The Argosy — page 398: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

About Norway. 379 terra firma: glad enough to do so. My first question at the inn was for the landlord, and I asked for ‘“‘ Klingenberg ” of the woman who was in the dining-room. I never made out that woman; there was something silent and. uncanny about her; something secret and not above-board. She moved about with a slow quiet step, had a strange way of looking at you; would listen to what you had to say with a rude stony stare, and turn away without sign or token of having heard or heeded. But presently she would return with the commission executed. Even about the landlord himself there was something peculiar. He was comparatively young, good-looking, gentlemanly in appearance, and well dressed. But he had a way of frowning when speaking to you, which might perhaps be put down to his endeavours to catch what was said to him in English. He had not a way of making you welcome, and you left the inn without regret. To-night, when I went and asked for ‘“‘ Klingenberg,” the woman stared as usual, but disappeared much faster than was her wont. She went out, found the landlord and said to him: ‘‘ The Englishmen have come back from Vetti, and one of them is asking all over the place for Klingenberg: do you think he is out of his mind P” The landlord came in laughing, and the mystery was explained. He had misunderstood my former question—rather a habit of his. Klingenberg was only the name of the innkeeper at Aardal: the Norwegian for innkeeper was Vertez. So ended, on the whole, one of our pleasantest excursions in Nor- way, and one that I should feel very sorry to have passed over. We saw no scenery of its kind more severely grand and sublime than this mountain pass; and in spite of some disappointment in the Vettifos itself, we had been well repaid for our trouble. The whole two days’ experience, with the figures of Jens Klingenberg and his son Jens standing out prominently in the foreground, and fading from view as we shot away into the broad arm of the Sogne Fjord, has left a lasting impression upon the memory. May we not have met for the last time ! We had not many hours’ rest that night. ‘The next morning at four o’clock we were to take the steamer down the Sogne Fjord to Bergen : thence start onward for the North Cape, cross the Arctic Circle, and enter the regions of the midnight sun. ECOnnicloooks (S©) mn