Part 36 (1/2)

We all looked at each other, we all sighed. One suggested sitting as we were all bolt upright, with the boat moored to some bank--others thought a walk might prove an agreeable change--the wisest held their tongues, thought much, and said little.

We were in the middle of the stream, when, without a word of explanation, our steersman suddenly turned the bow of our frail bark right across the water, and with one rush her nose hit the bank; our speed was so great that we were all shaken from our seats, as the boat bounded off again, but the pilot was an old experienced hand, and, by some wondrous gymnastic feat, he got her side sufficiently near the bank for our boy, with a rope in his hand, to spring upon _terra firma_ and hold us fast, without shattering our bark completely to pieces with the force of our sudden arrival.

”Is this fog usual?” we asked the pilot.

”No, very unusual, only after such intense heat as we have had to-day.

If I had not landed you at this spot and now, another yard would have made doing so impossible, for this is the top of the _Pyhakoski_ rapid, the most dangerous of all, and it is thirteen miles long.”

What a plight! Hungry, tired, miserable, cold, to be suddenly turned, whether we wished it or not, out of our only refuge and home.

”Close by here,” he continued, ”is a peasant's house--you must go there for some hours.”

We looked; but the fog was so thick we could see nothing, therefore, without a word of remonstrance, we followed our pilot, plodding through gra.s.s soaked in moisture which reached to our knees, feeling very chilled, wet, and weary, but all trying to keep stout hearts and turn cheery faces to misfortune.

Yes, there--as if sent as a blessing from heaven--we saw a little house peeping through the fog.

We went to the door; we knocked, we knocked again. No answer. We shook the door; it was locked. We called; no one replied. We walked round the house and tried the windows--all closed, securely closed. We knocked and called louder than before. Still no answer.

What disappointment! The house was deserted. On the very eve of shelter we were baffled. Was it not enough to fill our hearts with despair? We could not go back, for we had nowhere to go; we could not sit on the bank, for that fog brooded evil. Some one suggested bursting open the door, for shelter we must have, and began rattling away with that purpose, when, lo! a voice, an awful voice called ”_Hulloa!_”

”It is haunted,” exclaimed some one; ”it is a ghost, or a spirit or something. Do let us go away--what a horrible place.”

”It is a phantom house,” cried another, ”this is not real--come, come--come away.”

But the voice again called ”_Hulloa!_”

The sound seemed nearer, and looking round we saw a white apparition standing in a darkened doorway on the other side of the garden, a figure clad in white approached through the mist; it was very ghostly. Was it hallucination, the result of exhausted minds and bodies, weak from want of food, and perished with wet and cold, or was it--yes, it _was_--a man.

We could have hugged that delightful Finn, our joy was so great at his appearance, key in hand ready to open the door. He did so; a delicious hot air rushed upon us--it seemed like entering a Turkish bath; but when a second door was opened the heat became even more intense, for the kitchen fire was still alight, and, as if sent as an extra blessing from above, the coffee-pot was actually on the hob, filled and ready for the peasants' early morning meal. Could anything be more providential--warmth and succour--food, beds, and comfort!

Like savages we rushed upon the coffee-pot, blew the dying embers into flame, took off our soaking shoes and stockings and placed them beside the oven, pattering barefoot over the boards; we boiled milk, which was standing near, and drank the warming, soothing beverage.

All this took time, and, while the others worked, the writer made a hurried sketch by the daylight of midnight at the ”Haven of Refuge,” as we christened our new abode.

The kitchen, or general living-room, was, typically Finnish. The large oven stood on one side furnished with the usual stone stairs, up which the family clamber in the winter months, in order that they may sleep on the top of the fireplace, and thus secure warmth during the night.

On the other side we noticed a hand-loom with linen in it, which the good housewife was weaving for her family. Before it was a wooden tub, wherein flour for making brown bread was standing ready to be mixed on the morrow; in front of it was a large wooden mortar, cut out of a solid tree trunk.

The light was dim, for it was midnight, and, although perfectly clear outside, the windows of the little gray house were so few and so small that but little light could gain admittance.

This but added to the weirdness of the scene. It all seemed unreal--the dim glow from the spluttering wood, freshly put on, the beautiful s.h.i.+ning copper coffee-pot, the dark obscurity on the top of the oven.

The low ceiling with its ma.s.sive wooden beams, the table spread for the early breakfast--or maybe the remnants of the evening meal--with a beer-hen full of _Kalja_, a pot, rudely carved, filled with _piimaa_ or soured milk, and the salted fish so loved by the peasantry--there all the necessaries and luxuries of Finnish humble life were well in evidence.

The atmosphere was somewhat oppressive, for in those homesteads the windows are never opened from year's end to year's end--indeed, most of them won't open at all.

In a corner hung a _kantele_, the instrument to which the Finns sing their famous songs as described. This romantic chamber, with its picturesque peasant occupants and its artistic effect, merely wanted the addition of the music of Finland to complete its charm, and the farmer most kindly offered to play it for us.

In his white corduroy trousers, his coa.r.s.e white s.h.i.+rt--the b.u.t.tons of which were unfastened at the throat--and the collar loosely turned back, showing a bronzed chest, he looked like an operatic hero, the while he sat before his instrument and sang some of those wondrous songs dear to the heart of every Finn. He could hardly have been worthy of his land had he failed to be musical, born and bred in a veritable garden of song and sentiment, and the romance of our midnight arrival seemed to kindle all the imagination in this man's nature. While he played the _kantele_, and the pilot made coffee, the old wife was busying herself in preparing for our meal, and we were much amused at her producing a key and opening the door of a dear old bureau, from which she unearthed some wonderful china mugs, each of which was tied up in a separate pocket-handkerchief.