BERGEN-TALKING,SUPPING AND SLEEPING UNDER DIFFICULTIES

The city of Bergen is a famous and a strange old place.  In ancient days it was a stronghold of the Vikings ­those notorious sea-warriors who were little better than pirates, and who issued from among the dark mountains of Norway in their great uncouth galleys and swept across the seas, landing on the coasts everywhere, to the terror of surrounding nations.

They were a bold, fearless set, the Norse Vikings of old.  They voyaged far and wide in open boats round the coasts of Europe, and across the stormy sea, long before the mariner’s compass was invented, and they discovered Iceland and America long before Christopher Columbus was born.  They had free spirits, these fierce Norwegians of old, and there was much good as well as evil in them.  They had good and wise laws when nearly all the rest of the world was lawless; and many of the laws and customs which prevailed among them a thousand years ago exist at the present day.  The bold Vikings were great colonisers; among other parts of the world they overran and settled in a large portion of Great Britain, and much of their blood ­more than many people are aware of ­ flows in our own veins.

But I am wandering from my subject.  Let me return to it by repeating that Bergen, this ancient stronghold of the Vikings, is a famous and a strange old place.

It is built at the foot of a steep mountain-range which is so close to the margin of the sea that the city has barely room to stand.  One might fancy that the houses were crowding and jostling each other and squeezing themselves together, in order to avoid on the one hand being pushed up the mountain-side, and, on the other hand, being thrust into the sea.  Some of the smaller cottages and a few villas seem to have been beaten in this struggle for standing-room, for they appear to have been obliged to clamber up the mountain-side, and perch themselves on spots where there does not seem to be standing-room for a goat.  From such elevated positions they look down complacently on their crowded brethren.

The houses near the sea have not fared so well.  They are built in the water on piles, and are all of them warehouses with projections in front, from which hang blocks and hoisting tackle.  These projections resemble heads; the piles look like legs; and it does not require a very strong effort of imagination to believe that the warehouses are great living creatures which have waded into the sea, and are looking earnestly down into the water to observe how the fish are getting on.

The houses are all built of wood; all are painted white, and all have red-tiled roofs.  They are peaked and gable-ended to an extraordinary degree, so that the general aspect of the city is confused and irregular ­all the more interesting and picturesque on this account.

A thought strikes me here, and when a thought strikes one, I think we ought always to pay that thought the compliment of jotting it down.  It is this ­regularity in small details is pleasing; regularity on a grand scale is disagreeable.  For instance, a chair with one leg turned, another square, and a third ornamentally carved, would be a disagreeable object.  The two front legs at least must be regular, and the two back legs regular.  A chair is a small matter.  But proceed to a grander subject ­a city.  If every house is similar to its neighbours, if every street is parallel to the rest, the effect is bad; regularity here is disagreeable.  This is a deep subject requiring much study and philosophical inquiry.  If I were to go farther into it, our friend Fred Temple’s adventures would have to be cast overboard.  I will, therefore, cut it short with the remark that the subject is well worthy the attention of even deeper-thinking men than are ever likely to read this book.

When the three friends, Temple, Grant, and Sorrel, found themselves in the quaint old city of Bergen their first thought was supper; their second thought bed.

Now this may seem to some minds a dreadfully low and contemptible state of things.  “What!” a romantic reader may exclaim, “they had arrived in that celebrated city, from which in days of old the stalwart Vikings used to issue on their daring voyages, in which the descendants of these grand fellows still dwell, and in which are interesting memorials of the past and quaint evidences of the present.  Did your heroes, Temple, Sorrel, and Grant, think of supper and of bed when their feet for the first time trod the soil of Old Norway?”

Even so!  Romantic reader, I am bound to tell you that romance is all very well in its way, but it has no power whatever over an empty stomach or an exhausted brain.

When our three friends landed in Bergen it was past midnight.  Their admiration of the scenery had induced them to neglect supper and to defy sleep, so that when they landed they felt more than half inclined to fall upon their boatman and eat him up alive, and then to fall down on the stone pier and go off to sleep at once.

In this frame of mind and body they entered the house of Madame Sontoom, and called for supper.

Madame Sontoom was the owner of a private hotel.  Moreover, she was the owner of a plump body and a warm heart.  Consequently, she at once became a mother to all who were fortunate enough to dwell under her roof.

Her hotel was by no means like to a hotel in this country.  It was more like a private residence.  There were no hired waiters.  Her amiable daughters waited; and they did not look upon you as a customer, or conduct themselves like servants.  No, they treated you as a visitor, and conducted themselves with the agreeable familiarity of friends!  Of course they presented their bill when you were about to leave them, but in all other respects the idea of a hotel was banished from the mind.

“Supper,” cried Temple, on entering the house.

“Ya, ya,” (yes, yes), in cheerful tones from two of Madame Sontoom’s daughters.

Then followed a violent conversation in the Norse language, in which there was much that was puzzling, and more that was amusing, for the Norwegian ladies were talkative and inquisitive.

Fred Temple had studied the Norse language for three months before setting out on this voyage, and, being a good linguist he understood a good deal of what was said, and could make his own wants known pretty well.  Grant had studied the language also, but not for so long a time, and, being an indifferent linguist, he made little headway in conversation.  As to Sam Sorrel, he had no talent for languages.  He hated every language but his mother-tongue, had not studied Norse at all, and did not intend to do so.  It may be supposed, therefore, that he was dumb.  Far from it.  He had picked up a few phrases by ear, and was so fond of making use of these, and of twisting them into all shapes and out of all shape, that he really appeared to be a great talker of Norse, although in reality he could scarcely talk at all!

Supper consisted of coffee, rolls, eggs, “gamleost” (old cheese), lobster, and smoked salmon.  The viands were good, the appetites were also good, so the supper went off admirably.

“Ver so goot,” said one of the young ladies, handing Mr Sorrel a plate of smoked salmon.

“Tak, tak,” (thanks, thanks), said our artist, accepting the salmon, and beginning to devour it.

“I say, what d’ye mean by `ver so goot’?  You’re never done saying it.  What does it mean?”

The fair waitress laughed, and bowed politely, as much as to say, “I don’t understand English.”

“Can you explain it, Fred?” said Sam.

“Well, yes, I can give you a sort of explanation,” replied Fred, “but it is not an easy sentence to translate. `Ver so goot’ (another claw of that lobster, please.  Thanks), ­`ver so goot’ is an expression that seems to me capable of extension and distension.  It is a comfortable, jovial, rollicking expression, if I may say so.  I cannot think of a better way of conveying an idea of its meaning than saying that it is a compound of the phrases `be so good,’ `by your leave,’ `good luck to you,’ `go it, ye cripples,’ and `that’s your sort.’  The first of these, `be so good,’ is the literal translation.  The others are more or less mixed up with it.  You may rely on it, Sam, that when a Norwegian offers you anything and says `ver so goot,’ he means you well, and hopes that you will make yourself comfortable.”

“You don’t say so, Fred; I’ll adopt the phrase from this hour!”

Accordingly Sam Sorrel did adopt it, and used it on all and every occasion, without any regard to its appropriateness.

Little was said at supper.  The whole party were too tired to converse.

“Now for bed,” cried Sam, rising.  “I say, Fred, what’s the Norse for a bed?”

“Seng,” replied Fred.

“Seng! what a remarkable name!  Now, then, my good girl, ver so goot will you show me my seng?  Good night, comrades, I’m off to ­ha! ha! what a musical idea ­to seng.”

“More probably to snore,” observed Grant.

“Oh, Grant,” said Sam, looking back and shaking his head, “give up jesting.  It’s bad for your health; fie for shame! good night.”

Norwegian beds are wooden boxes of about three feet wide, and five and a half long.  I have never been able to discover why it is that Norwegians love to make their beds as uncomfortable as possible.  Yet so it is.

Grant had a room to himself.  Temple and our artist were shown into a double-bedded room.

“Is that a bed?” said Sam, pointing to a red-painted wooden box in a corner; “why, it’s too short even for me, and you know I’m not a giant.”

“Oh! then what must it be for me?” groaned Fred Temple.

On close examination it was found that each bed was too short for any man above five feet two, and, further, that there was a feather-bed below and a feather-bed above, instead of blankets.  Thus they lay that night between two feather-beds, which made them so hot that it was impossible to sleep at first.  Sorrel, being short, managed to lie diagonally across his box, but Fred, being long, was compelled to double himself up like a foot-rule.  However, fatigue at last caused them to slumber in spite of all difficulties.  In the morning they were visited by a ghost!