At all events, he showed more gumption on this occasion than an English parson with whom I am acquainted. One day he saw that diminutive British equivalent to the glutton--a weazel--pursuing similar tactics--overtake an unfortunate hare. As usual, poor puss was fascinated, and her legs refused their office in the way of flight; but each time the ferocious little creature tried to fasten upon her, she knocked it over with her paws, jumping at it and pushing it over. Off set the parson, not to smash the brute with his cane, but to tell his Grace’s keeper. It is needless to add, that when he returned with that functionary the vampire quadruped had got on the hare’s neck, and sucked all the blood out of its veins, managing to get clean off to boot.
But to return to Joh. Observing me engaged in frying trout, he suddenly exclaims--the first word he had spoken--“Kann De spise reen?” (can you eat reindeer?) “To be sure.” Upon which he bolted out of the hut, and soon returned with a lump of venison weighing perhaps four pounds, which he silently placed on the board. It was evident to me that Joh was a person of capabilities; and I soon got him to work, repairing my knapsack and gun-case. A few artificial flies, of which he was not slow in comprehending the meaning, rewarded his endeavours in the saddler’s art.
Towards evening the family returned from the sæter,--two strapping maidens, Kari and Gunhild, among the number. The occupation in which some of the party forthwith engaged--the mystery or craft of making flad-brod, the national esculent--soon drove me into the fresh air. At a table sits one of the girls, roller in hand, busily engaged in rolling out huge flat cakes of dough, sprinkling them with water by means of a little brush. The Alfred of the occasion was the father of Joh, who, with a sort of trowel, whips up the cakes, and flaps them down on the girdle-iron, a flat disk, about three-quarters of a yard in diameter. At the proper moment he gives them a turn, and in a minute they are done, and whisked into the hands of the other girl, who piles them on a table. The girdle-iron being large, the smoke is prevented ascending the chimney in its natural way, and becomes dissipated all over the one sitting-room of the house, and this it is that drives me out of it.