第84章 LETTER XIII(1)

COPENHAGEN--BERGEN--THE BLACK DEATH--SIGURDR--HOMEWARDS.

Copenhagen,Sept.12th,1856.

Our adventures since the date of my last letter have not been of an exciting character.We had fine weather and prosperous winds down the coast,and stayed a day at Christiansund,and another at Bergen.But though the novelty of the cruise had ceased since our arrival in lower latitudes,there was always a certain raciness and oddity in the incidents of our coasting voyage;such as--waking in the morning,and finding the schooner brought up under the lee of a wooden house,or--riding out a foul wind with your hawser rove through an iron ring in the sheer side of a mountain,--which took from the comparative flatness of daily life on board.

Perhaps the queerest incident was a visit paid us at Christiansund.As I was walking the deck I saw a boat coming off,with a gentleman on board;she was soon alongside the schooner,and as I was gazing down on this individual,and wondering what he wanted,I saw him suddenly lift his feet lightly over the gunwale and plunge them into the water,boots and all.After cooling his heels in this way for a minute or so,he laid hold of the side ropes and gracefully swung himself on deck.Upon this,Sigurdr,who always acted interpreter on such occasions,advanced towards him,and a colloquy followed,which terminated rather abruptly in Sigurdr walking aft,and the web-footed stranger ducking down into his boat again.It was not till some hours later that the indignant Sigurdr explained the meaning of the visit.Although not a naval character,this gentleman certainly came into the category of men "who do business in great waters,"his BUSINESS being to negotiate a loan;in short,to ask me to lend him 100pounds.There must have been something very innocent and confiding in "the cut of our jib"to encourage his boarding us on such an errand;or perhaps it was the old marauding,toll-taking spirit coming out strong in him:the politer influences of the nineteenth century toning down the ancient Viking into a sort of a cross between Paul Jones and Jeremy Diddler.The seas which his ancestors once swept with their galleys,he now sweeps with his telescope,and with as keen an eye to the MAIN chance as any of his predecessors displayed.

The feet-washing ceremony was evidently a propitiatory homage to the purity of my quarter-deck.

Bergen,with its pale-faced houses grouped on the brink of the fiord,like invalids at a German Spa,though picturesque in its way,with a cathedral of its own,and plenty of churches,looked rather tame and spiritless after the warmer colouring of Throndhjem;moreover it wanted novelty to me,as I called in there two years ago on my return from the Baltic.It was on that occasion that I became possessed of my ever-to-be-lamented infant Walrus.

No one,personally unacquainted with that "most delicate monster,"can have any idea of his attaching qualities.

I own that his figure was not strictly symmetrical,that he had a roll in his gait,suggestive of heavy seas,that he would not have looked well in your boudoir;but he never seemed out of place on my quarter-deck,and every man on board loved him as a brother.With what a languid grace he would wallow and roll in the water,when we chucked him overboard;and paddle and splash,and make himself thoroughly cool and comfortable,and then come and "beg to be taken up,"like a fat baby,and allow the rope to be slipped round his extensive waist,and come up--sleek and dripping--among us again with a contented grunt,as much as to say,"Well,after all,there's no place like HOME!"How he would compose himself to placid slumber in every possible inconvenient place,with his head on the binnacle (especially when careful steering was a matter of moment),or across the companion entrance,or the cabin skylight,or on the shaggy back of "Sailor,"the Newfoundland,who positively abhorred him.But how touching it was to see him waddle up and down the deck after Mr.Wyse,whom he evidently regarded in a maternal point of view--begging for milk with the most expressive snorts and grunts,and embarrassing my good-natured master by demonstrative appeals to his fostering offices!

I shall never forget Mr.Wyse's countenance that day in Ullapool Bay,when he tried to command his feelings sufficiently to acquaint me with the creature's death,which he announced in this graphic sentence,"Ah,my Lord!--the poor thing!--TOES UP AT LAST!"Bergen is not as neat and orderly in its architectural arrangements as Drontheim;a great part of the city is a confused network of narrow streets and alleys,much resembling,I should think,its early inconveniences,in the days of Olaf Kyrre.This close and stifling system of street building must have ensured fatal odds against the chances of life in some of those world-devastating plagues that characterised past ages.Bergen was,in fact,nearly depopulated by that terrible pestilence which,in 1349,ravaged the North of Europe,and whose memory is still preserved under the name of "The Black Death."I have been tempted to enclose you a sort of ballad,which was composed while looking on the very scene of this disastrous event;its only merit consists in its local inspiration,and in its conveying a true relation of the manner in which the plague entered the doomed city.

THE BLACK DEATH OF BERGEN.

I.

What can ail the Bergen Burghers That they leave their stoups of wine?

Flinging up the hill like jagers,At the hour they're wont to dine!

See,the shifting groups are fringing Rock and ridge with gay attire,Bright as Northern streamers tinging Peak and crag with fitful fire!

II.

Towards the cliff their steps are bending,Westward turns their eager gaze,Whence a stately ship ascending,Slowly cleaves the golden haze.

Landward floats the apparition--

"Is it,CAN it be the same?"

Frantic cries of recognition Shout a long-lost vessel's name!