Your pulses are quickened to gipsy pitch; you are ready to make love and war, to heal and slay, to wander to the world’s end, to be outlawed and hunted down, to dare and do any thing for the sake of the sweet, untramelled life of the tent, the bright blue sky, the mountain air, the free savagedom, the joyous dance, the passionate friendship, the fiery love.
MATILDA BETHAM EDWARDS’S _Through Spain_.
THE WASPS’ NEST--LOM--KIND FRIENDS--SONGS OF BJÖRNSEN--THE PRŒSTEN’S MINISTRATION--THE REPULSED STUDENT--BEAUTIFUL VALLEY--THE TWO ARTISTS--THE BŒVER ELVEN--RÖDSHEIM--THE RAVINE--THE LOST STARDY--ASCENT OF GALDHÖPIGGEN--THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN IN NORWAY--THE NIGHT ASCENT--THE DOME OF SNOW--THE SUNRISE.
Zachariah, the Mephistopheles of our party, desiring probably to afford more varied incident for our “impressions de voyage” declared war upon a wasps’ nest.
Although warned, but too late, he took a hasty shot with a stone at the nest, artistically constructed, on a bough, hanging on the road side.
What business had we to quarrel with these paper makers, who knew their art long before man had emerged from his pre-historic condition? why needlessly destroy their curious homestead? but the stone had gone upon its mission.
Zachariah soon became acquainted with the “lex talionis” of the invaded colony; strange to say, the wasps directed their attack only on himself. He was singled out as the aggressor, and a sharp sudden sting, under one eye, entirely ruined his personal appearance for the morning.
We arrived at Lom about mid-day. Ole went in advance to see the Prœsten Halling. As we approached a large open expanse of meadow land, open to the junction of roads, from Skeaker, Vaage and Rödsheim we saw the church, which picturesquely stands near the lake.[87] Near it, the charming manse of the Prœsten Halling. A large wooden structure near the road, we were told, had been used formerly as a granary to store the grain, paid as tithe, to the clergyman of the parish. This payment is now, we believe, made in money. As we looked upon the church and parsonage, surrounded as they were, by the meadow park, with the broad silver lake near, the rising mountains on all sides, and the clear blue sky above, our senses seemed entranced with the passing beauty of the scene; it was one of those chance glimpses of perfect nature, which cast their anchor deep in memory, and leave a lasting impression of bygone days.