Part 3 (1/2)
The fire was soon burning splendidly, and the giant commenced to brew the ale, drinking it off as fast as it was made. Ashpot watched him getting gradually drunk, and heard him mutter to himself, ”To-night I will kill him,” so he began to think of a plan to outwit his master. When he went to bed he placed the giant's cream-whisk between the sheets as a dummy, while he himself crept under the bedstead.
In the middle of the night, just as he had expected, he heard the giant come into his room, and then there was a tremendous whack as the giant brought his club down on to the bed. Next morning the boy came out of his room as if nothing had happened, and his master was very much surprised to find him still alive.
”Hullo!” said the giant. ”Didn't you feel anything in the night?”
”I did feel something,” said Ashpot; ”but I thought that it was only a sausage-peg that had fallen on the bed, so I went to sleep again.”
The giant was more astonished than ever, and went off to consult his sister, who lived in a neighbouring mountain, and was about ten times his size. At length it was settled that the giantess should set her cooking-pot on the fire, and that Ashpot should be sent to see her, when she was to tip him into the caldron and boil him. In the course of the day the giant sent the boy off with a message to his sister, and when he reached the giantess's dwelling he found her busy cooking. But he soon saw through her design, and he took out of his pocket a nut with a hole in it.
”Look here,” he said, showing the nut to the ogress, ”you think you can do everything. I will tell you one thing that you can't do: you can't make yourself so small as to be able to creep into the hole in this nut.”
”Rubbis.h.!.+” replied the giantess. ”Of course I can!”
And in a moment she became as small as a fly, and crept into the nut, whereupon Ashpot hurled it into the fire, and that was the end of the giantess.
The boy was so delighted that he returned to his old tyrant the giant and told him what had happened to his sister. This set the big man thinking again as to how he was to rid himself of this sharp-witted little nuisance. He did not understand boys, and he was afraid of Ashpot's tricks, so he offered him as much gold and silver as he could carry if he would go away and never return. Ashpot, however, replied that the amount he could carry would not be worth having, and that he could not think of going unless he got as much as the giant could carry.
The giant, glad to get rid of him at any cost, agreed, and, loading himself with gold and silver and precious stones, he set out with the boy towards his home. When they reached the outskirts of the farms they saw a herd of cattle, and the giant began to tremble.
”What sort of beasts are these?” he asked.
”They are my father's cows,” replied Ashpot, ”and you had better put down your burden and run back to your mountain, or they may bite you.”
The giant was only too happy to get away, so, depositing his load, which was as big as a small hill, he made off, and left the boy to carry his treasure home by himself.
So enormous was the amount of the valuables that it was six years before Ashpot succeeded in removing everything from the field where the giant had set it down; but he and all his relations were rich people for the rest of their lives.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HARDANGER FJORD
All that is grand, all that is beautiful, will be found in the Hardanger--the ”Smiling Hardanger,” as the Norwegians themselves call it; and even if an English visitor went nowhere else, he would have seen typical Norwegian scenery of every possible kind.
The easiest way to go there is from Bergen, and most people bent on a tour in Norway make a start either from Christiania or from Bergen. Bergen itself claims to be the most beautiful town in the country, and it really is a lovely spot, with its old wooden houses all around the harbour, full of picturesque s.h.i.+pping, and with its amphitheatre of bold mountains rising upwards almost from the centre of the town. But Bergen has its drawbacks, and the princ.i.p.al one is that it rains every day, or nearly every day.
To reach the Hardanger from Bergen, and to go from one end of the fjord to the other, you take a pa.s.sage in one of the comfortable little local steamers, and you begin your journey early in the morning. It is a very pleasant way of travelling, as you sit on deck all day and enjoy the scenery, and only go down to the saloon at meal-times. If you do not wish to go all the way to the very end of the fjord, there are numbers of pretty little places where you can break your journey. But if you like you can travel throughout the day and finish up late at night at Odda, or at Vik-i-Eidfjord, each of which is at the head of a branch of the Hardanger Fjord.
Let us take our tickets right through to Eidfjord, make a good long day of it, and see what there is to be seen. For some little time after leaving the harbour we see nothing of great interest, only a few graceful-looking barges in full sail, reminding us of the pictures of the old Viking s.h.i.+ps, and flocks of seagulls fluttering and screaming round the stern of our boat. Then the steamer begins to pick its way through the scattered islands, some of which are mere barren granite rocks, others partially cultivated, and with neat little farmsteads lying snug in the valleys.
So we go on for an hour or two, occasionally stopping off a small group of farms, to land, perhaps, a farmer returning from the Bergen market, or a girl coming home from her situation in the town. Presently we come alongside a pier under an overhanging cliff, and we see the name of the place written up on a board, just like the name of a railway-station. This is G.o.dosund, a favourite holiday haunt of the Bergen people. It is not a town or even a village, but just a chalet-like hotel of two or three buildings, standing on the side of a fir-clad hill, in the midst of a fairyland of creeks and wooded islets--as pretty a spot as one could wish to see.
Now we are nearing the Hardanger Fjord; we pa.s.s through the narrow straits known as the Loksund, and we enter the fjord. Glorious and ever-changing views open out before us, as hour after hour the steamer pa.s.ses from one small station to another, dropping a mail-bag, and perhaps a pa.s.senger or two. We pa.s.s farms lying close to the sh.o.r.e, the wooden houses being in many cases painted red or white, and thus forming a brilliant contrast to the blue-black mountains and dark green forests which rise up behind them. We see every now and then a clean white wooden church, and, away up on the mountain-sides we can discern tiny specks, which, we are told, are the saeter dwellings.
Sometimes the steamer is out in the middle of the fjord, which, in parts, is five miles or more in width, but at other times we find ourselves close in to a rocky precipice, and wondering how it will be possible to avoid grounding. Above us the mountain-side rises perpendicularly to a height of, it may be, 3,000 or 4,000 feet; and, looking down into the clear water, we can see that it is ever so deep. As a matter of fact, the chart tells us that hereabouts it is a little more than 2,000 feet in depth.