Chapter THE TENTH

It was late in the morning before they met. Deborah was all sunshine and gaiety. Womanlike, she lived in the present, and realised no Enderby and no future without Kingston Fleming; the interchange of words and looks was enough for her. He turned his face aside, that she might not see how haggard it was, and was angry with her for her happiness.

Adam Sinclair came that day to Enderby, and Deborah played a dangerous part, but with infinite spirit, grace, and charm, so that it set the young man and the old man hating one another, as men can hate in jealousy. But Master Sinclair was the favoured one, and saw it. What was Master Fleming but a kinsman and a brother? So Master Sinclair rode off more madly possessed than ever, and darkly revolving plans; for Mistress Fleming he would wed, by fair means or by foul.

But the youthful beauty was not pleased. Kingston had seemed tenderer the day before; his eyes had looked admiration of her beauty; he had watched her, and given her his troubled confidence and affection. She loved him better then. Ah, he was content. He had heard from Mistress Blancheflower! and he cared not if she, Deborah, encouraged and even wedded old Adam Sinclair. So the rapid thoughts fled through Deborah's mind. No; she would not be treacherous to Mistress Blancheflower, she _would not_; but she could not bear this coldness! He was leaning from the window, and watching Mrs Dinnage, who sat below at her work in the sunny courtyard, while her sworn friend and foe, Dame Marjory, fed the pigeons. Deborah went and leaned beside the window.

'Wilt ride, King? We may not have steeds to offer long.'

'Nay; I will have none of your rides. I prefer watching Mistress Dinnage. She is pretty. All girls are pretty.'

'Ye are not gracious, Master Fleming. See if I ask ye again! Now there is one, Master Adam Sinclair, Lord of Lincoln, would ride to the world's end for me.'

'He can ask for favours in return; one day ye will pay him dearly.'

'How so, bird of ill omen?'

'With yourself.'

'Master Kingston Fleming, I do not need your auguries; once before I told you so.'

He looked up and flashed a smile--most mocking, or most tender?

She leaned from the window at his side. 'You are happier to-day, King: you can taunt.'

'O ay, I can always do that.--How pretty is Mistress Dinnage!'

'I am glad she pleases you.'

'Give me a rose, Deb, for peace.'

She gave him one. 'Throw it not to Mistress Dinnage now; she would only scorn your offering.'

Kingston touched the flower with his lips. Deborah blushed.

'If I may not kiss the Rose par excellence,' said he, 'I will kiss "the Rose's" rose.'

'Ye talk nonsense. Poetry does not suit you, King.'

'Ah, I have never written you verses.'

'I have not inspired you, mayhap.'

'Ye are too cold, Deb, save when Adam Sinclair is by. Once ye were all fire and fret; now ye are all snow and sorcery.'

'Strange blending! Have I witched you then?'

'Ay, the first day I came.'

'What worth is witchery?'

'To wear the heart away.'

'A pleasant vocation, truly, if I am working the like on you! But I thought not I was of so much dignity in your eyes as either to wear your heart or pleasure it.'

He looked in her eyes then as if his whole soul were in his own. 'Deb, art speaking truth?'

'Ay,' she answered with earnestness; 'as surely as that my name is Deborah.'

'"None so blind as those who will not see." Well, well, Lady Deb, think as ye will. Are you a coquette, Deb? I was wondering last night.'

'Oh, you _do_ think o' me then? Well, I know not. If I lived in the great world, I might be; here, what can I do?'

'Enow; it seemeth me. It is well for ye, Deb, ye're not in the world; ye'd be a wild one! You're too beautiful by half.'

Deborah blushed, and with what covert joy Master King Fleming noted it!

'After that fine compliment,' said she, 'I will leave you to the contemplation of Mistress Dinnage. All girls are fair to you. I am going to ride. I may meet my wandering Charlie.'

'You will not ride _alone_?'

'Ay; not even Jordan with me. I may ride to Lincoln Castle.'

Kingston rose. 'Ye shall not have the chance. I am your cavalier, Deb.'

'As it please ye!' And away went Deborah, singing.

A SUMMER HOLIDAY IN NORWAY.

A summer holiday in Norway can scarcely be otherwise than delightful. This beautiful northern land has attractions for all classes of tourists. In few other regions in Europe can there be found commingled such picturesque firths, such clusters of rocky islets, such lofty mountains, such exuberant sunshine, and such a bright ever-changeful sea. Interesting to all, it is peculiarly attractive to the lovers of Izaak Walton's gentle art. To the angler, a Norwegian lake or river has long been an aquatic Paradise. What a blissful experience it must be to hook a twenty-pound salmon, or even a five-pound grilse; to feel it rush like an arrow through the pellucid flood, and to dash away after it through a cool forest of sedges, or over a subaqueous Stonehenge, with the pleasant hum of the line as it spins out into the river, resounding in your ears. While high overhead the lark sings in the clear air, and the silvery mists creep up the steep hill-sides, and the golden sunlight streams down through the thickets of birch and alder, dancing on the ripples of the gladsome river, and shining right down into the angler's gladsome heart. This is an experience worth all the elixirs that were ever invented. It braces the nerves, it expands the lungs with full draughts of the healthful mountain breeze, and makes the sinking heart bound once more elastic with the buoyant unforgotten lightness of boyhood.

Mr Arnold, in his _Summer Holiday in Scandinavia_, has done ample justice to the great and varied natural charms of Norway. Unhappily for some travellers at least, it cannot be approached without a longer or shorter sea-voyage, the pleasure or discomfort of which depends very much upon the weather. Our author in this respect was not very fortunate, for the sun kept resolutely out of sight. The sky, the dim haze-covered land, and the surrounding waves, were all one dull uniform gray; but even with this drawback, he was struck by the rugged grandeur and beauty of the sea-wall of Norway, one of the noblest in the world. Frowning, it rises a rocky rampart of gray beetling crags, fantastic buttresses, and cliffs of limestone, embosomed in masses of delicate many-toned hues of verdure, as the silvery gray green of the birch, the brighter shade of the hazel, or the more sombre colouring of the pine, predominates in the foliage of the copse-wood, with which every available nook and cranny is crowned. Jagged peaks and serried promontories fashion themselves in the most picturesque fashion out of the gray limestone crags, sheltering lonely sequestered bays of wondrous beauty; while beyond rise long ridges of lofty hills, their brown sides covered in great part with odoriferous pine-forests, checkered with vivid green patches of corn-land and pasture; with here and there a cluster of little quaint wooden red-tiled houses, lending to the beautiful wild scenery the interest of human life and industry.

At Christiania Mr Arnold and his party landed amid a group of placid onlookers; and having, chiefly by their own efforts conveyed their luggage to the custom-house, found that dreaded ordeal to be in Norway mere child's play. 'An old official,' says our author, 'with a flat cap, looking remarkably like a Greenwich pensioner, patted some of the luggage, and said in good but brief English: "Tourists?" "Yes," replied our spokesman. The old official then bowed, intimating obligingly that Norway was glad to see us, and waved his hand for the next lot.' A month was the time that the party had to spend in Norway; and after mature consideration, they decided that the best route for them would be from 'Christiania by Lake Miosen to Giovik and the Fille Fjeld _viâ_ Fagernœs, and so to Bergen by Lœrdalsoren, returning by the southern road and Lake Kröderen.' What they could not determine was, whether to walk or ride or drive; but at last they decided that it was best to do at Rome as the Romans do, and wisely fell back upon the native carrioles.

As these are quite an institution in Norway, they merit a few words of description. Imagine a low light wooden conveyance, somewhat spoon-shaped, with an upright splash-board in front, two very large wheels, and a big apron buttoned down on both sides around the traveller. A sensible conscientious cream-coloured pony is attached to it in front; and behind, perched on a shaky projecting board, is a fair-haired, sallow, phlegmatic-looking peasant, boy or man as may be, who is called a _skyds-carl_. You may drive yourself, if you choose; and if you do, you may possibly flatter yourself that you are lord, if not of all you survey, yet still of the cream-coloured pony in front of you, and may make the pace according to your liking. Never was a greater mistake; the skyds-carl perched behind is that pony's master, not you; and if he chooses to utter in a low tone bur-r-r-r-dar-r, you may flog until you are weary; neither whipping nor coaxing will make the sagacious creature quicken its pace an iota. The _stol-kjærre_ or country cart is a square wooden tray with large wheels, and a low-backed seat across the centre, sometimes with and sometimes without springs. The posting stations are more or less picturesque as regards scenery, but are all built upon one plan, of red pine logs, around a spacious yard, which may be tidy or untidy according to the taste of the inmates. Barns or other outhouses form two sides of the square, the house makes the third, and the fourth is supplied by the road. The buildings are roofed very generally with sods of turf, forming a plateau on which long grass and wild-flowers wave luxuriantly. The food to be procured at these stations is good of its kind: salmon, trout, reindeer venison, mutton; and wild-ducks in abundance if the tourist can shoot them--all very tolerably cooked. By way of dessert, there are wild raspberries, strawberries, and molteberries, a yellow insipid fruit of a pale amber colour, which tastes like a rain-soaked raspberry. The only bread to be procured at the up-country stations is _flad-bröd_ to whose qualities Mr Arnold bears the following affecting testimony: 'It is thin, dry, dusty, full of little bits of straw, and quite tasteless, like the bottom of a hat-box with the paper torn off.'

The household arrangements of these posting establishments are often very primitive. The front door sometimes opens into the sleeping-room of the entire family; and if you arrive any time after nine P.M. you may see on entering the master and mistress of the mansion reposing on a broad high shelf at one end of the room near the stove, while the rest of the family and guests of lowly degree recline around on benches, or on the floor, where they can at least have what room they require. This is a luxury which no tall tourist need expect in a Norwegian guest-chamber; there the beds, although furnished with appliances for making them as wide, if need be, as the famous bed of Ware, are seldom longer than five feet eleven.

The roads, although necessarily steep at places, are fairly good; but most of the bridges are constructed in a very primitive style. The natives are a kind, hospitable, honest, but somewhat apathetic race. Watching their stolid expressionless faces, one cannot help wondering where the superabundant energy of the old vikings has betaken itself to. During the long winter evenings, the women knit and spin a great deal. They provide themselves plentifully with household linen and homespun clothes, which are often of a dark-brown colour, enlivened in the case of the men by a bright scarlet cap, and in that of the women by a white kerchief tied under the chin. In appearance, a small Norwegian farmer is very like an English labourer. His house, built of wood and thatched with sods, is devoid of ornament, but has no lack of solid comfort, and is sufficiently warmed by a huge quaint-looking iron stove.

The women on holiday occasions turn out in the old Norse costume, the chief feature of which is the bodice, which is often made of some bright-coloured velvet, turned down in front with white silk, and laced before and behind, according to our author, 'with several yards of fine silver chain, each chain ending in a silver bodkin, in order that they may be the better threaded through double rows of eyes (in themselves strikingly pretty articles of silver), that run in four lines up the back and front of this showy piece of Scandinavian haberdashery.' Both men and women are very fond of large bright buttons and of silver or plaited ornaments.

Bears abound in the dense forests of Norway and on the high barren uplands; and thrilling stories are told of hair-breadth escapes from these fierce but sagacious animals. A sportsman near Maristuen was one day wandering in a birch thicket, when he suddenly came upon a huge bear regaling itself with raspberries. Bruin was peaceably inclined, and fled; but he instantly gave chase. With a speed perfectly surprising in such a lumbering unwieldy animal, it ran down the hill-side, while he rushed after it in hot pursuit, till on a steep slope of the mountain it suddenly disappeared. There was a little patch of brushwood before him, over which he leaped, and hearing an ominous crashing of branches in his rear, turned round, when there was the bear, which with a murderous growl rushed right upon him. Instinctively he raised his rifle and drew the trigger just in time, for almost at the same moment the infuriated brute seized the muzzle of the piece, which exploding, blew its head to atoms.

A Norse wedding is always preceded by a series of presents from the bridegroom to the bride. First, there are about two dozen meal-tubs of various sizes, elaborately painted; and last and crowning glory of the _trousseau_, there is a wonderful clothes-press. Inside, as far as regards drawers large and small, and brass pegs and racks for crockery, it is a marvel of ingenuity; while outside it is a perfect triumph of art. The ground tint is a warm bright vermilion, painted all over with green and yellow scrolls, enlivened with wreaths of gorgeous flowers, and piles of brilliantly hued fruit, pleasingly interspersed with quaint lovers' knots and bleeding hearts transfixed upon Cupid's darts, in the midst of which are the names and birth-dates of the liberal donor and blissful recipient of this magnificent wedding-gift. A Norwegian maiden, who is generally as sober as a linnet in her ordinary attire, appears on her bridal day glittering in all the colours of the rainbow. On her long fair hair is set an antique crown of silver gilt; and her bodice, stiff as a cuirass, is thickly studded with beads, silver-gilt brooches, and small mirrors. This bridal adornment is too valuable to be the individual property of any Norse belle, but belongs to the district, and is hired out for the day.

The scenery in Norway is remarkably beautiful; the mountain roads often wind along the base of huge gray cliffs with steep dells beneath, where some bright salmon river may be seen sparkling along beneath the gloom of the overhanging pine-trees, or some soft blue lake may be discerned glimmering like a sheet of silver in the sunshine, or pillowing on the stillness of its waveless breast the mighty shadows of the everlasting hills.

At Strande Fjord, one of these lovely lakes, which was shut in by a dark background of pine-clad mountains, whose rugged sides were furrowed with deep torrents and white lines of waterfalls, our travellers found in the pleasant station-house a party of seven English ladies and gentlemen, tempted, like themselves, to make a halt of a few days at this charming spot. Here there was every variety of scenery--lofty mountains, precipitous waterfalls, dense pine forests, and wide undulating stretches of fresh green meadow-land; while in the midst slept the tranquil lake; now kissing with tiny wavelets the pebbles on its silvery shore, now bending away round the bold red cliffs, that guard like weird sentinels this lake Paradise of the North. The face of the huge crags is frayed and worn into deep shadowy caves, whose roofs are tapestried with a profusion of ferns; while by the precipitous margin of the lake, long verdant palm-like fronds wave in the breeze, or stoop to meet sub-aquatic forests of weeds and water-flags.

Lœrdalsoren, the highest point which they reached, was a quaint overgrown village, nestling between high green and purple hills. Insignificant as they accounted it, it was a town of no small repute in the surrounding wilderness, for it possessed a doctor, a church, two hotels, and a telegraphic office. Still, in spite of all these advantages, it was an undeniably dismal little place, intensely cold, and with nothing to offer by way of comfort for the inner man, except salmon, a viand of which, when confined to it exclusively, people tire sooner than of any other.

Wide ranges of mountains extend all around Lœrdalsoren, towering up one above the other in savage grandeur till their jagged snow-clad peaks seem to pierce the sky. Gray and yellow patches of reindeer's moss carpet the sheltered nooks and hollows among the hills, and the deer themselves are abundant: the skyds-carl pointed out a hill where a native sportsman had recently shot nine in one day.

So bitter was the cold, that before they reached Bjoberg, on the downward road, they were half frozen, and could scarcely hold the reins.

From Bjoberg the descent was rapid, and was like the change from Christmas to midsummer; the sun's rays became warmer and warmer, and the breeze more mild, until they exchanged the snow-clad hills, the bleak uplands, and the barren patches of reindeer's moss, for the wild-flowers, the sparkling rivers, and the luxuriant greenness of the northern summer.

At Huftun they found excellent entertainment at the house of Madame Brun, a Frenchwoman, whose superior cookery worthily sustained the high gastronomical pretensions of her nation. Near her pretty house they shot two varieties of the woodpecker, and saw tranquilly sailing in mid-air, a few hundred yards from them, a splendid specimen of the Norwegian eagle.

The most abundant bird in Norway is the magpie, which the peasantry, from superstitious motives, seldom or never kill. There are also great quantities of the hooded or gray crow, abundance of swallows and snipes, and great flocks of wild-ducks of five different kinds. Generally, they are excellent eating; but at the Lillie Strand a black duck was shot, a bird of such a singularly unpalatable and fishy _goût_, that our author jestingly supposed it must be a stray member of the species which the Pope benevolently allows good Catholics to partake of on Fridays.

Grouse, ryper, and woodcock are also found. Grouse one would fancy must be abundant, judging from the experience of an Englishman who is reported to have killed twenty-two brace in one day.

Lake Kröderen they found a pretty placid sheet of water; but after the surpassingly grand and beautiful scenery through which they had passed, it seemed to them tame; and as it was impossible to obtain any refreshment on board the steamboat which plied on its waters, they made no unnecessary delay, but pressed on as quickly as they could to Christiania, whence they repaired, _viâ_ Jonköping and Helsingborg, to Copenhagen.

The Swedish railways they found very slow, and the country flat and uninteresting, except around Lake Wenern, which was beautiful, and had besides all the interest associated with the birthplace of Linnæus. They passed the little village in which the boyhood of the great botanist was spent, and called to mind that as a child he could not recollect names; and was voted, even at the university of Lund, a most superlative dunce, who could not be made to display much interest in anything except the pursuits of his father and uncle, who were ardent botanists. So poor was the household of this illustrious Swede, that his father could only allow him eight pounds a year for his whole collegiate course; and the poor student while at Upsal had often to mend his shoes with gray paper, and sally forth rod in hand to eke out his slender meals with a few fish from the lake. The country between Elsinore and Copenhagen impressed them favourably; it is, our author says, 'dense with beech and fir woods, and full of glades, lakes, and park-like lawns.'

Copenhagen is a handsome town, with a population singularly English-looking in manners and appearance. Its great point of attraction for our tourists was the Museum, filled with the works of Thorwaldsen, the Phidias of the North. Here, in the middle of a large hall, a cenotaph is erected to the memory of the great sculptor; and around stand the imperishable monuments of his genius, instinct with the classic grace, with the refined delicacy, with the glorious beauty of old Greek art, carried to as great perfection beneath these cold skies of the gray North as ever it was in sunny Athens.

From Copenhagen our tourists returned by Jutland and the Hamburg railway to Calais; having enjoyed their holiday so much, that Mr Arnold recommends 'all the lovers of nature to see Norway as well as Seville before they die.'

THE ADMIRAL'S SECOND WIFE.