain's bridge, there, full before them, was the sun on the edge of the bank of cloud. In the opposite quarter of the heaven was the moon, just THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 65 past the full, shining with a pale refulgence, which added no light to the landscape, but a charming picture to the sky. Even the clouds about it appeared to get nothing by being near. One of the passengers unscrewed a lens from his field-glass, and tried to burn a hole in his hat. " A whale ! " suddenly cried Charles, and there, right across the bows, it passed and spouted. " I could almost stroke his back," said Sarah. A little flock of sea-gulls flew overhead. The sun cast long shadows from the rocks upon the fjord, and bright light upon the snow-clad heights. There was little or no mist, and it was not cold. " I wish I could say what this light is like," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Is n't it a very early summer morning ? " suggested his wife. " It is as if the sun was shining at dawn," said Mrs. Bodley, and that was as near as they could come to expressing it. There was a subdued light over the whole landscape, yet a bright orb in one spot. The light was diffused, yet the source of light was burning clear and strong. " It is all in us," said Mr. Bodley, positively. " We know what time it is, and so we make the light strange. If we had waked sud° denly, and only knew that the sun was rising, we should see noth- ing but a clear sunrise. The trouble is, sunrise itself is a new thing to us." But all the rest shook their heads. It was the Midnight Sun, and they were not going to have it turned into an ordinary affair. They bade each other good-morning, and went to bed. When they came on deck at a later hour they were at Ham- merfest, the northernmost town in the world, and not waiting for breakfast, they hurried ashore to spend the hour which they were told they should have there. It was a quaint place, crouching under 5 66 THE VIKING BODLEYS. a precipitous hill close by the water's edge, with an excellent har- bor, which was filled with shipping. There were Russian vessels which had come round the corner, as Mrs. Van Wyck said, and Rus- sian sailors were rambling through the streets. " The people must be honest here," said Sarah. " Do you see that door-key hanging on a nail outside ? The people have gone off and left the key where they can get at it without trouble." Hammerfest. " There is no place for a thief to run to," said Charles. " He would have to take a boat if he wanted to get away at all. No- body would think of climbing those steep, icy hills." " Do you know what the latitude is ? " asked Mrs. Bodley of her husband. " My dear," said he, " I just looked it up, and I have forgotten THE MIDNIGHT SUN 67 already. I '11 look again," and then he announced that it was 70° 15' north latitude. " Where would that bring us in America ? " she asked. " I think at the northernmost point of Alaska. So you see that if we want to go as far north as Hammerfest, we can still be in United States territory." " Yet how warm it is here ! " "Warm, Sarah! hot you mean. I am all in a perspiration. Now do you know what I am going to do ? I am going to the post- office, and there I shall buy a Norwegian post-card and send a note to Aunt Lucy." " Bravo ! " said his father. " Let us all do it." So each bought a card and headed it, " The northernmost town in Europe," and in process of time Aunt Lucy Bodley received six post-cards, post- marked Hammerfest. Our friends were so pleased when they had done this, that they bought six more and sent them off to Cousin Ned Adams ; and if it had not been that the hour was nearly over, they might have gone on until they had stripped the post-office of its supply of post-cards. They need not have hurried after all ; for when they returned to the steamer they found that the captain had good-naturedly put off going to the North Cape until the afternoon, so that his passengers might climb the cape at midnight. Our friends used this additional time mainly in taking a long nap. In- deed, they were getting so confused by this perpetual daylight that they were losing ordinary account of time and seasons, and some- times were puzzled to know whether they were eating breakfast or supper. Contrary to expectation, and the company's table of stations, the Jonas Lie stopped at two or three places before reaching the 68 THE VIKING. BODLEYS. North Cape, but only for a short time at each ; and, except at these places, there were no houses or traces of human life to be seen. The intention was to reach the North Cape just in time to make the ascent and see the sun from it at midnight. The sky was cloudy, and the sun did not show itself. However, the passengers did not give up hope, and the captain, to pass away the time, proposed an excursion up a little fjord, where there was a whaling station, and men were engaged in trying out the blubber. " Does n't it smell ? " asked Mrs. Boclley, anxiously. " Beg your pardon, ma'am," said the captain. " Very badly." So much, indeed, was said of the awful smell, that every one was curious to go and see what effect it had on his neighbor. It turned out, when they reached the place, that the men were not at work, and all that was to be seen were the remains of two whales. The Jonas Lie lay to, and a boat-load at a time rowed to the shore. Our friends did not go in the first load, but watched curiously to see what effect was produced upon those who did go. They looked through their opera-glasses and saw each person in the boat holding his or her nose with a handkerchief. " It must be perfectly dreadful," said Sarah. " Why don't they come back and let us go ? " They came back and gave such a re- port that the rest of the passengers scrambled into the boat with great alacrity, curious to see if it were really as bad as was repre- sented. They rowed into a cove between the two monsters, and held a conversation with a man who had come down from the hut, where the work was done. The mate, who was in charge of the boat, did the talking and interpreted to the passengers. The whales were about sixty-five feet long. Everything had been got out of them, and they were abandoned ; but some peasants would come THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 69 along presently and get what refuse they could scrape for a species of cod-liver oil. Then the whales would be towed out to sea and left to fall to pieces and become drift-bone, go to the bottom or be washed up on the coast. All this was told in a leisurely fashion, while our friends could hardly breathe. " Why in the world don't they hurry ? " said Charles, under his handkerchief. " I do believe the mate has got everything out of The North Cape. the man and is talking about the weather." The other passengers were equally impatient and began gesticulating to the mate, who laughed and ordered the men to row back to the steamer. The fjord in which the whales lay was a short recess just west of the North Cape promontory. A few people live there who lie in wait for prey, so to speak, dart out with their boats, harpoon a whale and tow him in, sometimes alive, to their cooking-shed. The Jonas Lie now steamed out of the fjord, and soon it was evident that the steamer was upon the open ocean. Great swells 70 THE VIKING. BODLEYS. sent the boat rising and falling, an experience which they had not known since they left Throndhjem, for they had been under shel- ter of the land, but now were receiving the force of the Arctic Ocean. The passengers were below at supper while this was going on, and when they came on deck again, there abreast of them was a promontory, and on their quarter towered the great rock of the North Cape. "So this is the very tip-toppest point of Europe," said Sarah, gaz- ing at the monster, which was shrouded above in mist. " No, my dear," said her father. " It is not. It is so big and bold that people have agreed to overlook the fact that that knife- blade tongue of land which you see runs just a trifle farther north, about a half a mile, I believe." Between the two projections was a little bay, into which the steamer now ran and lay quiet. It was too early yet to make the ascent, and so every one fell to fishing, to pass away the time. The truth was, it looked very, very doubtful if it was going to be clear enough to permit any one to land and climb the rock, and so they all said nothing about it, but fished away as persistently as if that was why they had come to this lonely, out-of-the-way place. The mist fell lower and lower, until at last climbing the cape was wholly out of the question. There was no earthly prospect of the sun ap- pearing at twelve o'clock, — it was now ten, — so word was given, the lines were drawn in, the steamer put about, and soon the great cape in its cloak of mist disappeared from view. " Well, I am disappointed," said Mr. Bodley. " I had set my heart on sitting at the edge of the North Cape, letting my legs hang over, and looking at the Midnight Sun above the Arctic Ocean. I think I mind it a little less now that I find the North Cape is not THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 71 the most northern point in Europe. What did you say was the name of the little fellow that runs out half a mile farther, Philip ? " " Knivskjoer-odde — Knife-Blade Cape," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Very well, since I can't whittle something on the end of the knife-blade odde, I don't mind it so much." " What a fine thing he must have thought he found who first dis- covered the North Cape," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Do you suppose he knew it until he had sailed a good deal far- ther and found himself going south again ? " asked his sister. " Now, Philip," said his wife, mischievously, " own up and say frankly that you only made your remark in order to get a chance to recite Longfellow's poem on i The Discoverer of the North Cape ? ' " Phippy, it is useless to hide my most secret thoughts from you. As a penalty you are to listen, if everybody else runs away, while I recite the poem." " Oh, we are all wide awake. Think of the long nap we took at Hammerfest. Was that to-day ? It seems ages ago." " Very well ; I don't need urging. So listen to a leaf from King Alfred's Orosius, done into verse by Mr. Longfellow." THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE. Othere, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth, Which he held in his brown right hand. His figure was tall and stately, Like a boy's his eye appeared ; His hair was yellow as hay, But threads of a silvery gray Gleamed in his tawny beard. 72 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Hearty and hale was Othere ; His cheek had the color of oak ; With a kind of laugh in his speech, Like the sea-tide on a beach, As unto the King he spoke. And Alfred, King of the Saxons, Had a book upon his knees, And wrote down the wondi'ous tale Of him who was first to sail Into the Arctic seas. " So far I live to the northward, No man lives north of me ; To the east are wild mountain-chains, And beyond them meres and plains ; To the westward all is sea. " So far I live to the northward, From the harbor of Skeringes-hale, If you only sailed by day, With a fair wind all the way, More than a month would you sail. " I own six hundred reindeer, With sheep and swine beside ; I have tribute from the Finns, Whalebone and reindeer-skins, And ropes of walrus-hide. "I ploughed the land with horses, But my heart was ill at ease ; For the old seafaring men Came to me now and then, With sagas of the seas ; — " Of Iceland and of Greenland, And the stormy Hebrides, THE MIDNIGHT SUN 73 And the undiscovered deep; — Oh I could not eat nor sleep For thinking of those seas. "To the northward stretched the desert, How far I fain would know; So at last I sallied forth, And three days sailed due north, As far as the whale-ships go. " To the west of me was the ocean, To the right the desolate shore, But I did not slacken sail For the walrus or the whale, Till after three days more. "The days grew longer and longer, Till they became as one, And northward through the haze I saw the sullen blaze Of the red Midnight Sun. "And then uprose before me, Upon the water's edge, The huge and haggard shape Of that unknown North Cape Whose form is like a wedge. "The sea was rough and stormy, The tempest howled and wailed, And the sea-fog, like a ghost, Haunted that dreary coast, But onward still I sailed. "Four days I steered to eastward, Four days without a night : Round in a fiery ring Went the great sun, O King, With red and lurid light." 74 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Here Alfred, King of the Saxons. Ceased writing for a while; And raised his eyes from his book, With a strange and puzzled look, And an incredulous smile. But Othere, the old sea-captain, He neither paused nor stirred, Till the King listened and then Once more took up his pen, And wrote down every word. "And now the land," said Othere, "Bent southward suddenly, And I followed the curving shore And ever southward bore Into a nameless sea. " And there we hunted the walrus, The narwhale, and the seal ; Ha ! 'twas a noble game ! And like the lightning's flame Flew our harpoons of steel. " There were six of us all together, Norsemen of Helgoland ; In two days and no more We killed of them threescore, And dragged them to the strand ! " Here Alfred, the Truth-Teller, Suddenly closed his book, And lifted his blue eyes, With doubt and strange surmise Depicted in their look. And Othere, the old sea-captain, Stared at him wild and weird, SOUTHWARD BOUND. 75 Then smiled, till his shining teeth Gleamed white from underneath His tawny, quivering beard. And to the King of the Saxons, In witness of the truth, Raising his noble head, He stretched his brown hand, and said, " Behold this walrus-tooth ! " " Well," said Sarah, " it is a pity that we did not carry off some whale-bones to prove that we had been to the North Cape. A wal- rus-tooth ! I saw ever so many of them in shops at Tromso." " That was a good touch," said Mr. Bodley, " where the poet hinted at the likeness of Othere to a walrus. " ' Then smiled, till his shining teeth Gleamed white from underneath His tawny, quivering beard.'" " I have no doubt," said Mrs. Bodley, " that the cove in which we saw the two whales is the very one where Othere and his men did such execution on sixty walrus, narwhales, and seals. I don't won- der they stayed only two days with so many carcasses about. But come, it is long past midnight," and with that they all went below. CHAPTER V. SOUTHWARD BOUND. " What a pleasure it is to turn southward," said Mr. Bodley, when they met in the morning. They had already left Hammerfest be- hind them, the whole party having slept over their stay there. 76 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Yes/' said Mr. Van Wyck. " Much as I like traveling, I always enjoy the sensation which comes when we have been as far in one direction as we mean to go and turn round. I feel now as if we had started for home." " It will be fun recognizing the places which we stopped at on our way north," said Charles. " They will seem like old friends." The Midnight Sun was one of these old friends, for they had the good luck to see it again that night, and Tromso seemed very fa- miliar, when they reached it early Saturday morning. The cap- tain had proposed a favorite excursion for his passengers. There was an encampment of Lapps a few miles from Tromso, and it would be an easy thing for a party from the steamer to visit it, and see the strange people among their reindeer, of which they kept a large herd. So he had telegraphed for horses to be in readiness for the ladies, while the gentlemen were to walk. But when Mr. Van Wyck came on deck early, he found the captain wearing a disap- pointed air. " Beg your pardon," said the captain, " but this is a disappointing trip. No Lapps, no reindeer, no Midnight Sun." " What do you mean ? Have the Lapps run away ? " " No, but the snow has been so heavy that it has covered the ice on the fjords, and the reindeer can't cross." " Why, I should think they could cross all the easier, if the snow and ice are there." " Beg pardon. The ice would not be safe. It would break through at this season. They wait till it is clear, and then the rein- deer swim the fjord. These outer fjords are open, but the reindeer are in the interior." " And we shall see no Lapps ? " SOUTHWARD BOUND. 77 "There are Lapps in Tromso." " Oh yes, I know, those men, women, and children who have tents in the square and make shoes and baskets. They are just like the Indians at our watering-places in America. I care nothing for them. What I want to see is a regular Lapp hut." The captain nodded. A Lapp Hut. "Yes, you should see that. It is just a turf cabin. But you should see the reindeer." It rained hard all day, and there was little to tempt one ashore ; so our friends stayed under cover, and entertained themselves when the steamer was about to leave by watching a swarm of young Nor- 78 THE VIKING BODLEYS. wegians who gathered to bid good-by to three of their companions who were going south. The captain also had some friends to see him off, and there was a lively scene. The steamer was not at the pier, but in the stream, and ever so many little boats danced about it, bringing visitors or carrying them away. The three Norwegians on board waved their handkerchiefs and took off their hats to the people in the boats. Then the boats landed, and more good-byes were said on the wharf. Each separate person seemed to give and receive a separate benediction, as the steamer steamed away. The Jonas Lie had not left Tromso far behind before there was a sudden cry of " Reindeer ! " Out from the cabin rushed everybody, and there before them was a most interesting and novel sight. A herd of reindeer, more than a hundred in number, had been driven down to a point of land, where was the narrowest part of Tromso Sound, and were to be made to swim across. The distance was about a quarter of a mile. The steamer had just passed this point when they were discovered, and the captain at once stopped the boat, to let his passengers see the sight. There were a number of Lapps and two boats at the point, together with several dogs. One party of the Lapps got into a boat, and tying a rope to one of the reindeer, perhaps the leader of the herd, set out to row across the sound, towing the deer after them. The other reindeer imme- diately plunged into the water and swam after their leader. They followed in Indian file, and from the steamer the people could see a line of branching antlers. When the last was in the water, the rest of the Lapps and the dogs got into the second boat and followed in the rear, to see that all got over. A dozen or more were feebler or poorer swimmers, and straggled behind, one even turning back faint- hearted toward the shore from which it had set out. Others in the SOUTHWARD BOUND. 79 van were stronger, and passed the foremost boat, and so came first to land. As fast as the deer got ashore, they scrambled up the hill and cut up antics or fell to grazing. " Do they ever lose any ? " asked Mr. Van Wyck of the captain, as the steamer puffed away again. " Beg your pardon. Almost always they lose some in crossing." " I thought you said there were no reindeer near Tromso." " It was a mistake," said the captain. " Beg your pardon," and he walked off, apparently mortified that he should have been misin- formed. Rain, rain, mist, mist. That was the weather with which our friends became familiar as they crept down the coast, and stopped at one fishing station or another. Such quantities of herring as they took aboard ! The captain announced at one place that they would only be detained four hours. " Only four hours ! " exclaimed Sarah. " Will the steam windlass be used?" ■ Yes, the steam windlass certainly would be used. A great boat lies alongside of the steamer, filled with barrels of herring. The chain from the hoist is lowered into the boat. Silence for a moment, while the grapples are fastened to two barrels of herring. Another rattle as the load is hauled up. Silence while it is swung over the ship's side. Another fearful rattle as the barrels descend into the depths of the hold. Silence for a moment as the hooks are disen- gaged. Another rattle as the clanging chain comes up, and this is repeated until five hundred barrels have been stowed away. One day the captain pointed out a group of houses which they were passing. " Do you see them ? " he asked. " Once there lived a man who 80 THE VIKING BODLEYS. owned all this coast as far north as you can see, and far down to the south, but in ten years he lost it all through drink and not minding his affairs. And then one of his neighbors spoke against him, and said that he caught poor people and chopped them up and sold them to the Turks. Yes, there was a little building where he kept pota- toes, and they said that was the place. They had seen vessels sail- ing away from it in the morning." " That does not speak very well for the intelligence of your peo- ple up here," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Beg your pardon. It was some time since. But they had the same stories in Christiania not so very long ago." Mr. Van Wyck laughed as the captain moved away. " He seems anxious to relieve Sandfjord by throwing the burden upon a larger and more significant place," he said. " But do look at that poor woman ! " A boat was taking freight and passengers from the steamer. One woman's tine — as the gaudily painted boxes which the peasants carry are called — was passed out, and the han- dle came off, causing it to fall into the boat. Out came a milky- looking fluid, dribbling over the side of the tine. The poor woman opened her box in haste, but turned round with a beaming face, and showed her friends that two small phials, probably of medicine, had not broken; and then that a precious looking-glass, about three inches square, was safe. A bottle of coffee or milk had broken and emptied its contents over a plate of butter, some bread, and a lot of clothes of various sorts. " What a queer medley ! " said Sarah. " And have you noticed," said Charles, " what odd mittens the men wear ? They have two thumbs on each hand. What do you suppose it is for? " SOUTHWARD BOUND. 81 " The odd thumb looks like a fin," said Sarah. " I fancy it must be for convenience in putting on and off in a hurry," said Mrs. Bodley. " You know it 's very awkward getting your mitten on the wrong hand. Now whichever hand you put the mitten on, and whichever way it faces, in goes the thumb." " Do knit me a pair, mother," said Charles. " I think you must have been a boy to have made that discovery of the awkwardness of putting your mitten on the wrong hand." "What do you think?" said Mr. Bodley, who came up to the party at this moment. " We are to go up the Raft Sund." " On a raft soon, Nathan ? Surely the steamer is not going to pieces," said his wife. " My dear, you must learn some of my Norwegian. I said Raft Sund. I think that means Rafter Sound. At any rate, it is a pic- turesque sound which the steamer does not often visit ; but the cap- tain is good-natured. We have had a good many disappointments, he says, so we are to go up the sound." " Could anything be finer than this ? " asked Mrs. Van Wyck, pointing to the Lofoden Islands. " Why did we not see this when we came up ? Was it in the night ? " " Night or mist, one or the other, Phippy ; but it is fine indeed." They were crossing the noble Vestfjord. All about were jagged rocks and high peaks, like the aiguilles of the Alps, serrated ridges, and here and there great masses of mountains piled high above the clouds. The surface of the water was dotted with countless islands and rocky islets, through which the steamer wound its way Lovely lights and shadows were to be seen. The sun would send its pencil- ing of light upon some crag or green slope ; and once there was the base of a rainbow, spreading a wonderful prismatic light over the foot of the strangest mountain forms on the horizon. 82 THE VIKING BODLEYS. When the Jonas Lie entered the Raft Sund, a new pleasure awaited the eager passengers. The voyage was not unlike, in cer- tain general effects, the passage of the Rhine. That is, the sound wound about as the river does, and crags and slopes hemmed it in on either side ; but there was little that was smiling about this water, and there were no castles on the rocks nor vineyards on the slopes. A storm was before them and seemed always about to burst. The steamer drove by such tortuous ways, that, as one looked back, it was as if the gates of the hills had silently closed be- hind. Then one must needs admire the sweetness that now and again appeared in the midst of this wild, rude pass ; a broken hill, which had once been a mass of unsightly rock and gravel, had been reclaimed by nature with a soft green moss or verdure of some kind like a covering that fitted tenderly into every angle and hol- low of the mass ; then the light from the sun would fall upon a bit, and here would be a pale green distant hill-side. At every turn were clusters of houses, and boys in fishing-boats waving their hats to the people on the steamer. Into the gloomy depths of the sound did the steamer plunge ; but at last, as if tired of finding a way out in that direction, turned and retraced the way back into the more open fjord. Once more Bodo was visited, that bright little town with its fine background of snowy mountain peaks, its snug little harbor, and especially with the glimpse which it allowed across the water, be- tween two rocks which mark the entrance to the harbor, of a strik- ing range of snowy summits, just filling the rocky frame as a com- plete picture. " We have passed the point," said Mr. Van Wyck that evening, " where we can see the sun at midnight." SOUTHWARD BOUND. 83 " Well," said his wife, " the next best thing is to see it set, go be- hind the door a little while and come out again. Let us sit up for that performance." So, after the children had been sent below, the older ones of the party stayed above for this little show. The sun set about half after eleven, and a short after-glow followed. That did not last long ; there succeeded the still night which was light with the cool, colorless clearness so impossible to express in words, when everything was sharply defined but untouched by any warmth. The late moon now shone brightly. She had recovered her spirits and was hailed as an old friend. " Dear me," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " is n't it pleasant, Philip, to come to the end of a day ? Why, we shall yet see stars. 1 have n't seen a star for ages." " Yes, Phippy, I have no doubt you have seen the sun enough in the last fortnight to justify you in lying half an hour later in the morning for the next year. What a queer life we should lead of it at home if we were in such interminable daylight ! It 's all very well when you are traveling and amusing yourself, but think of leading my jog-trot of a business life under such conditions ! " So they went sailing on over the most quiet sea they had ever traversed, the reflections in it perfect, and the only ripples those made by the boat or by the eider ducks that sqmetimes fluttered across the water with a peculiar motion, half swimming, half flying, after their amphibious style. For the most part, however, ducks and gulls were asleep either on the rocks or on the surface of the water. It was not long before a slight color was seen in the sky, thrown up by the yet unrisen sun ; then the mackerel clouds above took on a ruby hue, and the water below was like wine. The color spread, and our friends looked eagerly for the rosy tints of dawn to 84 THE VIKING BODLEYS. strike upon the high peaks in the west. If the boat had stayed where it was, they said, they should have seen the sun rise. But alas ! the Jonas Lie began to crawl down a narrow fjord with high cliffs on either side, and as the fjord seemed interminable, the party A Norwegian Wedding. went below, a little before two, knowing that the sun was up, though they could not see it. It chanced the next day that the boat was to make a three or four hours' stop near Mosjoen in the Vefsenfjord, to take in freight. It was near the place where, on the way up, they had spent part of a Sunday, and had seen the interior of a Norwegian church. Now DUE NORTH. 85 they landed and made their way through the village of Mosjoen. There seemed to be some stir in the village ; but what was their delight, as they turned a corner, to find themselves in full view of a bridal procession. The bride and groom were in a cart and fol- lowed by a decorous crowd of friends and relations, marching in due order. A fiddler played a merry tune, and the little Norwegian pony jogged along as if he were quite aware of what was going on behind him. " Oh, don't I wish we could fall into the procession," said Sarah, " and go to the house and see the fun ! " " If we had time, I have no doubt we should be welcomed by the family ; for hos- pitality is a good Norwegian virtue," said her father. " Look at the bride ! " said Charles. " She is wearing a crown." " To be sure. Every bride has her crown ; some of them are very valuable, and all are well wrought. They are heir- looms in the family, along with other silver ornaments and articles of table ware. Each district has its own costume ; and when the people go into Christiania or Bergen, one can tell where they come from by the clothes they wear. But these local customs of dress are gradually disappearing, I believe." They hunted, as usual, for the silversmith's shop, after the pro- cession was out of sight, and looked over his stock. He had a bride's crown, much like what they had just seen, and Mrs. Van The Bride. 86 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Wyck hesitated long over the question of buying it against Sarah's marriage. " You see," she whispered to her husband, " Sarah may be mar- ried in ten years from now. Suppose she should marry a Norwe- gian. How handy this crown would be ! " " Yes, imagine her walking up the aisle at St. John's with this thinsc on her head ! Now here are some silver buttons. I don't mind getting them. Buttons are always useful." " Here is my choice," said Mr. Bodley, triumphantly, producing a quaint silver ring. " It will do excellently for a scarf ring. It is dated 1587. No label, mind you, but engraved in the silver. Philip, get out your Norwegian language and hold a little conver- sation with this dumb show of a shopkeeper." "Did you put that date on?" asked Mr. Van Wyck in his pret- tiest Norwegian. " I don't talk English," said the shopkeeper, promptly. " Nathan, he does n't know his own tongue. Let us see the ring. What is this inscription ? ' Sie Deus pro nobus, quis kontro nos. r Well clone. There 's Latin spelled by ear evidently. Charles, tell us what it means." " i If God be for us, who can be against us ? ' " " Just so. I think the man who invented that spelling invented the elate too." " Nonsense ! " said Mr. Bodley. " I believe in the ring, date, Latin, and all, and I mean to buy it." Shopping over, they returned to the steamer, and went merrily on to Throndhjem, and from Throndhjem to Christiansand, and then to Molde, where the steamer got rid of nearly all the pas- sengers who had not before left. It seemed very quiet now, for SOUTHWARD BOUND. 87 our friends had the steamer almost to themselves, and greatly did they enjoy the exceedingly beautiful scenery which followed in the lovely evening all the way from Molde to Aalesund. There were sunset lights and colors, and it was a pleasure to be back under the more homelike conditions of Nature. " I feel as if I had escaped from an enchanted country," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Look ! there is actually a star. ' I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish to-night.' " " What is your wish, mother? " asked Sarah. " It would not come to pass, my dear, if I were to tell it." " That is the way with wishes," said Sarah, with a sigh. " I was just wishing for a letter from Aunt Lucy, and I mentioned it to father. Perhaps, if I had n't said anything, he would have pro- duced one from his pocket. I almost envy those Norwegian emi- grants whom we have been picking up all the way from the North Cape. I suppose they are going to Bergen to sail for America." " Yes," said her father. " The captain says that the best of the men and women are leaving the country. So much the better for America ; but I am sorry for Norway." It was evening when the Jonas Lie reached Bergen, and our friends parted from the captain and mate and pilot; for they were to leave the steamer here and make their way across the country to Christiania again. They had been nearly three weeks on the boat, and they really felt a twinge at leaving it. " It is like an old horse," said Sarah, " that has been dragging us about. I should like to pat it, if there was any good place." " You might pat the boiler, Sarah," said Charles. " That must be the heart of the steamer, if any part is." " Or the wheel," said her mother. " I always feel as if the wheel were what made the boat go." 88 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " For my part," said Mr. Van Wyck, " I should go down into the enp-ine-room and stroke the piston-rod." " Or those little fellows that jump up with so much gravity," said Mr. Boclley. But the Jonas Lie, if not forgotten, was soon put out of mind, as^ our friends made themselves at home in Bergen, and took their bearings a little before setting out on their journey " across-lots," as Mrs. Van Wyck said. They quite fell in love w r ith the sturdy little Fish Market in Bergen. town, which braces itself against the sea, with its back to the moun- tains. They visited the fish market, and thought of Bjornson's sto- ries in which the young peasants seem to think and speak of Bergen as the one great town. " I can't help fancying," said Mr. Boclley, " that Bergen looks as Boston did in the days of our very great grandfathers. Of course, the country is different ; there are no mountains about Boston " — SOUTHWARD BOUND. 89 " Beacon Hill," interrupted Charles. " And Corey's Hill," said Sarah. " You are young New Yorkers with your saucy gibes," went on Mr. Bodley. " Let me finish. What makes me think of the Bos- ton of the end of the seventeenth century, for instance, are these crowded, narrow streets, with such an infusion of the old salt ele- A Street in Bergen. ment. When I was a boy I used to get glimpses of old Boston about the North End, and it was not wholly unlike this." " Did you ever see so many odd turns, and such disorder in the arrangement of streets ? " exclaimed Mrs. Bodley. And no wonder, for while some were straight enough, the Bergen people never seemed to have troubled themselves to level their rocky town, but had led their streets and lanes round and over hills and steeps in the 90 THE VIKING BODLEYS. most confusing manner. Behind the streets in which they walked they could make out half -hid den passages and courts ; and though all this could scarcely increase the charm of living, it certainly gave a picturesque air to the place. "No wonder there is so much art in connection with Bergen," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Art ? " asked his wife. " Yes. I do not know so much of the pictorial art, yet consider SOUTHWARD BOUND. 91 what Bjornson has made of it, and what vigorous work is done here in music and the drama." " Oh, this was Ole Bull's home, was n't it ? " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " To be sure. He was born and bred here, and any one who knew him or has read the sketches of him that have appeared, 1 can read- ily see that he was a son of the soil, and his musical nature was fed from springs of popular life. That fiddle which we saw the other day at Mosjoen meant that the people had music as a familiar friend and not as an imported luxury." " I should like to have heard him play in Bergen, amongst his own people," said Mrs. Boclley. " So should I. He is the distinctest figure among all our great musicians, I think. Who that ever saw him come upon the stage could forget that graceful figure, that mingling of dignity and af- fectionateness which made him and his fiddle so enchanting ? " " Yes, enchanting is just the word," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " He always seemed to me to have an air about him as if he enjoyed an understanding with the little gnome who lived in the violin." Ole Bull playing. 1 Mr. Van Wyck was speaking before he could have read Mrs. Bull's faithful and genuine story of her husband's life. 92 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Longfellow has drawn his picture at full length," said her hus- band. " Nothing could be better than his lines ; and he has hinted at your feeling, Phippy. " ' Last the Musician, as he stood Illumined by that fire of wood ; Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe, His figure tall and straight and lithe, And every feature of his face Revealing his Norwegian race ; A radiance, streaming from within, Around his eyes and forehead beamed, The Angel with the violin, Painted by Raphael, he seemed. He lived in that ideal world Whose language is not speech, but song; Around him evermore the throng* Of elves and sprites their dances whirled ; The Stromkarl sang, the cataract hurled Its headlong; waters from the height ; And mingled in the wild delight The scream of sea-birds in their flight, The rumor of the forest trees, The plunge of the implacable seas, The tumult of the wind at night, Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing, Old ballads, and wild melodies Through mist and darkness pouring forth, Like Elivagar's river flowing Out of the glaciers of the North.' There is more than portrait there, but I could not help going on." " I wish I had seen him," said Sarah. " So do I," said her father. " If I had known that he was to die, I would have taken you to whatever place he was going to play in ; but it chanced that you were too young or were not at home when he played most. There was some good reason." ACROSS LOTS. 93 " Let it be a warning to you, my dear papa," and she shook her forefinger gravely, " never to lose an opportunity when I may chance to see a genius." " I never mean to," said her father, with energy. " I would not miss the few childish recollections of great men and great scenes which I possess. They are worth a great deal more than some of my maturer knowledge." CHAPTER VI. ACROSS LOTS. Bergen was the starting-point for our travelers, who meant to follow the winding waters of the Hardanger Fjord, then cross to the Sogne Fjord, and so across the Fillefjeld, and by Valders back to Christiania. They had studied carefully the various routes by which they could cross the country, and had decided that this of- fered the most attraction for the short time which was at their dis- posal. They wanted to see something of the interior of the coun- try, and to get a little more closely to Norwegian life than was possible on their northern trip. " That was like seeing an endless panorama," said Mr. Bodley. " I want to get round behind and see the man who turns the crank." " There will be a good deal of panorama at the beginning, I fancy," said Mr. Van Wyck, " if T can trust the guide-book." They left Bergen in the late evening by a little boat, The Viking, 94 THE VIKING BODLEYS. which was to transfer them in the morning to the regular steamer which plies on the Hardanger Fjord, and early the next day they were at Lervik, waiting for the Folgefond, which was named for a great glacier under which it was in the habit of steaming. It was before breakfast that they were to get on the Folgefond ; but they had their coffee on The Viking. (i How singular it is," said Mrs. Bodley, " that we get such good coffee in Norway. There is always abundance of cream, yet I have hardly seen a spear of grass in the country, and the cows look as though they could only give down a pint a day." " Probably that pint is all cream," said her husband. " But it is curious. We have not missed delicious cream our whole voyage. The coffee, however, is the thing. They know how to make it. I 've not had a poor cup of coffee in Norway." " Nor a good one in England," said his sister. The Folgefond at last appeared and took our little party on board. They had the prospect of a long day of steaming before they should reach Odde at the foot of the fjord, and it was with a little sense of weariness that they again felt the throb of the en- gine, and saw the familiar sights. Nevertheless, they knew well that they should see different sights from what they had seen on the coast, for now they were penetrating the heart of the mountain district. Alas, for the bright promise of the day ! the wind brought clouds, and the clouds rain, which fell in frequent showers all the morning, and after dinner, when the steamer entered the Graven Fjord, it came down in a steady pour. The people paced the decks like caged tame animals, and looked off on the wet hills dripping with waterfalls. " Was it really worth while to come so far to see so much wa- ter ? " sighed Mrs. Van Wyck. ACROSS LOTS. 95 Certainly rain had the most depressing effect on their spirits. There was, however, one small favor : the boat made only the short- est stay at each station, keeping its advertised hours of arrival and departure with admirable punctuality. A little variety was caused by the occasional irregular stoppages, not at stations, but for boats which hailed the steamer in the middle of the fjord. They would put out from some little hamlet with a single passenger, and lie in wait for the steamer, skillfully come alongside, as the engine stopped, and then at the risk of a splashing, which they sometimes caught, the man would spring aboard, his boxes would be tossed after him, the engine meanwhile starting again, and the rowers in the boat exceedingly anxious to get away before they were sucked into the screw's vortex. Quite often the boats were womaned, and not manned, and by young girls, no older than Sarah, who pulled lustily. At last the rain ceased, the clouds broke away, the sun came out ; and in a trice our friends were in the best of spirits again ; for they knew that the finest scenery on the fjord was yet before them. There is a long and narrow arm of the Hardanger, extending to the south, and the steamer follows it to its very end. There was a great deal of life on the fjord, and the interest was continually deepening. On either side were lofty hills and mountains, with only this ribbon of water between. Far up were rocks and snow and ice, with waterfalls tumbling from the glacier ; and below, at the foot, clinging to the precipitous sides, were villages and houses which sometimes really looked as if they must slip off. " What in the world," asked Mrs. Bodley, " is that hanging on those trellises ? It looks suspiciously like grass." " So it is," said her husband, " or was. It is fast becoming hay. 96 THE VIKING BODLEYS. They cut their little patches of grass and hang them on these ex- temporized trellises to dry. It could not dry fast enough or well enough on the ground. The sun gets at it better now, and the sun has a hard time evidently getting at any piece of grass-land here in Norway." " What are those curious frames for, that stretch up the hill ? " asked Charles. "If you look closer, Charles," said his father, "you will see long ropes stretching from frame to frame. They are rope- ways for sending down the hay or what-not that is raised on little patches up there. There is a little more sun up there and a little scanty herb- age, you see ; but certainly it is farming under difficulties." " The Norwegian builds his house here as he does on the coast," said Mr. Van Wyck. " There he finds a harbor, and no matter how rocky and forbidding its immediate surrounding, he plants his house and a village grows up. It is the harbor that makes it. Here he finds a little patch of grass, and no matter how inaccessible it may appear, he builds his house near it." It was marvelous to see where some had established themselves. High up the cliff, where the peasant must always climb, would these farms be perched, and one place on the east side was a mere patch of green at a dizzy height, which, so far as the eye could see, was equally inaccessible either from above or below. Yet here, on these farms, men were living who were counted rich, as riches go in this country. It certainly was impressive to see the glittering gla- cier high up, spread over the mountain-top and hanging over the sides ; while below it were rocks and waterfalls, then straggling trees, and a little lower only the houses and farms ; while at the base, upon the fjord, would be a few more houses with a mill fed ACROSS LOTS. 97 from a waterfall, and a pier for the boat. Near the pier was pretty sure to be a substantial house with all the signs of comfort and good taste about it. Before the boat reached Odde, the mountains came even nearer, and on the east side rose to great height. Perhaps they were not remarkably high, but they formed a stupendous crag, with another facing it, the two giants separated by a ravine down which tumbled cascades. " These are certainly the mightiest rocks I ever looked on," said Mrs. Van Wyck. "Is it because I am so near them ? " " It is partly that, I fancy," said her husband, " and partly the character of the rocks themselves. Their faces are so seamed and scarred ; they look so old and weather-worn. There is no hint of vegetation about them except a few lichens." u They are perfectly appalling," she said vehemently. " I really am afraid of them. They are so grim, so immovable. I don't know why, but they seem to invite some giant just to try to see if he can push them. Do let 's get past." " I think they would be more fearful if they were not so immov- able," said her husband, dryly. " However, we are going past them, and shall soon be at Odde." The steamer reached Odde, where it was to lie all night, at about half after nine in the evening. The ladies and Sarah and Charles stowed themselves away ; but Mr. Bodley and Mr. Van Wyck said they were cramped and wanted to stretch their legs, so they stepped along the only road they saw, through the little village. It led southward, by the side of a brawling, snowy-white stream, and by an easy ascent of perhaps twenty minutes, placed them at the head •of the rapids, whence they looked back on the village at their feet. 7 98 THE VIKING BODLEYS. They were in a narrow gorge, and kept on until they came to a bridge crossing the head of the stream. There, to their surprise, they found the water issuing from a long lake, or mountain tarn. The sky had been overclouded and it was rather dark. " Let us keep on this road and see where it goes to," said Mr. Bodley. " I see a waterfall," said Mr. Van Wyck. " In fact, I see two. We '11 go as far as to them." The road presently became only the width of a cariole track, hugging the cliff on one side and built up above the water on the other. Large stones, placed at distances of four or five feet, pro- tected one from going over the side, and in places the cliff leaned over toward the road. It grew darker, though it was always twi- light, and there were drops of rain. Then the stars came out, and the sky showed patches of blue. The road wound and wound, and the cataracts always seemed just a little way ahead. They could see one across the lake, tumbling down from the ghostly Folgefond gla- cier, and the other they caught glimpses of, but never could seem to reach. There were hollows in the cliff above them, forming deep shadows, and in the gloom they fancied the tops, which they could sometimes descry, to be thousands of feet above them. After four or five miles of walking, they turned back. " That waterfall is a will-o'-the-wisp," said Mr. Van Wyck. " I don't propose to chase it all over Norway." It was midnight before they were again at the village. Every- body on the steamer was fast asleep, but the doors were wide open, and our two travelers found empty sofas, upon which they stretched themselves for the rest of the night. The next day the steamer re- traced its way from Odde, and left our friends at the little station of ACROSS LOTS. 99 Eiclfjord. They stopped here that they might make an excursion to one of the famous waterfalls of Norway, the Voringsfos. " This, I suppose, is the beginning of our real excursionizing in Norway," said Sarah. " We can't count the journey to the North Cape, when we just sat in the steamboat and let it take us where it would." "Very well, Sarah," said her father, "let us see how you will stand the first day's jaunt." It was not a very severe walk to the waterfall, though it was a long one. There is a society in Norway, like the Appalachian Club, which not only entertains itself with climbing mountains, but cuts paths and builds huts. It had been at work here and made the path easier than it would have been. A lake was first crossed in boats, and then the way led through a wild and desolate region, with towering cliffs on either side of a foaming stream. Long be- fore they reached the fall they could hear the roar of the water, and could see afar off the mist rising high above the fall. " How high is the fall, father ? " asked Charles. " Four hundred and seventy-five feet," said Mr. Bodley, promptly. " I just read it in the guide-book. Come ! don't you want to go near it ? " The ladies remained behind ; but Mr. Bodley and Mr. Van Wyck and Charles put on their rubber coats and followed a wet bank and then crawled over some slippery rocks trying to get near the falls ; but there was such a blinding spray which struck them like hail, that at last they could go no further. They stood with their backs to the falls, turning their heads half way, now and then, in a vain attempt to stand the pelting and see the cataract, which was all the while tumbling between its walls of rock, and making a terrible 100 THE VIKING BODLEYS. noise. It was no use : they could get no nearer, and so they came back to the bridge where the ladies were. " Now," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " how unnecessary all that was ! We were perfectly comfortable here, and have been enjoying the fall, while you poor people have made yourselves sloppy and have seen nothing." " Well, I hope you have saved some sandwiches for us," said her husband. " I must say there are few things so revolting as to jeop- ardize your skin for the sake of seeing one of the great bursts of nature and then come back to find your wife calmly eating sand- wiches on a bridge." But there was enough left for the ferocious Mr. Van Wyck, and after they had all rested, they took their way back leisurely to the inn at Vik ; the whole excursion had kept them on their feet eight hours. The next morning they took a boat with three good rowers and pulled across the fjord to the Ulvik Fjord. " This is like taking a carriage," said Mr. Bodley. " These people use boats to go from place to place in, just as we should drive. They have a regular tariff, of so much a mile ; and Vik is one of the stations where they are obliged to keep boats for travelers, just as elsewhere they are obliged to keep horses." " I should think it would be nearer to row straight across to Ulvik, instead of keeping along the winding shore," said Sarah. " No, it is easier to row under the shelter of the land, and we do not really lose any time I think." This was very clear when it became necessary to pull across the open fjord to the opposite side. They were met by wind which roughed the water so that the rowers pulled laboriously until they were again under shelter upon the banks of the Ulvik Fjord. ACROSS LOTS. 101 " Wolf-creek," explained Mr. Van Wyck, learnedly. " The wolves are gone ; but the creek remains, and the name of wolf." " It ought to be Lamb-creek," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " This is the most smiling and pastoral little spot we have yet seen." " Do you remember that it has passed into our literature ? " asked Mrs. Bodley. " Why, no." " To be sure. Did you never read Bayard Taylor's ' Lars ? ' " " No." "Well, Phippy, as soon as you get back to America you must read one of the most thoroughly interesting pastorals in the lan- guage. Lars is a Norwegian who kills a man in a quarrel and flies to America, where he becomes a Quaker, marries a Quaker girl, and comes back here to the scene of his conflict to meet the avenger of his antagonist, and to disarm him by gentleness. That is the bare story, and it is filled with delightful contrasts." " And Ulvik is one of the scenes ? " " Yes, it was here that the story opens, with Lars among his Nor- wegian kinsfolk, and if we carry out Philip's plan we shall cross to Graven, where another scene was laid." They dismissed the boat at Brakenaes, and engaged two boys to carry the ladies' bags, for most of the luggage had been sent on by the steamer to Christiania, and they were traveling now light- handed. Then they set merrily out to climb the hill-side above Ulvik Fjord, for they meant to walk to Graven, a distance of about fourteen miles. " What an odd idea to bury a man alone right here by the road- side," said Charles, surveying a stick which was thrust into the ground and bearing a head-board on which was inscribed the name of Anders Ericssen. 102 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Here 's another," said Sarah, as they went a little further on. " Why do you bury Anders Ericssen here and not in the church- yard ? " Mr. Van Wyck asked one of the boys in his choicest Nor- wegian. The boy stared at him, looked at his comrade, and then burst into a laugh. The two boys at once began explaining ; but it did not make their Norwegian twice as easy to be understood. By dint of patient inquiry, however, Mr. Yan Wyck solved the riddle. " It seems," he said, " that the road is kept in repair by the farm- ers whose land lies by the way. Each is bound to keep in order a certain part of the road, his share being in proportion to the size of his farm, and these stakes indicate just who is responsible for the road which lies between them." " Somewhat as in New England taxes are worked out," said Mr. Boclley. " Yes, only there is not this public register of a man's faithfulness or remissness. Anders Ericssen, for example, has looked after his piece very carefully." It was a pretty hard walk, and they were nearly five hours at it, stopping to rest as they chose. They were very glad to stop when they came in view of Graven Fjord, for just then the sun came out for a few minutes, and bathed in light the lovely water below them. They passed few houses after they left the slope near Ulvik. Here and there was a saeter with a few horses and cows and sheep, but not a human being did they meet. After they reached the shore of the fjord, they still had to walk two or three miles before they came to the station where they were to dismiss the boys and take horse over the highway. They managed to get a few eggs to eat, for they were ravenously hungry, and here they made their first ac- quaintance with fladbrod, of which they had often heard. ACROSS LOTS. 103 " So this is flat-bread, is it ? " said Mrs. Van Wyck, eyeing a pile of it which had been placed on the table. " It is as thin as the thin gingerbread which mother used to make." " But in what enormous sheets this thin and crisp flat-bread is made ! " said Mrs. Bodley. " I really must nibble a little of the edge." " Is it like gingerbread, mother ? " asked Charles, who watched her curiously. " Try it yourself, Charles." " It crumbles in the mouth, but tastes like preserved sawdust. I am so hungry, though, that I think I will eat an acre or two." The meal, which Sarah called a breakfast at four o'clock in the afternoon, was taken in a room where there was a half -made bed, a swinging cradle, and odds and ends of the family sitting about in silent admiration. When it was over, the announcement was made that the horses were ready. " Are we to have carioles ? " asked Charles, eagerly. " Three carioles and two stolkjseres," counted Mr. Bodley. " We shall have to toss up." But it ended in the ladies dividing the stol- kjseres between them, while Mr. Bodley and Mr. Van Wyck and Charles took possession of the carioles. "What a queer looking object the cariole is ! " said Mrs. Bodley. " Yes," said her husband, " it is a case of arrested development. A little more and it would be a sulky, perhaps even a chaise." " It is a little like a country doctor's sulky, without any top," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Is it comfortable, Charles ? " she asked. " Splendid," said the boy, who had climbed into his, and sat on the small seat, uncertain whether to thrust his leers straight out be- fore him on the narrow floor of the vehicle, or to let them hang 104 THE VIKING BODLEYS. over the sides. The post-boy jumped upon a little tail-board behind Charles, where he crouched or sat or kneeled, as the mood took him, and drove the horse, though it was not long before Charles got the reins into his own hands. The stolkjsere was a cart without springs, holding two. " I think the inventor of fladbrod must have discovered the stol- kjsere," said Mrs. Yan Wyck, after they had jounced and jolted awhile in it. " Charles," she called out, "is it really comfortable ? " Vossevangen. " I can't quite get the hang of it," said he. " I feel so helpless. It makes me half lie down, and I bounce up and down like a rubber ball." " Sit up straighter," said his father. " You '11 soon adjust yourself to it;" and soon he did succeed in making himself at home in the queer vehicle. The horses were all small, coffee-colored, bright lit- ACROSS LOTS. 105 tie beasts that jogged along good-naturedly, and seemed to take an interest in the scenery. Shortly after leaving the station they be- gan to climb a series of zigzags which led up the valley of the Skjerv. They crossed by a strong stone bridge over the Skjerves- fos, which foamed through the arches and fell far below them. It was a gloomy valley and a most picturesque drive, and when they were fairly at the top the boys made the horses scramble over the road with a will, and in a little more than a couple of hours they had covered the fourteen miles which lay between their starting- point and Vossevangen. The party dismounted from their vehicles at the very unpromis- ing-looking house which was known as Dykesten's or Vossevangen' 8 Hotel, for the s had to struggle for a place on the sign-board. There was time for a stroll before supper, so they hunted up an old woman who let them into the church, which was said to date from the thir- teenth century. There was little to see inside, but the old woman herself was very picturesque. Mr. Van Wyck acted as spokesman of the party, and aired his Norwegian with great alacrity. " She is a most sympathetic old woman," he remarked to his friends, between the sentences of the conversation which he held with her. " She is asking after the relationship of all the party, and how many fathers and mothers we have at home." " But what did she laugh so heartily about just now, Philip ? " asked Mr. Bodley. " Oh, it was a piece of my American humor. We were speaking of the age of the church, and I remarked that it was older than both of our ages put together. It really is delightful to find a Nor- wegian peasant who can appreciate my jokes." " You ought to attach her to the party, father," said Sarah. " I 106 THE VIKING BODLEYS. am sure it would make your life a more joyful one, for mother and I never do laugh as much as we ought at your jokes." " No. You always say, i Oh, father ! ' as if I had just missed of committing a crime." " They all have relations in America," said Mr. Van Wyck, " but they are usually in Iowa or Wisconsin or Minnesota or Montana. This good old woman was disappointed that I had never seen her boy Peter in Skalkaho, Montana." The next morning they kept on their way to Gudvangen, four stations distant. The mode of traveling by the country roads in Norway is a very simple one. You take your horse and cart or cariole to the next station from your starting-point, and there you can change and take another, which the station-master is bound to provide to the station next beyond, each time changing boy, horse, and cariole. The boy drives you, or lets you drive, and afterward takes the cariole back. But if you choose, you can arrange with your driver to take you as much farther as you both may desire ; no boy, however, is obliged to go with you more than to the next station, which is perhaps ten or twelve miles distant, perhaps even fifteen. The stations are simply farms which have been made posts by the government. The farmer is obliged to keep a certain num- ber of horses on hand, to provide a boy, and also to give lodging and meals when desired. There is a fixed tariff, and every traveler can count on being treated like every other traveler. Our party, when traveling in this way, was variously distributed, sometimes in carioles, sometimes in stolkjgeres. They might, if they had chosen, have hired a carriage for long distances, but they were all so in love with cariole driving that they had no mind to try any other mode. The variety of boys that they enjoyed gave them end- ACROSS LOTS. 107 less entertainment. It is the custom, to give the boy who drives you a little gratuity on parting with him, and he always holds out his hand to shake hands with you, after receiving it. Sarah under- took to teach her boys English. " It is much easier than learning Norwegian," she said ; " and, be- sides, it will be of so much more use to them all their life than Nor- wegian possibly can be to me." The road was an in- teresting one, but the interest culminated when they reached Stal- heim. They climbed a little ascent and sud- denly found themselves on the brow of a pre- cipitous descent into the valley below on the other side. They jumped out of their carioles and carts, and looked down, down, into the gorge below them. The road led by a series of zigzags down the Stalheimsklef upon which they stood. It was a masterly piece of engineering and masonry, almost a plumb line on its side from top to bottom, as it wormed its way down the precipice. Immense heights, especially that of Jordalsknut, looked down into the valley. '$/*.• I •^-■f/w.ojv Stalheim and Jordalsknut. 108 THE VIKING BODLEYS. They all walked down the road, much preferring that to driving. Two superb waterfalls were on either hand, so that at each turn of the road one was always before them, while at the foot was a green meadow with a clear river flowing through it. They returned to their vehicles at the foot of the cliff, and drove rapidly forward along the bank of the river toward Gudvangen. The mountain Gudvangen. appeared to close in the pass, and at last our friends were in a narrow defile. Gudvangen itself was a single street with two or three houses on either side, the whole jammed into a crack between frowning mountains, with just room enough to keep dry between the fjord, at the head of which it lay, and the river which flowed through the Naerodal. OVER THE FILLEFJELD. 109 CHAPTER VII. OVER THE FILLEFJELD. "What a place to live in! " said Sarah, as they all stood, early the next morning, on the deck of the steamer which was to carry them from Gudvangen to Laerdalsoren. No wonder she was dis- mayed. Two or three lonely houses crouched sunless beneath the Laerdalsoren. cliff, and an air of desolation hung over the fjord. They had been rowed out in boats to the steamer, and each boat was crowded with luggage and people, some sitting, some standing. " I fancy we look like an engraving," said Charles. " I have seen just such pictures." 110 THE VIKING BODLEYS. The sun came out before they were fairly out of this arm of the fjord, and when they reached Laerclalsoren, the end of the steamer's course, everything was bright and lovely. A crowd of men and boys were at the steamboat pier, with carts and carioles, eager to secure passengers. " How homelike this is ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " I should think we were among our own people." They were not meaning to stop at all in the village, so they bargained for their several vehicles, and were soon merrily on their way, meaning to scurry over the road, which led up the heights of the great backbone of mountains which runs through Norway. " Father," said Sarah, who was sharing a stolkjsere with him, 66 where is the Doverfield ? I used to study about it in my geog- raphy." "The namevfjeld or field or fell is given to certain parts of the mountain plateau of Norway, and the Dovrefjeld is the most famous of the ranges. That lies to the north, however. We are to cross the Fillefjeld, more to the south. There are no passes through these mountains, as in Switzerland, among the Alps, but the table-land is easily accessible, and above it rise higher peaks like Jotunheim, which we shall see if it is clear." " How is your horse, Charles ? " Sarah asked, as her cousin drove alongside in his cariole. " Capital," said he ; " and what do you think ? This cariole has stirrups. See, I can put my feet in them and stand up. It is just as if I were riding a carriage horse-back. Besides, I 've learned how to suit myself to the dancing-jig motion of the cariole. It is the perfection of traveling." " So it is," said Mr. Van Wyck. " We are as independent as it OVER THE FILLEFJELD. Ill is possible for people to be. "We can stop where we choose, stay as long as we want to, and start off at any hour of day or night." " What a queer noise the boy makes when he wants to stop the little horse," said Charles. " This way — brrrr. Hallo ! " He had made the sound so successfully that his pony almost sat down on his haunches. " Why do you have such long reins, Charles ? " continued his cousin. " They are ropes, are n't they ? " " To be sure they are. I 've rope enough to hang the whole party with ; but see how convenient the length is. I can make a whip out of the extra part," and so saying, he gathered up the long end of the rope, flung it at the pony's back, and off he set, out of talking distance. They had left Laerdal at ten, and for the first part of the way had traveled over a tolerably level country ; but after leaving Blaa- faten the road followed the foaming stream which came down the mountain side. It rose higher and higher, crawling round and round cliffs out of which it had been dug, and overlooking the boiling torrent below. It was a little after noon when the party reached Husum, where they stopped to get their midday meal. It was a nice clean station, and furnished eggs and coffee and salmon in abundance. " I am afraid we must give up our salmon after this," said Mr. Bodley. "We have had salmon ever since we came to Norway, but then we have been on the coast all the while. Back in the moun- tains we can hardly expect to find it fresh." When they left Husum and continued their journey up the moun- tain, Sarah chanced to have a cariole to herself, and she was greatly entertained by her skydsgut (pronounced shoos-goot) or post-boy, 112 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Olaf Husum. All the people take for their name that of the farm on which they live ; and as Olaf was the son of the farmer at Hu- sum, he was Olaf Husum. He was only nine years old. Sarah had picked up a little Norwegian in her travels, and began plying him with short and easy questions. It was not very difficult to ask ques- tions, but the boy's tongue was at once loosed, and he rattled away merrily while Sarah followed a long distance behind in her mind, painfully examining such words as she had caught. He amused Husum. himself with all sorts of pranks. He had extemporized some whis- tles out of disused cartridge shells, and would suddenly whistle most improperly in Sarah's ears, and then stretch forward and laugh. He even pinched her once or twice, but his supreme pleasure was in opening and shutting her umbrella, which he carried while she drove. He was such a little fellow, small for his years, that Sarah felt him very much on her mind, especially as he was on the point of tumbling off his perch every time the horse started forward. OVER THE FILLEFJELD. 113 The road wound much as before through a fine ravine, and then came out by the curious old church at Borgund. Olaf ran himself quite out of breath to find the man who had the key. The party had all dismounted, and when the man came they followed him over a stone wall and through a field to the deserted church. " Is n't it used now ? " asked Mrs. Bodley. " No," explained the man, in good English. " The new one here was built a few years ago. This is the property of the Antiquarian Society of Christiania." Church of Borgund. The curious church was twisted to the eye, and was surmounted by dragons' heads, while serpents were carved in the door-posts. Inside it was as dark as a pocket. They appeared to have brought with them the only light that entered when they opened the door. " How could the people see to worship ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bodley. " They had candles, madam," said the man, " wax candles." There was a passage like a cloister which ran round the inside, 114 THE VIKING BODLEYS. and the interior seemed scarcely able to hold more than forty or fifty persons. " It looks, inside and out," said Mr. Bodley, " as if they worshiped the Devil here." " I suppose," said his wife, " that all this fantastic work corre- sponds to the fooling in wood and stone in the Gothic cathedrals which we have been seeing." " It is more likely," said Mr. Van Wyck, " that it is due to Byzan- tine influence. You know there was frequent intercourse between Norway and Constantinople." " How old is the church ? " asked Sarah. " It is from the twelfth century," said the man. " Do you see this inscription o^ the door ? In English it is, ' Thorer wrote these lines on St. Olaf's fair. This church in the church-ground.' " " What an extraordinary simpleton Thorer must have been," said the irreverent Sarah, " to carve such a piece of commonplace. What language is it in ? " " It is Runic. This is Runic on the door-key, also," and he showed them the key, which they had not noticed before, — a ponderous thing, curiously carved. " How strange the old church looks out here in the field," said Mrs. Bodley. " I do hope the Antiquarian Society won't take it into their heads to move the building to Christiania, so as to have it on hand for a show. It would lose some of its charm if it were taken out of its setting." Our friends mounted their vehicles again and drove on to Haeg. Sarah's little Olaf left her here ; but she had another Olaf, not much older, Olaf Haeg. The little fellow did not want to go. He cried, but there was no help for it : go he must, and he sat discon- OVER THE FILLEFJELD. 115 solately on the tail-board, his legs hanging dejectedly over. Sarah made an effort to cheer him with animated conversation. She asked him to guess where she came from. She tried him with the name of Andersen, with the titles of Bjornson's stories, but could get scarcely more than monosyllables from him. He brightened a little, however, when she began to teach him the English numerals, and they counted by turns in English and Norwegian, almost as far as Maristuen. Maristuen was a forlorn little station, high up the mountain side ; but the next station, Nystuen, was at the very top, and though they had driven all day, they determined to push on and spend the night there. The road led through a desolate, treeless, and lifeless waste, save for a saeter, which they passed, where cows, goats, pigs, and horses showed themselves, but no people. A little after nine o'clock in the evening they reached Nystuen, which stands on the top of the divide. "It is like an Alpine hospice on a small scale," said Mr. Van Wyck, and it had this air. Long, low, rambling buildings were crowded together in a rocky waste. A desolate moor stretched on either side, and a dismal tarn, weedy and dark, stood hard by. The place was crowded with travelers going the other way, whose carioles and carts stood about the yard. The people were very good-natured, however, and gave our friends an excellent supper and then stowed them away in different buildings, as they could find accommodation. The next day opened with rain, and it was very evident that they should not see Jotunheim ; so they resigned themselves to the inev- itable, and after an early breakfast set off down hill, and a long hill it was. They had driven about fifty miles the day before, and meant to drive a little farther this day. It was a pleasure to come 116 THE VIKING BODLEYS. upon the beautiful lake by Vang and to follow along its banks, and afterward between Tune and Oilo to drive by a massive road built up from the rushing stream below under an overhanging cliff, and protected from falling snow and stones by a wooden shed, through which they drove. " It seems to me that we are always driving by water," said Charles. " It rained when we started ; we had the Vang lake and now we have this stream. I suppose we shall come to a fjord before we get through." " Yes, that is the charm of Norway," said his mother. " One is never far from the sound of many waters." " Except for the road," said Mr. Boclley, " I could almost fancy myself in New Hampshire. We have no such superbly-built roads there ; but the scenery is like it." It was even more like it when, in the afternoon, they drove through pine woods, with- squirrels darting across their path, and later came into the Conway- like district of Valders. " What is that odd-looking tuft on the stick above that barn? " asked Sarah of her father, with whom she was driving. " To be sure ! " he exclaimed. " The rest must see it ; " and by hallooing and pointing, he managed to call the attention of all the party to it. Between Tune and Oilo. THE CHRISTMAS SHEAF. OVER THE F1LLEFJELD. 119 " I am glad we have seen that," he said to Sarah. " I have been hoping we should come upon one. Have you never heard of the pretty Norwegian custom of fastening bunches of oats to the roofs of houses at Christmas time for the birds to feed from ? I suppose this is a sheaf which was not taken down after it had been stripped. The farmers sell sheaves in the towns for this purpose, just as ^Christmas wreaths and trees are sold with us." 1 " What a pretty notion to give the birds a Christmas-tree ! " said ►Sarah. " Yes, and there is a charming poem by Wergeland, a Norwegian poet, suggested by it. I bought a copy of his writings in Christi- ania, and if you won't tell any one, Sarah, I '11 tell you a secret. I am translating the poem, and when I get it done, I will show it to you." " And to Charles ? " " Oh, yes. I am not shy when I do anything of this sort. But I don't want to be bothered by being asked by everybody how I am getting on with it. It 's slow work ; so don't you tell and don't you ask me either." It was late in the evening before they reached Fagerlund, where they spent the night, and the next clay kept on to Odnaes, where they were to give up carriage-driving and take a steamboat, and afterward the railway, to Christiania. On the road they had dinner at Tomlevolden, an excellent example of a nourishing Norwegian farm. There was a collection of sheds and outbuildings, flanking a large house, or rather two houses, making three sides of a square. The main house had a gallery in the second story, into which the staircase led. The rooms were all large and scrupulously clean. In the kitchen was a great open fire-place with embers, and a kettle 120 THE VIKING BODLEYS. over it ; but a new cooking- stove evidently did most of the work. The farmer himself was a large, heavy man, who ordered every- body about ; and his daughter, a pretty, red-haired girl, who seemed to find her work irksome, got dinner. A piano was in the large parlor, and a great array of photographs hung upon the wall or were placed in a morocco book. " This is like a New England farm-house, where they take sum- mer-boarders," said Mrs. Van Wyck. '*' It is different, of course, in some respects ; but the people are the same. The daughter of the house teaches school, may be, in the winter, and in summer waits on the boarders. She hates to do it, for she knows she is just as good as they are, and might herself be boarding." " Yes," said her husband, " the trouble is that she thinks too much about it, and fancies a great many things which are not so. The summer-boarder does not feel nearly so superior as the daughter of the house thinks." Odnaes was the end of their land journey. Here they spent the night at a good inn, and the next day took the steamer on Lake Randsfjord, which is almost like a river, so narrow and long is it. The banks were very pretty, sometimes wooded, sometimes culti- vated, and dotted with snug, tidy-looking farms. Except for hav- ing no islands, it made our travelers think of Lake Winnipiseogee in the White Mountains at home. The scenery no longer had a wild character. It was clear that they were well out of the mountains. " I really am sorry to leave the mountains," sighed Sarah. " Yes," said her mother. " It is astonishing how quickly one gets intimate with mountains. I think one mountain always in sight would be rather overpowering ; but give me three or four weeks' constant traveling among them. It is like being at a party of OVER THE FILLEFJELD. 121 mountains all the while. It is not nearly so alarming as sitting down vis-u-vis with one solitary peak." " We have one more famous sight before us," said Mr. Van Wyck, after they were seated in the train at Randsfjord, at the foot of the lake ; " only, according to the guide-book, we should be coming this way." " We can turn our heads, can't we ? " said his wife. Indeed, it was almost a sight to turn their heads. The road after leaving Drammen made a great circuit and a rise before it passed through a tunnel ; and just as they were to enter the tunnel they turned and saw a superb panorama of the fjord and town of Dram- men and the meadows of Lier at their feet. " Oh, what a pity this had not burst upon us after we had been through a dark tunnel ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck, as the train glided out of the lovely world, and issued a few moments afterward in a confined country. " It really is worth while to take the train back just to see that view." They did not take it back, however. They had the mild eager- ness of travelers to reach their destination ; and when they stepped from the railway-train into the station at Christiania, it seemed almost as if they were at home again. " At any rate," said Charles, who was the most homesick one of the party, " we are so much nearer New York." It was the first week in August, and when our travelers rose the next morning, they found warm, pleasant weather. It was a pleas- ure to get again into light summer clothes, after wearing heavy winter ones, as they had done ever since leaving Christiania for the north. It was as if they had gone out of one climate into another, had stayed a month, and then had come back to find the first just 122 THE VIKING BODLEYS. what they had left it. They spent two or three more days in town, shopping, buying photographs and little models of carioles and stolkjaeres, and knives such as all Norwegians, even Norwegian boys, appeared to carry in their belts, and at last, on Saturday afternoon, took the boat which was to carry them to Copenhagen. It was a pleasant afternoon, and the party sat on deck watching the receding city and the shores of the fjord. They were on one of the large and fast boats and touched only at Drobak and Horten, until they should come to Goteborg. " I should like to come back and spend a winter in Norway," said Mr. Van Wyck. "I don't think one can fairly know a place until one has lived in it during that part of the year which lasts longest, and the winter in Norway is longer than the summer." " Let us do it some time," said his wife. " You can study the Norwegian language and literature, and Sarah can go to school. Very few Americans go abroad to study in Christiania." " I wonder what I should learn in school which I could not learn at home," said Sarah. " I am afraid you would need to be Norwegian yourself to appre- ciate some of the studies," said her father. " There is something very interesting to me in the education of children in a country like Norway, which has a dim antiquity, whose modern history is not especially marked by great deeds, and whose present position is not a commanding one. There is a strong tendency to make much of the early, half-legendary history, and the children are all care- fully brought up on the old sagas. The stories form the beginning of their national history. They are told not exactly as veritable facts, nor again as mere myths." " They are given, I suppose, as ' they say,' " said Mr. Bodley. OVER THE F1LLEFJELD. 123 " Exactly ; they have an imaginative form, and are allowed to take a place in the child's mind as part of the regular furniture of his education. Then they are identified with a patriotic spirit, and are clung to more tenaciously since they are not driven out by later and better attested historical facts, for these as a rule are not singu- larly worth preservation." " Then," said Mrs. Bodley, " the deeds of the heroes are con- nected with mountains and waterfalls, so that they have a romantic setting." " Yes, and they represent conflict with Swedes, Danes, and Scotch, and as these are all now superior in wealth and influence, there is some consolation in thinking that once Norway was their master. All this goes to feed the sentiment of nationality." " Yet how many Norwegians are leaving their country for Amer- ica," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " It is not strange," said her husband. " The great business of Norway has been its carrying-trade, and it has a large fleet of wooden ships, but the English with their iron steamers have come in and gotten possession of a large part of the business. The con- tinued improvements in machinery, by which less coal becomes necessary, tends to diminish the cost of freight by steamers, and merchants are ready to pay a little higher rates if they can know exactly when to expect their goods, which they can do with steam- ers, but not with sailing vessels. This has helped to make Norway poorer. Then, a few years ago, the government went crazy on the subject of railways, and undertook enterprises which private persons would have been slow to engage in. The consequence is a heavy debt. The administration is a costly one, also. There is a small population and a host of office-holders. Besides, the military laws 124 THE VIKING BODLEYS. withdraw the young men from their work in the most important part of the short season. Everybody is subject to drill, although the time required is less and less as the man grows older, until finally he is exempt. All these things serve to crowd people out of the country, and those who have already gone to America grow well- to-do fast, and send for their friends and relations." " Well," said Mr. Bodley, " I am sorry for Norway, but I am glad our country is receiving such sturdy, honest, and industrious people. By the way, who do you think lives at Frogner, that interesting manor-house which you remember we saw when we were in Chris- tiania the first time, and were on our way to Oscar's Hall ? " " Did you find out, father ? " asked Charles. " Yes, I had occasion to-day to call on the American consul, and he was the most hospitable of men. He said his wife would at once call on the ladies, and then we must come out to his home in Frog- ner. I told him we were just starting for Copenhagen, and could not, but I wish I had gone to see him earlier. I found we had some friends in common, and he said he had no doubt his wife, who was an American, would know you, Phippy, for she came from Cam- bridge." " What a pity ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " I should like dearly to have seen the interior of a real Norwegian house." " He tolcl me of a curious incident which came to his notice as consul. One Fourth of July, when a fishing vessel was lying in Barnstable harbor, all the crew went ashore for a frolic, and when they came back the vessel was gone — stolen. No trace could be found of it, and the State Department at Washington sent circulars to its representatives in foreign ports, advising them to look out for it, and stating that it was supposed to have been stolen by some OVER THE FILLEFJELD. 125 Swedes. About a week after the circular came, Consul Gade's brother, who lives in Bergen, heard that a strange vessel was in one of the fjords above Bergen, where it had unloaded a cargo of Amer- ican mackerel, and was sending it into Bergen by lighters. He at once looked into the matter, and, with his brother, secured the cap- ture of three Swedes, who, it turned out, had stolen the vessel in Barnstable harbor, painted out her name, run her, with scarcely any knowledge of navigation, to Iceland, where they had bartered some of her cargo and then brought her down to the Norwegian coast. The cargo and the ship were both subsequently sold for the benefit of the owner, and he got nearly the full value. Our government had some correspondence with the Norwegian government, but finally, as piracy could not technically be proved, they left the pris- oners in the hands of the courts here to treat as they would." "Well, the old vikings are not all dead," said Charles. "I sup- pose they were some descendants of Thorfinn, who were looking about Cape Cod to see if their ancestor left anything there about the year 1000, when he was last over." "Pooh!" said Sarah. "The old vikings fought for what they wanted. They did not sneak off with a mackerel schooner. But how surprised the captain and crew must have been when they came, back to the schooner and found her gone ! " " It served them right for leaving their vessel without a watch," said Mr. Bodley. " Sarah," said her father, " if you will go down to my state-room and bring me my portfolio, I will let these good people share our secret." " Have you been having a secret with Sarah, Uncle Philip ? " asked Charles. 126 THE VIKING BODLEYS. "To be sure I have ; it began one day when we were driving through Vestre Slidre." " That was where we saw the Christmas sheaves on the roof of the house, was n't it ? " " Why, Charles, you are burning. You are close upon the heels of our secret." " I 'm sure I can't get any nearer," said the boy. But as Sarah appeared with her father's portfolio, there was not time to guess anything more. " You remember that statue of Wergeland, do you not, in the Carl Johann Gade Park ? " "Yes." " Well, Wergeland wrote a pretty story in verse which turns on the peasant's custom, and I have been exercising myself in Norwe- gian by translating it. I think it will do very well as a leave-taking of Norway, for it will soon be too dark for us to see the shore any longer. I did not attempt to render the poem into verse — yes, I did, too," said the conscience-stricken man — "but I only tried a few lines, and then gave it up. I have made a sort of paraphrase." So Mr. Van Wyck read : — THE LITTLE BIRDS ON THE CHRISTMAS SHEAF. Green, green is the forest in the valley of Soloen, but the birds that used to sing in the trees are mute. The sigh of the poor peas- ant has made them dumb, and worse than this, the harsh bell of the sheriff has driven them away. You can hear the harsh jingle-jangle of that bell as far down the valley as the little village of Mo, yet last Christmas there were two little birds that met there and chat- tered to each other. OVER THE FILLEFJELD. 127 " Come, pussy Finch, come with me ! come with me ! " cried one. " I know where there is a proper nice Christmas sheaf. There is a poor fellow who lives back of the woods, who has put up his sheaf this year the same as ever, for all he is on his last legs. He only had three sheaves to last him all winter, and one of these he has fas- tened to the pole for the birds. I call that generous. Yes, he did it for Jesus Christ's sake, he said. Now, you small Finch, why do you look at me in that fashion ? don't you believe me ? Come after me ; I 'm your cousin, the gray Sparrow. I call myself gray, though I 'm really yellow, for I 've been dressing for Christmas. That sheaf ! that sheaf ! it is perched on the peasant's roof, and we '11 soon be in it. We '11 bury ourselves in that sheaf ! There 's a merry Christmas for the birds. We '11 fill our crops. The Christ- child was born for the birds as well as for men. Come ! come ! " So sang the lively little fellow, and his cousin flew off with him. They got safely by a Magpie that was teetering on a weathercock. A Cat looked up at them from a bridge where she sat. She looked sharp, and crouched, ready to spring when the chance came. But they were so hungry that at first they neither saw nor heard any- thing, but plunged, head-first, into the sheaf. They were so snugly hidden that only the very highest star could make them out in their secret place. There they stayed from Christmas eve to Christmas morn. The whole night was not too long for them. They were there when the bells rang for the people to go to church on Christ- mas Day. Then they flew off and lighted on the church spire, where a cock of gold was perched. They mounted the cock himself, and clung with their little claws to his comb, and away up there on that tip-top they looked up and saw the heavens full of angels. And they heard one of the angels say : — 128 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Never forget, my children, to say Thank you after every meal." They looked at each other in dismay. True, true ! They had actually forgotten to say, Thank you ! "To think of it ! " said the Sparrow. " And there was the Magpie ! " " And the Cat ! " said the Finch. " We must go back and say Thank you." On the way back they met the poor farmer, crying bitterly. " What shall I do ! what shall I do ! " he was saying. " The sher- iff is coming on New Year's Day, and he will turn me out of doors." The little birds listened. Verily, this was hard, indeed ; and thereupon they lifted their little cry to God. " Oh, surely," they said to the poor farmer, " the good God will look down on you in your need, on you who gave us one of your three sheaves. 'T was for Jesus' sake you did it, and we are God's children, too, though we are so very small, Cousin Finch and I. He would not see one of us harmed. We just came back to say Thank you for the good feast you gave us. May God make the poor man's heart glad ! " Up flew the little birds again to the Christmas sheaf. As they peeped in, they set up a joyous cry. " A miracle ! a miracle ! Now let the sheriff come when he will. For every grain of corn here is a solid ducat, shining out of the straw this holy day. A thousand of them ! yes, a thousand and ten. Now good-by to all your trouble." The old Magpie on the roof croaked hoarsely : — " The fields of kindness bear golden sheaves. When the sheriff gets his gold, may it turn into acorns ! " THE HOME OF ANDERSEN. 129 " No, no, you wicked old Magpie ! Let it turn into corn, but the good peasant's corn turn into gold." And with that away flew the Sparrow and the Finch. " Don't you remember those children, father," said Sarah, " whom we saw at the Victoria, going up to their father after dinner and thanking him ? " "Yes, they were saying Tak for maden, just as the Angel bade the sparrow and finch remember to do." " We will introduce the custom into America," said Mrs. Bodley. " We '11 begin now," said Sarah, going up to her father. " ' Tak for maden,' papa. Thanks for the crumb of a story." " I 'm sorry it could n't have been in rhyme," said Mr. Van Wyck, " for Wergeland's little poem sounds very prettily in the Norwegian. I am afraid, though, that if I had attempted to give it in verse I should have found it less easy to get round some of the troublesome words which I could n't find in my dictionary ! " CHAPTER VIII. THE HOME OF ANDERSEN. When our travelers came upon deck early the next morning, they found that the steamer was entering the harbor of Goteborg. Buoys with numbers were ranged along the course, affording hitch- ing-posts for vessels and steamers lying in the roadstead. It was between six o'clock and half after, and they were to have an hour 9 130 THE VIKING BODLEYS. in port ; so, after a cup of coffee, our friends set out for a little walk. " We certainly must not lose the opportunity of visiting Sweden," said Mr. Bodley, " and this will be our only one." " Does it have anything to do with American history ? " asked Charles. " Did the vikings push off from the place ? " "No, but it was the port from which the Swedes sailed who set- tled on the Delaware in the seventeenth century. You see we can't get far away from America." Leaving the pier they came at once upon a broad canal, on either side of which ran a wide thoroughfare. Bridges crossed the canal now and then, and a little park edged the water. The buildings were shops and warehouses, and at last substantial hotels. A pretty park lay beyond the hotel ; but they left it and crossed to other canals. The city was the cleanest, brightest little place they had ever seen, and everywhere there was an air of thrift and comfort. The canals were cleaner than those they had seen when in Holland, and ran under bridges and buildings in the most alluring manner. " I should just like to take a boat and paddle about this city," said Charles. "Why! one could row everywhere." They saw a spirited statue of Gustavus Adolphus in one of the public squares; but it was too early to see many people in the streets. They went back to the steamer, which they reached just in time, and were off again for Copenhagen. It was a twelve hours' journey to the Danish city, and the day was a lovely one. As they came in full view of the city, the captain, who was near them, tapped Charles on the shoulder. " Did you never read the stories of H. C. Andersen ? " he asked. " Oh, yes," said Charles, " all of them." THE HOME OF ANDERSEN. 131 "Good. That is the villa Rolighed among the trees yonder, where he died. It belongs to the banker, Mr. Melchior." "Rolighed," said Mr. Van Wyck. "That must mean Resting- place." " Just so," said the captain. " Well, I am glad that it is one of the first things we have seen in Copenhagen," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " I confess I have no special associations with the city except those relating to Hans Andersen." " And Thorwaldsen," added her husband. " Yes, and Thorwaldsen." " I 've played Copenhagen," said Mr. Bodley, demurely. " Nathan, I 'm shocked ! " said his wife. " You have n't played it since you knew me ! " It was, indeed, the city of Andersen to all the party, and they were ready to discover the places with which they had become familiar through reading the story-teller's little stories. They went first, however, to their hotel, the Hotel d'Angleterre, upon one of the great squares of the city. All the buildings which they passed looked large and tall, and the city wore a more distinguished air than Christiania or Goteborg. The rooms which they occupied looked out upon the Royal Theatre, with its bronze statues of Hol- berg and Oehlenschlager, famous Danish dramatic authors. A horse-car track ran near by, and the children were amused with the double-decked horse-cars. They had seen before, at home, seats upon the roof of a horse-car, but each of these cars had a roof to the seats. It looked, as Sarah said, like a baby-house where one could see what was going on in the second story. There was an odd kind of an omnibus, also, very like a horse-car on small, low wheels, which seemed much in need of a track, and went over the pave- ment as if in search of one. 132 THE VIKING BODLEYS. The Hotel d'Angleterre had a court-yard with a high glass roof. Plants and flowers were growing freely under cover, and as the roof was very high, one might easily think one's self out-of-doors. The great dining-room extended along one side, while breakfast-rooms occupied another side, and there were tables in the court-yard for those who wished to take their meals alfresco. After a light tea, — for they had dined on the steamer, — our friends sallied forth. Mr. Van Wyck, who was a great admirer of Andersen, had taken pains to inform himself beforehand of the haunts of the story-teller. So he led them at once to a house near by in the King's New Market, where he said Andersen had his rooms the last part of his life. " Don't you remember his description of his quarters ? " he asked. "He had only two rooms, but they were sunny, adorned with pic- tures, books, and statues, and kept freshly decorated with flowers, which ladies were constantly sending him. The cafe he mentions as one of the largest and most frequented in town. A lawyer lived on the same floor, and a photographer on the story above. ' So you see,' he says, ' I cannot die away from a lawyer, and a photogra- pher is at hand to secure my picture for posterity.' " " But he did die away from a lawyer," said Mr. Bodley. " Yes, fortunately he was with friends at the last. One would not like to think of Andersen as dying without good friends about him ; he was so dependent on sympathy." " Do you know what I want to see ? " asked Mrs. Bodley. " You will laugh, it is so simple. I want to see East Street." " And why East Street, Blandina? " asked her husband. " Because the place occurs so frequently in Andersen's stories. I have come to think of it as the street of Copenhagen. Don't you HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. THE HOME OF ANDERSEN. 135 remember how he speaks of it at the beginning of his story of e The Galoshes of Fortune ? ' " " I remember," said her brother. " I have often said the passage over to myself : ' Every author has some peculiarity in his descrip- tions or in his style of writing. Those who do not like him magnify it, shrug their shoulders, and exclaim, " There he is again ! " I, for my part, know very well how I can bring about this movement and this exclamation. It would happen immediately if I were to begin here, as I intended to do, with " Rome has its Corso, Naples its To- ledo." " Ah, that Andersen ! there he is again ! " they would cry. Yet I must, to please my fancy, continue quite quietly and add, " but Copenhagen has its East Street." ' " " I think Copenhagen must have changed since Andersen wrote," said Mrs. Bodley. " At any rate, East Street is not much of a show street." " No," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " I could almost imagine myself on Washington Street at home." " Phippy, Phippy ! " exclaimed her husband, " when will you learn to leave Boston alone, and call New York home ? " " Never ! " said the energetic little woman. " You may put one elevated road on top of another, and it will not give me any more of a home feeling about New York." " I should think not," said Mr. Bodley. " You know, Philip, we chose Second Avenue because we thought it least like New York." "I never would have gone there at all to live," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " if the elevated road had been invented then." Our friends rambled about the streets for some time, looking with interest for anything which might remind them of Andersen, as everything did in a more or less definite manner. 136 THE VIKING BODLEYS. "What is this?" said Mr. Van Wyck, suddenly stopping before the name of a street which crossed their way. " c Hyskenstrsede ? ' This must be the Small Houses Lane that figures in Andersen's story of ' The Old Bachelor's Night-Cap.' Don't you remember the street with no pavement, with holes into which folks tumbled, and the line of low booths in which the German merchants kept their wares : " To be sure ; but I see nothing of all that here/' said Mrs. Bod- ley. "No, nothing but the name remains. The street is only a commonplace thoroughfare with a block of high, flat- faced buildings on each side." " I should like to see Frederick's Hospital," said Sarah. " Why, what is there to be seen at a hospital?" asked Charles. " Oh, I don't want to go inside ; but if you will only take me past it, I can tell whether what I wish to see is there The Unhappy Volunteer. Still." Their rambles did in time bring them before the hospital, a plain, uninteresting-looking building, which stood back from the street. " I am quite content," said Sarah. " I wanted to see if the iron fence was still in front of the yard. Don't you remember how, in ' The Galoshes of Fortune,' the volunteer tried to squeeze between the iron rails, and at first only got his head through, then had the good sense to wish himself free, and so got his whole body through ? You know the galoshes enabled him to have whatever he might wish for." THE HOME OF ANDERSEN. 137 " Well," said Charles, " if I were in that somewhat dismal place I certainly should put on the galoshes if they would take me out of it." It was not . till the next day that they visited Rosenborg Castle and Garden, to see the statue of Andersen which had been erected there. " What a charming place for his statue," said Mr. Van Wyck, as they came in sight of it and saw children playing with their nurses under its shadow. The garden was a shady spot, greatly resorted to by children. Long avenues, overarched by trees, led through it, and at one end, in a little plat of flowers, stood the statue. It was of bronze, and represented the story-teller seated, with a thin book held open by a finger of his left hand, while his right was stretched out with a gesture. " Hush ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " He is going to tell a story." " That is exactly it," said her husband ; " and you know Andersen frequently did read his stories. He read them, or half-recited them, to circles of his friends and to working-men's clubs." " Yes, and don't you remember," said Charles, " that he used to read them beside the sick beds of some of his little friends ? I once saw a picture in a magazine which showed him doing this." " I wonder if he was fond of children," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Why, Phippy ! what a question ! " said Mrs. Bodley. " I don't know," she replied. " I have met very estimable people who did not like children." " But Andersen ! it sounds almost profane." " Phippy is not far out of the way, Blandina," said her brother. " I have known people who liked to see children at play, to watch them, to study their minds even, and who felt a strong sympathy 138 THE VIKING BODLEYS. with them, yet did not caress them or care to have them for very near companions. I have heard something of this sort of Andersen. You know this statue was proposed in his life-time, and several sculptors competed for the work. One of them produced a pleasing design, which seemed to most people very appropriate. It repre- sented the great story-teller, with two children by his knee, while he told them stories. Andersen objected positively to this concep- tion, for he said he was not in the habit of taking children thus into his arms." " I am glad there is a stork on the pedestal," said Charles ; " there is always a stork in Andersen's stories." " There is the group of the ' Ugly Duckling,' too," said Sarah. Upon the face of the pedestal, encircled by a laurel wreath, were the dates of birth and death, "2 April 1805 — 4 August 1875." Upon the left side, over the bronze bas-relief of a child riding a stork, are the words, " Minde om Eventyr-digteren " (In Memory of the Wonder-Story Teller). Upon the opposite side, above the bronze swan and ducks, are the words, " Reist af det Danske folk, 1880" (Erected by the Danish people, 1880). "What a pity Andersen did not live to see the statue ! " said Mr. Van Wyck. " He would have enjoyed walking here every day and looking at himself in enduring bronze." " Was he, then, so very conceited ? " asked Mr. Bodley. " No. That word gives a wrong impression about him. He was an over-grown child who wanted everybody to look at him when he was doing anything which pleased him. Have n't you seen children who were innocently egotistic ? ' See me throw this stone ! ' they say ; or, ' Look how nicely I can draw a horse.' That was the way with Andersen. In fact, I alwavs think of him as a man who has STATUE OF H. C. ANDERSEN. THE HOME OF ANDERSEN. 141 suffered an arrested development in certain of his feelings and in certain intellectual endowments. Somebody has called him the first child in literature." "He can't be said to have a handsome face," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " No, nor a graceful figure ; but the sculptor, by giving the face the glow of animation and making the figure eager and uncon- scious, has achieved a real success in a perfectly honest and truthful manner." Our friends rambled from Rosenborg Garden out to the cemetery, which lay upon the outskirt of the city, that they might find Ander- sen's grave. The cemetery had evidently been laid out from the necessity of providing burial, for which the several city church- yards were inadequate. At any rate, it was divided into sections which bore the names of the various parishes in the city. Ander- sen's parish was that of " Vor Frelser," or, Our Saviour. " How very neat everything is, and how free from ostentation," said Mrs. Bodley. " Yes," said her husband, " what a contrast there is to our vulgar display at home. I wonder whether it is the result of regulation and law, or of inherent good taste in the people. These tablets — how simple they all are ! and how well kept all the small family lots. It makes one ashamed when one thinks of Mount Auburn and Greenwood, and remembers how poor humanity tries even in death to appear a little better than his neighbor." "It isn't the dead, Uncle Nathan," said Sarah; "it's the living who make the fuss over the dead." " Well, the living were brought up by the dead. I think if the dead could put their own obituary notices in the paper, with their 142 THE VIKING BODLEYS. new knowledge, they would add to i Friends are kindly requested not to send flowers,' the words, ' Descendants are urgently asked not to put up a big monument.' " "I don't think the Danes are wholly free from pride," said Mrs. Bodley. " See how particular they are to put the titles of their dead friends on their stones. Etatsraad — what does that mean ? " " State-councillor," said her brother. " It is something like an Honorable, only a little more select. But look at this stone : ' Wine- merchant Pedersen ! ' " " When they have no titles, they put on their occupations to dis- tinguish them," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Here is one to Musical-in- strument maker Frederik Richter." " And just look at this, Phippy," said her husband, laughing. " ' This monument is erected to the veteran chocolate manufacturer, Reimer Timotheus Kehlet.' " " Now I like that," said Mr. Bodley. " One really finds out some- thing about these people. How much better it is than to sing their praises. As soon as you see a list of virtues on a man's tombstone, you have an instinctive desire to get round on the other side of the stone, and see what his defects were. But to be told that a man was a veteran chocolate manufacturer, you see him at once in his white apron and paper cap, stirring the rich dark fluid in a narrow vessel." " But he probably did not boil chocolate and pour it out to his customers, Nathan," protested his sister. " Yes he did, in his early days. That was the way he laid the foundations of his fortune, and he never gave up the shop. Certain of his customers used to insist on old Kehlet making their chocolate for them. Oh, I see it all in my mind's eye." THE HOME OF ANDERSEN. 143 By and by, in their wanderings they came to the grave of An- dersen. Like the rest, it was quiet and unobtrusive. A neat Scotch granite stone stood in a small inclosure, in which, also, roses bloomed ; there was ivy and a prickly thorn, and a border of box. On the stone was the inscription : — DIGTEREN HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN F. 2 den April 1805 D. 4 d0 August 1875. Den Sjsel Gud i sit Billede liar skabt Er uforkraenhelig kan ei gaae tabt Vort Jordliv ker er Evighe den's Fr0 Vort Legem drier, men Sjselen kan ei dpe. (H. C. A.) " Well, Uncle Philip," said Charles, " you are the linguist of the party. What does it mean ? " " I can translate the first part on the spot," said Mr. Van Wyck, " but I shall have to get my dictionary out for the last. It is evi- dently a verse out of one of Andersen's poems. Of course, the words above are clear enough : ( The poet Hans Christian Andersen, born April 2d, 1805 ; died August 4th, 1875.' " " Why do they call him a poet, father ? I thought he wrote sto- ries." " He wrote several volumes of poems, Sarah, but that was not the reason why he was called poet. If he had written only the lit- tle wonder-stories, which you know, he would still have been called poet. The Germans and the Scandinavians have a more generous and liberal interpretation of the word. They apply it to any one who invents romances, whether they are in prose or verse." 144 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " The word is nearer the Greek, then, than in our own use," said Mr. Bodley. " At least, the fundamental meaning of poet and poem in Greek is the maker or creator, and the thing made." " Don't you remember," said Mr. Van Wyck, " how Andersen himself, in the i Story of my Life,' refers to the matter, and com- plains that when he called himself a poet as another man might call himself a painter, he brought ridicule upon himself ? " " Well, I think our distinction is right, after all," said Mrs. Yan Wyck. " It may require us to be more discriminating in our lan- guage, and to say romancer where a Dane or a German w r ould say .poet ; but if we save the word poet for persons whose distinction is that they have written real poetry, I think we make the word more exclusive and more dignified." " But there are plenty of poor poets, Phippy," said her husband. " Well, call those verse-makers, then." "August 4th," said Charles, reading the words on the stone. " That was only a few days ago. What a pity we could not have been here then." " Somebody else was here," said Sarah, " and left that wreath at the foot of the stone." Yes, there lay a faded wreath, evidently left for a memorial by some friend; perhaps by one of those ladies who always kept fresh flowers in the vase on the poet's table. " I am afraid I am only a verse-maker," said Mr. Yan Wyck, that evening, as he produced his translation of the lines on Andersen's stone, " but I think I have hit the meaning," and he read the words : " The soul, which in God's own image is made, Was eternally born, — it never can fade; Eternity's seed in our life doth lie, — The body may fall, the soul cannot die." RAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN. 145 " I think that is better on a tomb-stone than a reference to choco- late-making," said Mrs. Bodley. " There 's a fitness in both, Blandina," said her husband. " Don't you see that the chocolate-maker might have had this thought, though he did not express it ? Andersen was a poet, and so a bit of his poetry is on his stone." " It would not have done," said Sarah, " to have put a chocolate- pot on Mr. Kehlet's stone." CHAPTER IX. KAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN. Oue travelers quite fell in love with Copenhagen, and yet it would be somewhat difficult to say in^'ust what the charm of the place consisted. They strolled through its streets and entered its shops, visited museums and picture-galleries, and took their ease in the Hotel d'Angleterre. " My only objection to the hotel is its name," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Why cannot these people get along without borrowing French words ? " " Yes, just as your favorite Boston, my dear, has its Hotel Ven- dome." " I admit that shame at once, Philip. It is without excuse, and it does not make this case any better. They have plenty of heroes in Denmark, besides, from whom they could name hotels." 10 146 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Yes, they could name one from Nils Juel, whose statue we saw this morning." " Or from King Chris- tian. I have been hum- ming to myself all day the first line of Long- fellow's translation of the National Song, of Denmark, — ' ' ' King Christian stood by the lofty mast.' " " Say it all, mother," said Sarah, " for it has something about our friend Nils Juel in it." So Mrs. Van Wyck, with something of the King Christian. ardor of the childish Phipp}| stood up and recited, KING CHRISTIAN. FROM THE DANISH OF JOHANNES EVALD. King Christian stood by the lofty mast In mist and smoke ; His sword was hammering so fast, Through Gothic helm and brain it passed ; Then sank each hostile hulk and mast, In mist and smoke. "Fly! " shouted they, "fly, he who can ! Who braves of Denmark's Christian The stroke?" RAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN. 147 Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest's roar, Now is the hour ! He hoisted his blood-red flag once more, And smote upon the foe full sore, And shouted loud, through the tempest's roar, " Now is the hour ! " "Fly!" shouted they, "for shelter fly; Of Denmark's Juel who can defy The power? " North Sea ! a glimpse of Wessel rent Thy murky sky ! Then champions to thine arms were sent; Terror and Death glared where he went ; From the waves was heard a wail, that rent Thy murky sky ! From Denmark, thunders Tordenskiol' , Let each to Heaven commend his soul, And fly ! Path of the Dane to fame and might ! Dark-rolling wave ! Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight, Goes to meet danger with despite, Proudly as thou the tempest's might, Dark-rolling wave ! And amid pleasures and alarms, And war and victory, be thine arms My grave ! " That is a spirited song ! " said Mr. Bodley. " I used to wish that I belonged to a little nation like Denmark. It must be so much easier to make one's patriotism cover a small territory, than to spread it over a vast area like the United States, where one cannot possibly know, even in the most cursory fashion, the people of the different parts of the country." 148 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " What treason, Nathan ! " said his wife. " You would find the disadvantage, Nathan," said Mr. Van Wyck, " of having everything measured by a small standard. Give me a big country with its great variety of life. One can never lack for large interests upon which to expend his thought in America." " Oh, I am a proud American," said Mr. Bodley ; " but I have my moments when America is too big for my imagination." Our friends went one day to the Museum of Northern Antiquities. The Danes are justly proud of it, for it has grown rapidly from small beginnings until now it occupies a disused palace. Most of the old castles and palaces appeared to be put to the excellent use of holding museums and collections. The museum is arranged chronologically : one enters where examples of the older Stone Age are shown, and passes from one room to another, until he issues from the last apartment, which contains illustrations of the seven- teenth century, below which the collection does not extend. The greater and more important part is devoted to antiquities before 1300. There was too much to see, and our friends walked past case after case of flint implements and primitive pottery. But in the fourth room, devoted to the Bronze Age, and containing chiefly the results of very extensive grave-searching, they stood fascinated be- fore the remains of two men lying in boxes under glass covers. One of these, a young man of seventeen or twenty, who had not yet, as the catalogue coolly remarked, cut his wisdom teeth, had long, black hair ; and the woolen covering, dug up with him, was drawn up to his nose. "He looks as if he were trying very hard to keep warm," said Sarah; " but just look at this other, with his woolen night-cap on, lying calmly beneath his blanket." RAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN. 149 " Just think of it ! " said Charles. " The catalogue says they have been dead two thousand years, and here they are dug up to be stared at by all these people who are filing by ! I think they might have been left in peace." " They do not appear much disturbed," said Sarah. In other rooms were many illustrations of religious art and ser- vice. There was one quaint application of native life in a church chandelier made of a pair of stag's horns. There was a picture of John the Baptist, in which the martyr holds his head obligingly near a brass platter, and the executioner holds a big butcher knife in both hands, ready to let it fall. " I must say," said Mrs. Bodley, " I am glad to see most of these relics in a museum, rather than in a church, and to think that peo- ple can study them as part of the history of their ancestors, and not use them in their own worship." " Yes," added her husband, " they seem as little suited to daily use as the stone hatchets and spear-heads that we have been looking at." There were not many buildings in Copenhagen which called for special attention. The Exchange was a picturesque, red - brick building of the Dutch Renaissance style, surmounted by a twisted dragon spire ; and one of the churches had a curious spiral staircase winding outside of the spire. Inside of this church the great organ rested on the backs of two carved wooden elephants. In another church which had a square interior, there were very few seats on the floor ; but on each of the three sides were three galleries, with curtains before them, so that if the congregation chose, it could draw its curtains and go to sleep while the minister prosed in the pulpit on the fourth side. One of the churches — Trinity Church — 150 THE VIKING BODLEYS. had a round tower connected with it. Once this tower was used as an observatory. " Perhaps/' said Mr. Bodley, " Tycho Brahe, whose statue we saw, used to take a squint at the stars from its top. At any rate we '11 go up before we are statues and look down and off. When can we go, Philip ? You keep the run of the sights." " Between twelve and one," said that gentleman ; and as it was then twelve, they all set off for the Bound Tower. It stood before them, in full view as they looked up one of the thoroughfares, — a gigantic cylinder, with a small round house on the top, and quite devoid of any architectural beauty and ornament. The peculiarity of ascent was in the absence of any staircase. A broad, paved road- way wound up the tower, going round and round a central pillar, as a staircase might wind. The road was about twelve feet wide, and the people going up took the inner circle, while those coming down took the outer. " I really believe," said Charles, " that one might drive to the top." " To be sure," said his uncle. " Emperors and kings and queens and such people have amused themselves by driving up to the top. You see the grade is not so steep as that of many hills." " I don't see what they would do if they met a carriage coming down ! " " Just as if," said Sarah, " one emperor would be driving up when another was driving down ! " Near the top the road ended, and one could not actually drive to the tip-top. There was a flight of broad stone steps, and then a nar- row strip, and one stood outside upon a broad lookout surrounded by a railing. There were thirty or forty other people with them. RAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN. 151 They looked off in every direction, recognizing buildings which they had visited; but the sky was not clear, and they could not see much beyond the confines of the city. They trotted down the pavement again, children racing past them. The walls, especially near the top, were scrawled over with names and dates. Rossini's was there in particularly bold letters. " How queer one's legs feel," said Charles, " after trotting down a tall tower. I wonder if Tycho Brahe did n't sit down when he got to the bottom." In their walk this day they passed again the present astronomical observatory, with the statue outside of Tycho Brahe. The boule- vard, along which they walked, was the site of the old wall and moat which in ancient days surrounded the city. It made a singular dividing line, for upon one side were the old houses of the old town, upon the other side, facing them, the new houses of the brisker, newer, more Paris-like portion. " How Paris does set the fashion in cities," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Everywhere, here in the north, in Christiania and Copenhagen and in other places where we have been, modern French ideas of architecture appear to prevail. I hope the people won't tear down all their old buildings to make room for French flats." It was in the evening of this day that they visited Tivoli. Tivoli is a summer-garden to which all Copenhagen resorts, and it was easy to find the way by following the crowd. It was a children's day, and especial provision had been made for their entertainment. Jugglers and strong men went through their feats. The man was there who could lift a cannon and hold it when it was fired off, and could take two iron bars on his shoulders, hold a man astride of his neck, and then when two other men hung upon the ends of 152 THE VIKING BODLEYS. the bars, could swing them round till their legs almost flew out hori- zontally. There were whirligigs, where, to the sound of music, children were riding with smiling faces upon horses which always pursued and never caught each other, or driving in chariots at- tached to equally swift steeds. Tyrolese, with exaggerated cos- tumes, were singing jodels in a balcony ; while the audience below sipped coffee and chocolate. There was a theatre in the open air. The stage only was under cover, and there were no seats before it, but the people stood upon a gentle slope. The drop scene was a great peacock's tail. The peacock faced the audience, and his tail covered the front of the stage. At a signal the tail divided in the middle, and fell aside, while the peacock descended into a trap, and a curtain rolled up, showing an interior. Two concerts were always in full blast in different parts of the garden, and everywhere were little cafes crowded with people drinking coffee or beer or choco- late. " What in the world is this j)lace ? " exclaimed Charles, as they came to a great structure of boards, and heard a thunderous noise in it or on it. The building was perhaps a hundred and eighty feet in length. At each end were two towers, side by side, one perhaps forty, the other twenty-five feet in height, and they alternated at the two ends. That is, a tall tower stood opposite a short tower at the further end of the building, while a wave line connected the two. 66 Do let 's go up," said Sarah, and the whole party, filled with curiosity, climbed the staircase in one of the tall towers, up which other people were going. They learned from a notice that this was a Rutschban. "A rutschban?" said Mr. Van Wyck. "From the name and from the looks of the thing, it must be a Rush-railway." RAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN. 15S They were in a small room, crowded with people, and they could look down the railway track. At the entrance stood a car on four small iron wheels, the car being very stout and holding two people, with plenty of room to spare. It stood upon rails, or rather its wheels were in grooves, and the course extended down the slope, marked by the wave lines which they had seen at the top of the The Rutschban. building, terminating in a rise at the opposite lower tower. Two people would get into the car, and a leathern boot would be buttoned over them. The car would be started down the incline by the attend- ant, and away it would go down the first slope, and by its impetus rise to the next height, go over and down and up again, at each rise pitching a little lower, until the last slope, when it rushed up the hill, bumped against a buffer, and the two travelers got out. The 154 THE VIKING BODLEYS. car would then be seized, dragged aside, put upon a lift, hauled up to the higher tower at the side, and sent back with other passengers, or else empty, down a corresponding road terminating in a similar low tower by the side of the one from which it first started. Here it would be hoisted again into place, ready for a new round trip. " Phippy," said Mrs. Bodley, " how can people dare to go down that dreadful road ? Just look at them ! " " Yes, just look at them," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " That gentle- man getting in looks like a bank president ; and there are a couple of lovers." For as fast as one car had rushed up the final slope, an- other was started down the first incline. The two people in a car would hold each other in. They almost lost their hats ; they bowed and fell back upon the huge " thank you-ma'ams," as Sarah called them ; they looked frightened, and they looked bold ; they smiled, and they almost cried. " No one seems to scream," said Mr. Bodley, " or else there is such a noise that we don't hear them. Come, Blandina, want a coast ? " " Would you, oh would you, Nathan ? " 6i Certainly, hop in." " Phippy, you go first, and tell us how it feels," said the timid Mrs. Bodley. " No, no," said Mr. Van Wyck, " that is n't fair. I '11 tell you what: we will all go in three successive cars, and wait for each other at the foot of the further tower. Sarah, you get in one with me. Charles, do you go with your Aunt Phippy ; and Nathan, you can follow with Blandina. Will you do it ? " They all nodded, and Mr. Van Wyck and Sarah boldly got into the first car which stood ready. They paid their fare, about two and a half cents apiece, and Mr. Van Wyck, with one arm about RAMBLES IN COPENHAGEN. 155 Sarah, jammed his hat down over his brow, turned and smiled frig- idly as they started, then turned quickly and looked straight ahead as they thundered down the slope. " Is n't it awful ? " gasped Sarah. She felt that thrilling sensation in the pit of her stomach which one has in a swing when descend- ing, and then they shot up the slope, but oh ! they went down an- other, and she was sure her hair stood on end, if it ever did, as she saw the abyss before her. There was no stopping ; a moment's delicious reprieve came at the summit of each rise, but it was fol- lowed by a headlong plunge, and finally, with one wild rush, the car flew up the last incline. Sarah and her father staggered down the staircase of the tower. They had intended to watch the others come, but they forgot their intention ; they had an uneasy longing to get their feet on terra firma. In a few moments they were joined by the others, and they all looked as if they had lost their wits. " Well ! " said Mrs. Boclley, and she could say nothing more, " It is an awful joy ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. "It is simply fiendish," said Sarah. " Come, come," said Mr. Bodley. " I w 7 ould n't have missed it for anything." " And I would n't go through it again for anything," said Mr. Van Wyck. " How did you like it, Charles ? " asked his mother. " I 'd like to try it again," said that youth. " Charles ! " said Sarah, " do you want to look any whiter ? " The Rutschban was such a climax that they were all willing to saunter toward the gate and make their way toward the hotel. " How thoroughly," said Mr. Bodley, " all the people seemed to be enjoying themselves." 156 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Yes/' said his wife, " and how decorous they were, and how heartily they applauded all the music and all the acting. The Danes must be a very sociable people." " I am afraid we could not have anything of the kind in New York," said Mrs. Van Wyck ; " and yet there are Gardens there, and I suppose just such entertainments." " Has it occurred to you, Phippy," said her husband, " that we were the only foreigners at Tivoli ? Think of living in a city like Copenhagen, where all the people are of your own race and kin ! If there are lower classes, they are not foreigners; they are not separated from you by that difference." " Philip is right," said Mr. Bodley. " The Danes are very demo- cratic in their amusements, and there are, I am told, absolutely no places which have a class distinction. At Tivoli we have seen the richest and gentlest beside the poorest and humblest. Any one who can pay a few ore can go inside, and everybody goes. It all turns on this in my mind : that there is no foreign population to speak of in Copenhagen, and especially that the poorest are still Danes, as their fathers were before them." " Yes, it will be a long time before our new and old Americans will have to find distinctions by going back to their ancestors. There are no longer Dutch and English in New York. One day there will not be Americans and Germans and Irish, for we can't help continuing to call these new-comers, no matter how good Amer- icans they mean to be, by the names they brought with them." " For my part," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " I think we shall be all Americans when we play together, and not when we vote together." " Wise Phippy ! " said her husband. " You are talking almost in epigrams ! " THORWALDSEN, THE SCULPTOR. BERT EL THORWALDSEN. 159 CHAPTER X. BERTEL THORWALDSEN. " How many people in Copenhagen have their names ending in sen" said Charles one day. " I looked at the shop-signs this morn- ing, and it seemed as though every other one was Andersen or 01- sen or Pedersen or Hansen, or some other sen." " Don't you remember Andersen's little story," said his mother, " called ' Children's Prattle ' ? There was a large children's party, and one of the little girls said that people whose names ended in sen were nobodies, whereupon another little girl whose father's name was Madsen became very angry, and a poor boy who had been turn- ing the spit for the cook and overheard the talk, grew very sorrow- ful, for his name ended in sen. By and by, Andersen says, all these children had grown up, and the little boy whose name ended in sen was the most famous of all of them, for he was Thorwaldsen, the great sculptor." "I wonder," said Mr. Van "Wyck, "if Andersen did not get that story from Thorwaldsen. They were good friends, you know. There is another of his stories in which Thorwaldsen figures, — the story of ' Holger the Dane.' An old grandfather, a ship-carver, tells his grandson about the mythic Holger, who sleeps in the crypt of Kronborg Castle, clad in iron and steel, his head bowed on his arm, while his hair has grown to the marble table on which he rests. Every Christmas Eve an angel comes and tells him that his dreams of a happy Denmark are true, and that he may sleep on in quiet ; but when Denmark is in real danger, Holger will rouse himself, and 160 THE VIKING BODLEYS. strike a blow for freedom. So the old grandfather falls into a reverie and tells his little boy of famous Danes who have been great on land and sea, and the last whom he names is Bertel Thor- waldsen, the son of a figure-head carver, like himself." " I remember also," said Mr. Bodley, " how An- dersen, in his au- tobiography, tells of Thofwaldsen clapping him on the shoulder in the twilight, when they were stay- ing at a friend's The Old Ship-Carver and his Grandson. VlOUSP flTld SHVITIO" * Are not we little folks to have a story to-night ? ' " It was after this chat that our friends went to visit Our Lady's Church, where was a series of statues by Thorwaldsen. The church is one of great simplicity and bareness, but built with a massiveness which gives it a certain dignity. It has one long, broad, and high nave, surmounted by a barrel vault, marked off in blue squares. Galleries also run round the church ; and above the gallery, as one enters at the west door, is a large organ reaching to the ceiling. The effect of the interior is greatly increased by the arrangement of Thorwaldsen's statues, which constitute the attraction of the church. In the apse, as an altar-piece, is the Christ. The Twelve Apostles, St. Paul taking the place of Judas, are arranged, six on a side, down the church ; and, above the Christ, in the semicircular apse, is a bas- BERTEL THORWALDSEN. 161 relief cornice representing the procession to Calvary, the figures full of life and boldness. "Haven't I seen that statue of the Saviour before ?" asked Sa- rah, as they stood in front of it. " To be sure," said her father. " We have seen it several times in copies in Norway and Denmark, and I believe it is common in Sweden also. It has taken its place as the Scandinavian represen- tation of the Saviour. It is a distinct embodiment of the Lutheran or Protestant conception." " Yes," said Mrs. Bodley, eagerly, " it is the Friend instead of the Sufferer." The figure stands with head slightly bowed, the hands extended, not in pain as on the cross, but in invitation and in benediction. " It is not so much Thorwaldsen's idea of the Christ," said Mr. Van Wyck, " as it is his record of a conception common to multi- tudes of minds impregnated by Protestant teaching. It does not suggest physical suffering, nor emotion altogether, but it is largely intellectual. He is addressing the minds as well as the hearts of men." " After all," interrupted Mr. Bodley, " Thorwaldsen brought his love of Greek art into this conception. This is a Greek statue. It is perfectly balanced. See how the hands answer to each other ; notice the parted hair, the divided beard, the unfailing regularity of features and form." They lingered longest before the central figure, and they looked also at the font which was formed by a kneeling angel in marble, holding out a sea-shell. The apostles were distinguished by their characteristics or by the symbols of their life. "How quickly," said Mrs. Van Wyck, "one runs out of one's 11 162 THE VIKING BODLEYS. special knowledge of the apostles, and has to know them by some label. Here is the rugged Peter, now. No one would hesitate over him ; and the eloquent Paul." " And here is the doubting Thomas, with his chin resting on his hand," said Mrs. Bodley, " and the seraphic John." " But you would hardly know the others," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " if they did not have something in the nature of labels, like An- drew with his particular kind of cross, and James with his pilgrim staff: and hat, Simon Zelotes with his saw, and Thaddeus with his axe." " That is hardly our fault. The Bible does not give us much help in individualizing them." " I don't think Thorwaldsen troubled himself to look farther than for the conventional type," said Mr. Van Wyck. " A man who had brooded over the New Testament and made it part of his deepest life would not have been satisfied with such external representations. Don't you remember the figures of apostles and prophets by Shields in the windows at Eaton Hall, near Chester, in England ? There was work of a different sort." From Our Lady's Church our friends thought they would go to the Thorwaldsen Museum, and so make a Thorwaldsen day of it. They had frequently passed the museum before, and had stopped to spell out the fading frescoes upon the outside, but had not as yet entered it. The building was erected by the city to receive the col- lection of his own works and of those of other artists belonging to him, which Thorwaldsen had bequeathed to the city. Here, also, the remains of Thorwaldsen had been brought for burial. " You see," said Mr. Van Wyck, " the building is a tomb as well as art- gallery, and that accounts for its somewhat gloomy and for- bidding look." BERTEL THORWALDSEN. 163 " It reminds me of the Tombs in New York," said Mr. Bodley. " How queer these pictures on the walls are," said Charles. " Here are men lowering Thorwaldsen's marbles from the ship, and here is the way people are receiving the statues." In fact the fres- coes, which ran about the outside of the building at the height of one's head, contained a history of Thorwaldsen's triumphant recep- tion by the city. Our friends entered the build- ing and found that there was an open court in the centre, about which were halls and corridors filled with Thorwaldsen's works in marble or in plaster, and also in sketches for sculpture. They walked at first all through the rooms just to get a preliminary notion of the contents. " What an astounding fertil- ity he had," exclaimed Mr. Bod- ley. " Yes, but do you not notice," said Mr. Van Wyck, " how the same subjects recur again and again, sometimes in plaster, sometimes in marble ? I wish they had grouped the works differently. If they had gathered, for instance, into one room all the copies they have here of his treatment of Amor and Psyche, it would have been very interesting." " I think the loveliest thing here," said his wife, " is this group of Amor and Psyche united in heaven. How exquisitely tender and fine ! " Thforwaldsen in his old age. 164 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " And you must have noticed his series of Amor's dominion over the world. In heaven he is on Jupiter's eagle with a thunderbolt ; on earth he is the lion-tamer with Hercules' club ; on the sea he is borne by a dolphin with the trident of Neptune ; and in Hades he is the tamer of Cerberus. By the bye, Charles, who was Amor, of whom Thorwaldsen is so fond ? " " Why, Love, I suppose." "Just so. Thorwaldsen fell in love with the classic fable, and de- lighted in repeating it in all manner of forms. He had not much originality, but he had an exquisite sense of beauty, and he was quite satisfied to do over and over again the old Greek fancies." " I will tell you what I was most interested in," said Sarah. " It was to see the originals of Night and Day. I have seen plaster casts of those works ever since I can remember." "Yes, I suppose they hang over thousands of bedsteads in the United States," said her Uncle Nathan, philosophically ; " simply thousands." " How graceful his work is," said Mrs. Bodley. " His dancing girls really do dance." " There is little that is not suggested by Greek art and story," said Mr. Van Wyck, " except the portrait statues, but here is a curi- ous illustration of the story of Adam and Eve." These two persons are represented as seated together while Adam holds Abel on his knee. An altar fire burns near. Abel holds an apple in his uplifted hand, and Cain, who is on the ground, spurns another apple with his foot, while he is eager to get Abel's away from him. The serpent looks on complacently." " Odd, is n't it?" said Mrs. Van Wyck. " It looks as if Thorwald- sen tried to produce in marble the opposite of a Holy Family." o c U5 BERTEL THORWALDSEN. 167 After they had looked until they were tired at the white statues and other pieces of sculpture they entered the courtyard, decorated in Pompeian style, and looked at the grave of Thorwaldsen, cov- ered with roses and evergreen. " What a fine resting-place ! " said Mr. Van Wyck ; " and what a noble monument to raise over one's grave. I really do not think of another sepulchre so fine. Think of an artist buried thus in the midst of his works ! " " It would be like Cousin Ned buried in a library," remarked Charles, gravely. " But it would have to be a library composed entirely of his own writings," said his cousin. " Well, if he published ten books, as he says he is going to, and each book sold ten thousand copies, and all the copies were collected into one building " — " Come away," said Sarah, impatiently. " Charles is losing his head. Whoever heard of an author buying back all his books after he had sold them ! " " See ! " said Mrs. Bodley, " from where we are we can see into the hall where the copies of Christ and the Twelve Apostles are." They could get just a glimpse of the majestic figures, and it was a pleasant last sight as they turned away. Before they returned to their hotel our friends made a call upon the establishment of the Widow Ipsen, to see the terra cotta for which the house is famous. Here were many reproductions of Thor- waldsen's work in miniature, but they found themselves looking with most interest upon some little figures of the Sandman with his umbrella, and the little Match-Girl. " After all," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " how we come back to Ander- 168 THE VIKING BODLEYS. sen ! This little Sandman is a droll figure, but we should not think much of it did it not at once recall to us Andersen's story of ' Ole Luck Oie.' I really must get it." "Well, Phippy, if you will get a Sandman, I will get a little Match-Girl," said Mrs. Bodley. " I have no doubt you can get them in half-a-dozen places in New York," said Mr. Bodley. " Yes, but that is different from getting them in one place in Co- penhagen, in Andersen's city." They went, also, to the Royal Porcelain Works, and brought away a plaque with Andersen's profile on it, looking for all the world like Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Bodley said. " This is really a pious pilgrimage," said his sister. " We haven't actually made any discoveries about Andersen ; but I can't help thinking we owe something to the excellent man ; and I have n't the remotest notion how else to pay the debt, except by walking about in the streets where he walked." " But all this lingering in his haunts does help to make his stories real," said Mr. Van Wyck. " It is like one's visit to London after reading Dickens's stories. One may then go home and read them all over again with new zest." " It is more like going to Salem to make sure of Hawthorne," said Mrs. Bodley ; " for Dickens's London is a more real place than the actual London." " Or like going to Acadia to hunt for the footsteps of Evange- line," said Mr. Bodley. " For my part, I don't think it is Ander- sen's characters that we look for in Copenhagen, but Andersen him- self." " It is a wonder to me," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " that the poets BERT EL THORWALDSEN. 169 and historians have not made more of Denmark than they have. I don't mean, of course, Danish poets and historians, but English and Americans. They are really near cousins to us." " Did n't Shakespeare write ' Hamlet ? ' " asked Sarah. " Yes, but there is as much Denmark in the drama as there is Italy in ' Two Gentlemen of Verona.' " "Individual Danes have been very important," said Mr. Bodley ; " but Denmark itself has not* played a very significant part in the drama of history. I suppose that is the reason why Motley chose Holland, and no one seems to have chosen Denmark. Yet the Danes are really much more interesting than the Dutch." " Longfellow has not forgotten Denmark," said Mr. Van Wyck. " He evidently brought away pleasant associations with Danish life, to judge from his poem, ' To an Old Danish Song-Book.' " " Now begin, father." said Sarah. " Listen, all ; father has put down his eye-glasses. It 's a sure sign of a lecture or a poem." " I 've a good mind to give you a private lecture, Sarah, upon re- spect to parents." " Oh, my dear father, I more than respect you, — I love you." " Well, for that astounding declaration you shall be rewarded by hearing the poem." 170 THE VIKING BODLEYS. TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. Welcome, my old friend, Welcome to a foreign fireside, While the sullen gales of autumn Shake the windows. I The ungrateful world Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, Since, beneath the skies of Denmark, First I met thee. There are marks of age, There are thumb-marks on thy margin, Made by hands that clasped thee rudely, At the alehouse. Soiled and dull thou art ; Yellow are thy time-worn pages, As the russet, rain-molested Leaves of autumn. Thou art stained with wine Scattered from hilarious goblets, As the leaves with the libations Of Olympus. Yet dost thou recall Days departed, half-forgotten, When in dreamy youth I wandered By the Baltic, — When I paused to hear The old ballad of King Christian Shouted from suburban taverns In the twilight. BE R TEL THORWALDSEN. 171 Thou recallest bards, Who, in solitary chambers, And with hearts by passion wasted, Wrote thy pages. Thou recallest homes Where thy songs of love and friendship Made the gloomy Northern winter Bright as summer. Once some ancient Skald, In his bleak, ancestral Iceland, Chanted staves of these old ballads To the Vikings. Once in Elsinore, At the court of old King Hamlet, Yorick and his boon companions Sang these ditties. Once Prince Frederick's Guard Sang them in their smoky barracks ; — Suddenly the English cannon Joined the chorus! Peasants in the field, Sailors on the roaring ocean, Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, All have sung them. Thou hast been their friend; They, alas! have left thee friendless! Yet at least by one warm fireside Art thou welcome. And, as swallows build In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, So thy twittering songs shall nestle In my bosom, — 172 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, And recalling by their voices Youth and travel. " What a pity that we could not carry away from Copenhagen something which would bring back as many memories," exclaimed Mrs. Bociley. " There is your Sandman with his umbrella," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Does n't Andersen make him a delightful story - teller ? I fancy that when you catch sight of him on your shelf at home there will be an instantaneous recollection of ever so many Copenhagen scenes. The only thing wanting will be your power to make a poem in words." " How constantly Longfellow recurs to the north in his poetry," said Mr. Van Wyck. " He seems to have far more kin- ship with it than with the south." " It is the attraction of opposites, I think," said Mr. Bociley, " as I believe I have said before. Not that Longfellow has much of a torrid zone in him, but his gentleness lays hold of the ruggedness and fierceness of the north, and then by a natural association anything connected with Scandinavia interests him." " Well, I am sorry to leave Copenhagen," sighed Mrs. Bodley, who was moving about the room, putting up various articles. "When weren't you sorry to leave a place, mother?" asked Charles. The Sandman. ANDERSEN'S BIRTHPLACE. 173 " But Copenhagen is such a home-like spot," she argued, u and I am used to it now." "I am glad for my part," said Sarah energetically, "that we are bound homeward. I am almost reluctant to go to Odense, since it seems like turning our steps backward." "Yet go to Odense we must," said Mrs. Van Wyck. "We are on an Andersen pilgrimage. If we have seen his burial-place we certainly must see his birthplace." CHAPTER XI. Andersen's birthplace. It was an early start which our friends made for Odense, for they had limited themselves to a single day, meaning to take the town on their way out of Denmark. They did not need to return to Copenhagen ; they would go on their way as far as Korsor, and then, leaving their baggage, take a flying trip across the Great Belt to Odense and back, in time to take the night boat from Korsor to Kiel. " All along the way we ought to see traces of Andersen," said Mr. Van Wyck ; " for he came from Odense to Copenhagen when he was a boy." " But not by rail," said his wife. " No, he traveled with the driver of a post-carriage who was re- turning from Odense to Copenhagen." 174 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Look ! " said Sarah, suddenly. " I have seen the first memorial of Andersen," and she pointed to five storks which were perched upon the roof of a barn past which the train was whizzing. " Well done, Sarah," said her father. " I have been looking for a stork on a roof ever since we came to Denmark, and here you have seen five all at once." They reached Roeskilde in less than an hour, and caught a glimpse of the cathedral in which Den- mark's kings are buried; they passed Soro, a pretty, wooded place by a lake, where the Danish author Ingemann had lived ; and they came to Slagelse. " Here is where Andersen was sent to school by Collin, his Copen- hagen friend," said Mr. Van Wyck. " You remember he went up to Copenhagen to seek his fortune, and after two years of varying experience fell in with Mr. Collin, who befriended him. Andersen, with his childish ignorance, thought he could at once make a place for himself in the theatre, and he was ready for anything, to sing or play or to write a play. The rich people to whom he went amused themselves for a while with the odd little fellow ; but Collin took a more substantial interest in him, saw that he had genius, but no training, and so sent him to school." The Memorial Storks. ANDERSEN'S BIRTHPLACE. 175 " And he went to school here in Slagelse ? " " Yes, and it must have been a lively place. He says that when he arrived late in the evening at the inn, he asked the landlady if there was anything remarkable in town, and she replied, ' Yes, a new English fire-engine and Pastor Bastholm's library.' " " We won't stop for those celebrities," said Mr. Bodley. " No ; if we stopped at all, I should want to go to the top of a hill near Slagelse, where there stands or stood a cross of St. Anders, and where Andersen used to go and gaze across the Belt to Fiinen and think of home and dream of being a poet. I think the home- sickness of men of genius has not received sufficient attention." At last the train stopped at Korsor, and here our friends depos- ited their baggage and took the steamboat which was to carry them across the Great Belt, a distance of eight or ten miles. Half way across was an island, Sprogo, with a light-house upon it; on the other side of the Great Belt was Nyborg. Here they took another train, and just at noon entered Odense. " I suspect there is not much to see here," said Mr. Bodley, " and I, for one, am ready for a stroll. Of course we must see Andersen's house, and if he has celebrated anything, why, Philip, we depend upon you for pointing it out." " We shall not see the house where Andersen was born," said Mr. Van Wyck. " That was pulled clown some time ago, to make room for a fine building ; but they have kept the house where he spent his childhood. You remember " — " Now, Philip, that is very polite of you. I notice you always be- gin your little lectures on Andersen in that way. For my part I don't remember, and you may tell me anything you like as a new fact." 176 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Very well, then. Hans Christian Andersen " — " Stop, father," said Sarah, suddenly. " There he is now, or rather his shop." " Well, Sarah, you make all the discoveries to-day," laughed her father, as they stood and looked with amusement upon a house-fur- nishing store kept, as the sign said, by H. C. Andersen. " Ander- sen is a common enough name ; but the combination of letters is a coincidence." " Our Andersen furnished houses, I am sure," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " What would a house be without his stories, and especially without his suggestion of the animation of furniture. When I was a child and read about the top and darning-needle and tin soldiers and all the other odd little characters, I fell to making the legs of the chairs and sofas talk with each other and dance about. I remember distinctly a party in which all the parlor furniture took part, and in which a kitchen chair, which had got in by accident, wept bitterly for mortification over the treatment it received. — - But go on, Philip ; I interrupted you." " We all interrupted him," said Sarah. " Do, father, begin at the beginning, and tell us about Andersen's birth." " Don't you remember? " began that gentleman. " No, you don't, I remember. Well, Andersen begins his ' Story of my Life,' or really ' Wonder-Story,' more accurately, in these words : ' My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was a boy, and went forth into the world poor and friendless, a good fairy had met me and said : " Choose now thy own course through life and the object for which thou wilt strive, and then, according to the devel- opment of thy mind, and as reason requires, I will guide and defend thee to its attainment," my fate could not, even then, have been ANDERSEN'S BIRTHPLACE. 177 directed more happily, more prudently, or better.' Then he tells how his father was a poor shoemaker, who had made a bedstead out of the wooden frame which had borne the coffin of a deceased count ; and on this funereal bedstead, with some of the remnants of the black cloth still attached to the frame, Andersen was born. When he was still a child, his father died; and when Andersen's mother was married again, they moved to Monk-Mills Street, where they had a little, narrow garden. Now, the first thing we must find is Monk-Mills Street, and I think it must be near St. Knud's Church, for Andersen says he lived in St. Knud's parish." It was an easy matter to find the church, and as they walked about studying the signs of the streets, a little boy, who had been watching them, pulled off his cap, made a bow, and offered to show them Andersen's house, for he could readily see that the strangers were in search of it. They were, in fact, close by it, and Sarah, as usual, was the first to discover it. A little house projected a few feet from its neighbor, and a tablet on the projecting wall bore the inscription : — Til dette Hus Knytte sig Digteren HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN Kjasreste Barndoms minder. Odense Commune satte denne steen Den 2 d April 1875 Digteren' s 70 aarige Fodselsdag. " Now for the English of it, Philip," said Mr. Bodley. " Very well, I will render it inscription-wise, and you can imagine the long and short lines like those on the tablet." 12 178 THE VIKING BODLEYS. With this house The Poet HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN associated The fondest recollections of his childhood. The Odense municipality placed this stone here April 2, 1875, The Poet's seventieth birthday. " Don't you — I '11 begin again. On Andersen's seventieth birth- day his native town was illuminated and gave him a brilliant festi- val. He closes his autobiography with an account of it, and reckons it the proudest moment of his life. An old woman in his childhood had prophesied that he would be a famous man and that Odense would be illuminated in his honor, and the prophecy came true." u I wonder how many old women have made similar prophecies," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " which have forgotten to come true. But how Andersen must have enjoyed the ovation." " He would have enjoyed it heartily, no doubt, if he had not suf- fered all the time from toothache. There is something very gro- tesque in the way in which he tells how this humiliating physical torture interfered with the intoxication of the hour. i I stepped to the open window,' he says ; ' there was a blaze of light from the torches ; the place was quite full of people. They sang, and I was overcome in my soul. I was physically overcome, indeed, and could not enjoy this summit of fortune in my life. The toothache was in- tolerable ; the icy air which rushed in at the window made it blaze up into a terrible pain, and in place of fully enjoying the good for- tune of these minutes, which never would be repeated, I looked at ANDERSEN'S BIRTHPLACE. 179 the printed song to see how many verses there were to be sung before I could slip away from the torture which the cold air sent through my teeth. It was the pitch of suffering ; when the flames of the torches piled together sank down, then my pain decreased. How thankful was I to God ! '" " Poor fellow ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " And how like a child to tell all about it ! " " Uncle Philip," said Charles, " what kind of shop does J. J. Schmidt keep ? " J. J. Schmidt was the name on the sign-board which decorated Andersen's house. " Furniture and bedclothes, Charles, as I make it out." " I wonder why it is," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " that houses in which great men have been born usually drop in the social scale." " That is natural enough," said her brother. " Great men usually are born with iron spoons in their mouths, and when we come to look at their houses, we drop from the height to which these great men have risen. Let 's go and look at St. Knud's Church. I don't care to go inside of a house which has been altered so much as this evidently has been." " The surroundings have been altered, rather than the house it- self," said Mr. Van Wyck ; " there used to be a garden, — a little narrow garden, and a path leading down to the river, — but here is a street cutting across, so that there can be no lane leading straight from the house to the river." They went to St. Knud's Church, and looked in vain for the grave of Andersen's father in the church-yard. The church was either entirely new or so restored as to show little sign of age, but in the crypt were many old grave-stones and tablets, some apparently re- moved from places they had formerly occupied. Here, also, was the wooden coffin of Saint Knud himself. 180 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Phippy," said Mr. Bodley, " do you remember a visit we made, when children, to Newburyport ? We drove there with father and mother and Lucy, and Ned rode horseback." " I was just this moment thinking of the very journey, Nathan, and I know what put it into your head. You were reminded by St. Knud of those awful remains of Whitfield which they showed us." "Just so. This poor saint has the same mahogany head-piece that Whitfield had." " I should think they might have let out a tuck in his shroud." The shroud covered all the bones except those at the end of his stubby legs. The saint was under a glass cover, so that he could be examined easily ; and beside him was his brother, whose head showed even more dilapidation, being quite caved in. The rest of his bones were laid artlessly in a pile on the top of his shroud. " He was restless in the night," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " Do come away, Phippy," said Mrs. Bodley. " I really think this is not fit for the children to see." " Father," asked Sarah, " was the old gentleman whom we saw just now any relation to the King Canute who made that remark- able speech to his courtiers, when he sat in his rocking-chair on the beach ? The name sounds like it." " My dear child, you must leave your American style at home when you cross the water. Yes, Canute and Knud are all the same. The saint down-stairs was a grand-nephew of King Canute, or Knud, as the Danes call him. He meant to dispute the possession of Eng- land with William the Conqueror, but William succeeded in sowing dissension among Knud's followers, and the army and fleet never crossed to England. Knud was killed when kneeling before the al- tar in a church which stood here, and has since disappeared. His brother, whom we saw by his side, died defending him." ANDERSEN'S BIRTHPLACE. 181 " How near we came to being Danes ! " said Charles. Our friends strolled about the neighborhood of the church, and to their delight found the spot described by Andersen in his story of " The Bell's Hollow," where the bell flew from the church spire and sank into the deepest part of the Odense River, where it still rings, and can be heard at times, the people say, when some one is to die. They went back to Andersen's house, and, keeping down the road which ran near it, turned toward the river again. They came upon a long, rambling house, which had a curious inscription over the door : — Et dobbelt nyttigt Huus som dobbelt nytte bringer Det laerer flittighed og Bitteriet tringer. Vor store Friderich vor Konge eye god Paa begge deele har saa viislig raadet bod. 1752. " I don't remember anything about this in Andersen," said Mrs. Bodley, looking hard at the old house. " Nor I," said her brother, " unless it should be the < House of Correction,' which used to frighten him and fascinate him so." " What does the verse say, Philip ? " asked Mr, Bodley. " I can read the 1752 part." " Give me a few minutes and I will translate it for you, though the words don't look to me quite right." " You see, Blandina," said Mrs. Van Wyck, shaking her parasol at her, " he is getting to be a very profound scholar. He professes to be deep in the Odense variation of the Danish tongue." In a few minutes Mr. Van Wyck produced, with some doubt in his mind, the following lines : — " Twice useful is that house which double use permits, Lessons it gives to giddy youth, and checks the sharper wits. 182 THE VIKING BODLEYS. Frederick the Great, our King, as good as he was brave, On both these points his wisest counsel gave." " Rather enigmatical," said Mrs. Van Wyck, with a critical air. " Still it might answer for a House of Correction where boys were taught before they were wicked, and men were corrected after they were wicked. But why lug in our great, brave, and good king ? " " Perhaps he built the house." They found the river again, flowing now at the foot of some gar- dens, and looking very much as Andersen described it. " What sort of a river is it?" he asks. "Every child in the town of Odense knows it. It flows round the foot of the gardens, from the lochs to the water-mill, away under the wooden bridges. In the river grew yellow water-lilies, brown, feather-like reeds, and the soft, velvet- like bulrushes, so high and so large. Old, split willow-trees, bent and twisted, hang far over the water by the side of the monks' meadows and the bleaching greens ; but a little above is garden after garden, the one very different from the other : some with beau- tiful flowers and arbors, clean and in prim array, like dolls' villages ; some only filled with cabbages ; while in others there are no attempts at a garden to be seen at all, only great elder-trees stretching them- selves out, and hanging over the running water, which here and there is deeper than an oar can fathom." " This is about where Andersen must have come down from his house," said Mr. Van Wyck, eying the neighborhood carefully. " Oh, joy ! " suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Van Wyck. " Just look ! " and she pointed to the water near them in silent admiration. " The Ugly Duckling ! " said Sarah. To be sure ! At any rate, a brood of young ducks had taken to the water, and were engaged in spitefully pecking at a forlorn crea- ture in the party. A NDERSEN'S B1R THPLA CE. 183 " At the foot of Andersen's garden ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. " This was truly worth coming to Odense to see." They all watched the scene with the greatest interest. "Fortunately," said Mrs. Bodley, "I never saw a young swan, and so I have no scruples about believing this unfortunate little creature to be Andersen's Ugly Duckling." " How readily people have taken the story as a parable of Ander- sen's own life ! " said Mr. Van Wyck. " For my part, I do not be- lieve that he wrote the story with any suspicion of its truthfulness The Ugly Duckling ventures into the World. as a picture of his life. He may easily have seen just such a sight as this, have caught the fancy, and worked it out sympathetically. If he had thought much about himself he would very likely have spoiled the story by betraying his self-consciousness. After it was all done, and people talked about it, very likely he saw the coinci- dence." 184 THE VIKING BODLEYS. They lingered about the river, but were warned that they had not much time left, and so strolled back into the town. " What quantities of cheap shoes seem to be made here ! " said Charles. " Do you know," said his mother, " I am going to buy a pair of the first shoemaker I see ; " and it was not long before they came to a humble shop, — just such a shop, Mrs. Bodley said, as Andersen's father might have worked in. She bought a pair of small shoes, such as a child might wear, with coarse leather tops and wooden soles. They only cost the equivalent of twenty-five cents, and cer- tainly were not elegant. " Why did you buy those shoes, Aunt Blandina ? " asked Sarah. " It was a sudden freak, child. I happened to think that Ander- sen's earliest recollections were of his shoemaker father, and then I thought of his story of e The Red Shoes,' which fascinated me when I was a child. We had a gloomily-bound row of ' Littell's ' in the book-case. This story was in one of them, and I used to take it down and read it till I felt a cold chill creep down my back." " Your shoes are a rival to mine, which I got at Scheveningen," said Mrs. Van Wyck. " They are about the same size, only mine are wooden throughout." " But mine have the shadow of an association." " To be sure. And I really think we have worn Andersen pretty much to a shadow. Well, Denmark is a dear little country, and I should like to come again when Philip has learned the language per- fectly, — perfectly, Philip, — and travel to the sea-coast of Jut- land." " Father does know the language very well," said Sarah, stoutly. " We don't have a bit of trouble." THE END OF JOURNEYING. 185 "That's right, Sarah. I can count on you to believe in me. Really, by piecing out my Danish with a little French or German and an occasional English word, I have made it last. You are right, Phippy. We must come some day and see the sand-hills of Jutland." They were rolling out of Odense now and on their way to Ny- borg. Again they crossed the Great Belt, and at Korsor had time for a good supper before they needed to take their places on board the Fyen, which was to carry them to Kiel. The boat was waiting for the Copenhagen train, and so our friends had time to stow them- selves away before the crowd came tramping on board, and soon after the steamer had got under way they were sound asleep, at the end of their long day. CHAPTER XII. THE END OF JOURNEYING. The blowing of the whistle the next morning brought our friends early on deck, to find that the whistle was a fog-warning whistle. The men were throwing the lead, and there were various signs that the boat was feeling its way. The dense fog forbade any view of the harbor, and they could make out nothing until they were se- curely at the dock. A walk through the streets to the station showed mingled signs of German and Danish occupation ; but after the travelers were on board the train bound for Hamburg, there came to be a marked change in the aspect of things. 186 THE VIKING BODLEYS. " Everything seems to be on a bigger scale," said Mr. Bodley. a T^g ra ilroad and all its equipments seem to be more solid. The buildings and farm-houses have the air of greater wealth and solid- ity. " Yes," said Mr. Van Wyck, " and see those great, heavily-loaded vans on the neighboring tracks. They give one a notion of great energy." " No wonder. We are in Germany." The party had been to Hamburg before, but were not sorry to renew old impressions. They were still more glad to enter Holland by the same route which they had taken at the same time the year before. They spent a few days in the towns, visited Belgium also, and then crossed to England, where they had two or three weeks before they should sail for home. They spent a couple of days with their English kinsfolk at Salisbury, and at last, upon the 28th of September, set sail from Liverpool in one of the steamers of the Allan line, bound for Quebec and Montreal. " It is exactly a year," said Mrs. Yan Wyck, " since we bade Cousin Ned good-by on this very steamer. That is, he sailed on the last Thursday in September, and so do we." " Why do we go home this way, father ? " asked Charles Bodley. " I should think you would sail direct for New York or for Boston." " Do you want to know why we chose this way ? Your mother and Aunt Phippy have so often expressed a desire to go home by land that we thought we would gratify them." "Nonsense, Nathan," said his wife. "You know you said you wanted to go by the north of Ireland, so as to see the Giant's Cause- way." " Two reasons are better than one, my dear ; we can share them between us." THE END OF JOURNEYING. 187 " Is there less water this way ? " asked Sarah. " You can easily see by reference to the map that the distance from land to land is shorter than by any other route. Sometimes these steamers are only out of sight of land four days." " That is all very well," said Mr. Van Wyck, " if the weather is clear ; but I should n't like to make the Strait of Belle Isle in a fog." " Oh, we shall not have any fog at this season of the year," said the cheerful Mr. Bodley. " I '11 tell you what I should like to do," said Charles. " I 'd like to follow in the footprints of our Viking ancestors and skip across from Norway to Iceland, then from Iceland to Greenland, and then stumble on America." " What a splashing you would make if you followed in their foot- prints ! " said Sarah. " Well," said Mr. Bodley, " the route we take is the nearest to that. It was a good while before the early voyagers ventured to sail directly across the Atlantic. They either coasted down to the Canaries and then crossed, or they did very much what Charles wants to do." They did not see the Giant's Causeway after all, for the steamer passed it after dark, and they were more than four days from land to land, for they had head-winds and storms which delayed them ; but early on Friday of the week following their departure they were roused by a movement on deck, and found they were in sight of land. It was Belle Isle covered with snow. Part of the coast of Labrador also was visible, looking very cold and cheerless under its white covering. They were soon in the strait, and all the morning watched the land, never very far away ; but in the afternoon it be- 188 THE VIKING BODLEYS. gan to recede. On Saturday morning the southeast corner of Anti- costi came in sight, and then the steamer struck across the gulf for the south shore of the river St. Lawrence. The wind was blowing freshly from the southwest, chopping the water and causing the steamer to twist and stumble in a most uncomfortable fashion. At last in the middle of the afternoon high bluffs came in sight, and then everybody knew that as soon as the steamer came under shel- ter of them neither wind nor water would vex them much. So it proved. At dinner-time they were in quiet waters, steam- ing up the river, past little settlements which looked very winning. " How good this smell is ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck, sniffing the fra- grance of deciduous trees, brought by the breeze straight from shore. "See the brush-fires!" said Charles. "I'd like to be throwing branches on ! " It was pleasanter still the next day, Sunday. The steamer stopped at Rimouski to discharge mails and a few passengers, and then moved steadily all day up the great and beautiful river. There was an American brightness about the day which warmed our friends within and without. " Is n't it good to get back to America ! " said Mrs. Bodley, with a long sigh. " Indeed it is," said her husband. " I should think Europe would have been stifled until it found our land ! " " Most patriotic Nathan ! " said Mr. Van Wyck. " I am afraid it is only Americans who appreciate the beauty and hope of America." " Hark ! " said Mrs. Van Wyck. It was the evening hymn of the emigrants which came softly from the forward part of the steamer. " Poor things ! " said she, when there was silence again. " What a change it is to many of them ! " THE END OF JOURNEYING. 189 " Poor things, Phippy ! " said her brother. " They are to be en- vied, not to be pitied. Think of the great meaning of this emigra- tion from Europe to America ! What history is in process of mak- ing ! Here are grandparents and grandchildren, groups of families, and no doubt on the passage itself are formed friendships and associ- ations destined to work a change in the fate and fortune of persons. Then consider how many steamers and sailing vessels carry just such companies, moving from one continent to another. It cannot last, I suppose, a great while upon the present scale ; but one of these days historians will look back upon it and make more of this feature of history than of kings and presidents. They will head their chapter ' The Great Migration/ and will tell their readers that it was a greater event than the descent of the Northern hordes upon Rome, and second only in importance to the first great migra- tion of the Aryan tribes." "Hear! hear!" said Mr. Van Wyck. "Why, Nathan, you will write a history yet." " No, no. I leave all that to Ned. Mine is the humbler task of interesting children in such matters." About nine o'clock they made a bend in the river, and began to discern the lights twinkling on the rock of Quebec. The rain, which had been falling in the early part of the evening, held up for a time in an accommodating fashion, and our friends all stood on the wet decks, with the moonlight breaking in now and then, and watched eagerly the signs of the end of the voyage. They could just catch the gleaming of the Falls of Montmorenci, but were most charmed by the pretty effects which the rock with its scattered lights gave. The steamer moved slowly toward Point Levi, and as it came to a halt opposite the Grand Trunk wharf its guns and those in the for- 190 THE VIKING BODLEYS. tress of Quebec spoke sharply but playfully to each other, and the steamer sent up a succession of fiery rockets. The steamer was worked up to the dock and made fast. The voyage was ended. Here let us leave our good friends after our journeys with them through Holland, England, Norway, and Denmark. We knew the older people when they were children — when they were simply Nathan and Phippy and Lucy. For my part, I, the writer of these simple chronicles, have other friends to whom to say farewell. I bid good-by to the many children and their parents who have fol- lowed me year after year as I have set down the observations and thoughts which were part recollections of my own childhood, part the creations of a playful fancy, part the new discoveries which come to us when we who were children have children. This is the last of the Bodley Books. I can hardly dismiss them without an honest regret ; but other thoughts, other fancies, crowd upon me. It is not well to wear out one's welcome ; a hearty welcome I have had, and I will not be so churlish as to think it does not turn into a Godspeed as I enter new fields. Cambridge, Mass., September 5, 1884. THE END. EXCELLENT BOOKS FOR YOUNG FOLKS, Published by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston; II EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK. ^Esop's Fables. With a Life of the Author, and Croxall's Applications. 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