The question now arose,what was to be done?My principal reason for coming to Alten was to buy some salt provisions and Lapland dresses;but dolls and junk were scarcely a sufficient pretext for knocking up a quiet family at three o'clock in the morning.It is true,I happened to have a letter for Mr.T--,written by a mutual friend,who had expressly told me that--arrive when I might at Alten,--the more unceremoniously I walked in and took possession of the first unoccupied bed I stumbled on,the better Mr.T--would be pleased;but British punctilio would not allow me to act on the recommendation,though we were sorely tried.In the meantime the mosquitoes had become more intolerable than ever.At last,half mad with irritation,I set off straight up the side of the nearest mountain,in hopes of attaining a zone too high for them to inhabit;and,poising myself upon its topmost pinnacle,I drew my handkerchief over my head--I was already without coat and waistcoat--and remained the rest of the morning "mopping and mowing"at the world beneath my feet.
About six o'clock,like a phantom in a dream,the little schooner came stealing round the misty headland,and anchored at the foot of the rocks below.Returning immediately on board,we bathed,dressed,and found repose from all our troubles.Not long after,a message from Mr.T--,in answer to a card I had sent up to the house as soon as the household gave signs of being astir--invited us to breakfast;and about half-past nine we presented ourselves at his hospitable door.The reception I met with was exactly what the gentlemen who had given me the letter of introduction had led me to expect;and so eager did Mr.T--seem to make us comfortable,that I did not dare to tell him how we had been prowling about his house the greater part of the previous night,lest he should knock me down on the spot for not having knocked him up.The appearance of the inside of the house quite corresponded with what we had anticipated from the soigne air of everything about its exterior.Books,maps,pictures,a number of astronomical instruments,geological specimens,and a magnificent assortment of fishing-rods,betrayed the habits of the practical,well-educated,business-loving English gentlemen who inhabited it;and as he showed me the various articles of interest in his study,most heartily did I congratulate myself on the lucky chance which had brought me into contact with so desirable an acquaintance.
All this time we had seen nothing of the lady of the house;and I was just beginning to speculate as to whether that crowning ornament could be wanting to this pleasant home,when the door at the further end of the room suddenly opened,and there glided out into the sunshine--"The White Lady of Avenel."A fairer apparition I have seldom seen,--stately,pale,and fragile as a lily--blond hair,that rippled round a forehead of ivory--a cheek of waxen purity on which the fitful colour went and came--not with the flush of southern blood,or flower-bloom of English beauty,--but rather with a cool radiance,as of "northern streamers"on the snows of her native hills,--eyes of a dusky blue,and lips of that rare tint which lines the conch-shell.Such was the Chatelaine of Kaafiord,--as perfect a type of Norse beauty as ever my Saga lore had conjured up!Frithiof's Ingeborg herself seemed to stand before me.A few minutes afterwards,two little fair-haired maidens,like twin snowdrops,stole into the room;and the sweet home picture was complete.
The rest of the day has been a continued fete.In vain after having transacted my business,I pleaded the turning of the tide,and our anxiety to get away to sea;nothing would serve our kind entertainer but that we should stay to dinner;and his was one of those strong energetic wills it is difficult to resist.
In the afternoon,the Hammerfest steamer called in from the southward,and by her came two fair sisters of our hostess from their father's home in one of the Loffodens which overlook the famous Maelstrom.The stories about the violence of the whirlpool Mr.T--assures me are ridiculously exaggerated.On ordinary occasions the site of the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffled,and it is only when a strong weather tide is running that any unusual movements in the water can be observed;even then the disturbance does not amount to much more than a rather troublesome race."Often and often,when she was a girl,had his wife and her sisters sailed over its fabulous crater in an open boat."But in this wild romantic country,with its sparse population,rugged mountains,and gloomy fiords,very ordinary matters become invested with a character of awe and mystery quite foreign to the atmosphere of our own matter-of-fact world;and many of the Norwegians are as prone to superstition as the poor little Lapp pagans who dwell among them.
No later than a few years ago,in the very fiord we had passed on our way to Alten,when an unfortunate boat got cast away during the night on some rocks at a little distance from the shore,the inhabitants,startled by the cries of distress which reached them in the morning twilight,hurried down in a body to the sea-side,--not to afford assistance,--but to open a volley of musketry on the drowning mariners;being fully persuaded that the stranded boat,with its torn sails,was no other than the Kracken or Great Sea-Serpent flapping its dusky wings:
and when,at last,one of the crew succeeded in swimming ashore in spite of waves and bullets,--the whole society turned and fled!
And now,again good-bye.We are just going up to dine with Mr.T--;and after dinner,or at least as soon as the tide turns,we get under way--Northward Ho!(as Mr.
Kingsley would say)in right good earnest this time!
