signs of elk than of red-deer; but we agree entrance to it, screened by thickets, is between perpendicular walls of rock, and at first sight appears a cul-de-sac, for the cleft takes a turn at a sharp angle, and the subsequent stages of ascent are invisible from without. These are easy enough, requiring only an occasional use of hands and knees, and a total disregard of dirt and wet, for the place, rarely dry, I should say, is now streaming with copious moisture. The tracks of the deer up and down are plain, but none of very recent date, owing probably to the fact that the woodcutter has been at work close by. A load of fire-in hand. For all the chilly grey weather wood ready for transportation to the farm it does not look gloomy and repellent, like was one of our guiding signs. We have some tarns; its banks of heather slope now a long stretch before us until we gently to the margin, leaving here and there reach the lake, whence we shall make a clear spaces between the woodland and the bend to the right and face the wind. We wave, and where it is bounded by rocks, trust that any deer we may chance to these are but low and in nowise austere. alarm will retreat on to our homeward One would say that a very gentle tickling beat. But the formations in this part of of sunshine would cause it to burst into a the island are in such a chaotic condition, smile. I am roused from these and similar so tumbled about and jumbled together, charming reflections by a sudden chilly that unless we actually run up against deer, gust, which makes all the sympathetic we are as likely as not to pass by and leave lakelet shiver like a living thing that is them undisturbed within a few hundred very cold-in fact, like myself; and at yards. At length, after patiently thread- the same moment its surface is smitten ing our way beneath the trees through dells dense with juniper and heather-clad hillocks, which only require a sun over head to make them delightful, and disturbing, as far as we know, nothing beside a few black-game and an occasional caillie, who, by his loud and sudden rise, startles me a great deal more than I do him, we emerge into clearer ground, and find that the hollow before us is filled by the beautiful little lake which is the limit of our range to-day. Whilst I was reflecting that I can do no harm by smoking a pipe during our inspection of it, Nils suddenly exclaims, "What was that?" and Huy springs forward. Too late! too late! they are off, and will probably not stop until they reach the recesses of Skardal, the glen into which we looked down yesterday afternoon. Now this is provoking; why should that confounded family of deer have posted themselves just at the turningpoint of our march? or why could they not have moved off quietly on our approach, without leaving us with this irritating sense of fresh disappointment? Their tracks, which are, however, very indistinct on the rocky, heathery knoll where they had been standing, prove that they had come from the opposite direction from ourselves. The inequality of the ground, and it may be some cross current of air, probably prevented them from winding us before. Both Nils and I know more about the into dimples all over by heavy, pattering drops of rain which effectually put to flight my dreams of summer and sunshine. Nils and I agree that we are in for it; the mists are descending on the hills all round, there is every prospect of a soaking afternoon. But still we must carry out our programme. I shall not, however, slowly drag the reader, after my usual merciless fashion, through the next two hours of dripping discomfort and discontent. There is nothing so wet as a wet wood, except water itself; and no wet wood so wet as a Norwegian one; it is the nearest approach to a bath that I know. By the time we reach the shelter of Torset sæter I am drenched to, and I am inclined to believe, through, my skin; but Nils, who prides himself on the impervious quality of Norwegian homespun, discovers, on taking off his coat, about three square inches of fairly dry flannel shirt, and remarks cheerfully that he is "not so very wet after all." Blessings on all sæters! say I. In ten minutes we have collected and kindled a large pile of wood on the stone hearth of the hut, and are eating our lunch by the delicious blaze. I find that even my pipe is full of moisture; only the contents of match-box, tobacco, and cartridge pouches, and, praise be ! of the flask, have escaped the deluge. Yes, there is something else which has a neatly strapped green roll hanging across Nils's shoulders. This, when opened, reveals a | thousand to one that he has the wind of long strip of waterproof canvas the ex- deer. Within the next half minute two ternal covering a thick woollen jersey, things occur, commonplace, and yet resuch as navvies wear, a cap, a silken markable from their unexpectedness. The neckerchief, and a bandana. These are sun, which has given no sign during the my luxuries when hunting in the woods. last forty-eight hours, suddenly finds a rift The canvas, stretched under a pine-tree, in the heavy bank of clouds overhanging supplies me with six feet by two and a the west, and darts through it a ray which half of primarily dry couch whereon to illumines, with a strange glare, all the hillrepose; the thick jersey, donned under side stretching towards Kalveland. At the waistcoat, converts moisture into the same moment the breeze bears to our warmth; on the at least temporary com- ears a prolonged bellow, which I carelessly fort of dry head, neck, and nose gear there attribute to an obnoxious bull which is no need to enlarge. The canvas I do haunts the pastures round the farm. But not require to-day, but for the other arti- how plainly one can hear him! we must cles I am truly grateful. be much nearer home than I fancied. The All the way from the lake hither we same thought strikes Nils. When the belhave come across but a few stale signs of low is repeated he turns again, and says: deer. Huy has not given us the least en-"I suppose that is a cow; but how does couragement. And now, on examining she come to be so far in the wood?" the grass round the sæter, we discover Even as he speaks the roar bursts forth none that can be interpreted as at all re- for the third time, much nearer and with cent. This is a great blow; it amounts a peculiar, tremulous cadence towards the almost to the last straw so fatal to the finish. The truth flashes across me. I vertebræ of the camel. I can see that grip Nils's shoulder. "It is a big stag," Nils is visibly discouraged; he is a great I whisper. Hurry on to the next ridge believer in sæters, regarded as a test of before he reaches it." In a few seconds the presence of deer. If they have not we are down the hill, over the narrow holbeen here they must have left the neigh-low, and up the opposite bank. Here borhood, possibly by crossing the strait to Nils crouches behind a large boulder, and the mainland. When we start again there I wriggle forward some yards and look is a slight change, which I suppose I must cautiously over the brow. Before me the call improvement, in the weather. The ground scarcely dips to a level glade with fierce gustiness of the wind is mitigated a group of young firs in its centre, and on to a moderate breeze, the pelting storm of its farther side a low bank thickly studded rain to a steady drizzle. But the ardor of with the same trees and capped with prothe chase is dying out of me; like Bob truding ribs of rock. The glade is not a Acres's courage, it is oozing out of the hundred yards across, and in it five hinds tips of my cold fingers. I regard my ten are quietly feeding towards me. Some pounds' weight of rifle as an almost use- way to the right I can make out among less burden. How pleasant will be a com- the tree-stems the hind quarters of a sixth plete change of clothes, the warm room, deer, which I feel sure is a young stag; the table laid for dinner, and the company but never did his throat give vent to that of my friend, Charley H, who is prob- long and sonorous bellow. Close as they ably undergoing a penance similar to mine are, the breeze is blowing strong and in another part of the island. All this steady from the hinds to me, and for the time we are progressing doggedly in silent moment I have no fear of detection. I single file, up and down hill, through crawl back to Nils and tell him what I have swamp and brake, without a halt, except seen; he must remain where he is with the when the gallant Huy stops to shake him- dog, for the proximity of the hinds may be self, and in the action looks like a trun- too much for even Huy's self-possession. dled mop. Beyond this, to my shame be Then I return like a reptile to my post of it said, I do not notice the movements observation. I have hardly regained it of the dog until, as we are descending a before the invisible stag once more proslope which commands a distant view of claims aloud his pride, passion, and defithe crags behind Kalveland, and the grey ance. I know now exactly where he isline of the fjord, Nils turns and says, in a just over the rocky edge of the bank, but low voice: "I think he smell something; not in a line with the hinds; I must creep he begin to pull and whistle a little." some way to the left in order to be oppoThere is not a doubt about it; the dog is site to him. This done, I look again to straining down the hill, tossing his head my cartridge and sights, and wait, prone after his own peculiar fashion. It is a on my face, with the muzzle of the cocked rifle pushed forward through the heather. | however, primitive, and I will not guar- He is a very old and heavy stag, abso- And now that I have found, killed, and eaten my stag, and stuffed his head, there is little more to say. I am conscious that this elaborate account of a couple of days' hunting on a Norwegian island must appear but trivial to many who are familiar with the grand simplicity of the records from Highland deer-forests; but as an authentic narrative of genuine wild sport on a small scale it may, I hope, find favor with some readers; and especially with Anglo-Scandinavians, as descriptive of the experimental use of the elk-dog in finding woodland deer. I believe that the experiment was a novel one; I think I may fairly claim that, as far as it went, it was successful. HENRY POTTINGER. From Temple Bar. CROTCHETS. My friend P. would always have it that the rulers of men do not care for mu. sic, that Napoleon only knew one air which he hummed as he jumped into his carriage for his last great campaign in Belgium, "Malbrook s'èn va-t-en guerre, miraton, ton ton, ton taine." Others have urged Gambetta as another instance of this deficiency, who, when some delicious music was impending, urged Rossini, of all men, to come into the next room and take a hand at billiards, so little cared he for the crown of all the arts. But men may be unable to appreciate the more difficult music, and to sympathize with the symphonies of Beethoven, who yet enjoy a melody. When one of I have wondered whether there was the symphonies, or maybe some abstruser anything in this charge against the com- work than these, was being performed on pleteness of great men, and whether har- an occasion when Rogers was present, mony in a man's character disqualified some one said to Rogers that the piece him for the mastery of his fellow-crea- was a very difficult one, to which he retures, or whether after all there is nothing|plied, "I wish it had been impossible." I think Mr. Haweis somewhere says in it and that some rulers of men have reckoned it as a "measured malice Lamb calls it. as liked music and others not, and have only that music in England is divided between Handel and "Champagne Charley (a bold antithesis reminding one of the equally strong antithetical images of two Jews spoken of by Coleridge, viz., "Isaiah with Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth!' and Levi of Holywell Street with 'Old Clothes '"); let us say between the real lover of music and the mere lover of noise, for the masses are not even yet far removed from the Indian's love of tomtoms; and I remember how, in the forties, people went mad with that odious song of Balfe's, "I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls." I have sat through an Italian opera, till, for sheer pain and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded streets to solace myself with sounds which I was not obliged to follow I take refuge in the unpretending assemblage of honest common life sounds; and the purgatory of Hogarth's "Enraged Musician becomes my paradise. ... Thus Charles Lamb, who employed his time at an oratorio, watching its effect on the faces of the audiences, and contrasting their seriousness with Hogarth's too sharp a descent. But Mr. Haweis's description is a little A man may love a laughing audience. Talfourd in his "Memorials of Lamb "great deal of what is beautiful and melodious in music, and detest the music-hall song as well as Balfe's song and yet have no appreciation of complicated har (Why is there not a Charles Lamb society?), remarks that that exquisite hu morist monies. haven's, Lord Carnarvon confessed to him Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son. If you love music, hear it, go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you, but I insist on your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light. Few things would mortify me more than to see you bearing a part in a concert with a fiddle under your chin, or a pipe in your mouth. Yet Frederick, Prince of Wales, played on the violoncello, and in these days his Royal Highness of Edinburgh conde scendeth to the fiddle. Lord Eldon, when a trial was going on of Taylor v. Waters, publicly declared that he would not give a farthing to hear Madame Catalani. Lord Holland's dislike of music should not astonish us, for Moore remarked that he had no ear for the music of verse; but that such an eloquent speaker with such modulations of voice as Gambetta had, should not care for music is singular, yet Doro writing two years ago an interesting account of Gambetta for the Pall Mall Gazette, mentions that as soon as music commenced Gambetta went into an adjoining room and played billiards. dislike music. He thought "that men first found out that they had minds by making and tasting poetry." It must have been the substance in poems rather than the form which pleased him, for it seems to be impossible that the same man should be alive to rhythm and dead to music. Grattan, the orator, on the contrary, was wont to say that if he were rich he would have bands of music. "I love music." Music and horses. would cut the air." "I love to go fast. I Kant speaks of the enervating effects of plaintive and languishing airs. Is there something in this sensuous art which minds of great energy recognize as an enemy to action, and do these refuse to lap themselves in soft Lydian airs? But the true answer to this is that music is not all soft Lydian airs. If the appeal in much music is made mostly to the senses, Beethoven, and all the greater composers, appeal to the mind, and some of these profoundly stir the spirit. It may almost be said that every phase of human thought and feeling has its cause pleaded by music. Charles Kingsley cried, when he heard the strolling fiddlers playing under his windows: "Who knows," he says, "what sweet thoughts his own sweet music stirs within him, though he eat in pot-houses and sleep in barns." When Kingsley was in California, he told the students of the Berkeley University that he trusted that music would reach the dignity of a science in the university. 66 Music," he said, " was Mrs. Houstoun has given us a graphic account of a Saturday evening at Theodore Hook's; where Tom Moore sang: I can see him before my mind's eye now a little man, with a head, as it appeared to me, slightly too large for his body. To describe the effect of his soft warbling voice as the words of his own sweet melodies thrilled from his lips would be impossible. It was music spoken (for "voice" in the received acceptation of the word he had, as is well known, but little), and the 66 whispered balm " penetrated with magic power to every heart that possessed the power to sympathize and to feel. Charles James Fox had a positive aver-necessary to the rounding and finishing of sion to music, and when Mrs. Fox sang or the perfect character." played he took to his Homer. But Fox was fond of paradox, and expressed a dislike to Milton as well as to music. The man who could not appreciate the "L'Allegro" or who could be blind to the beauties of the hymn of nativity, "Il Penseroso," might be expected to be dull to the music of Beethoven and the melody of Mozart. Fox thought that the music of the ancient world must have been as superior to ours as their sculpture and painting, but he seems to overlook that whilst the marbles and pigments were ready to the hands of Phidias and Praxiteles, musical instruments were comparatively in their infancy. But there was no saying what opinion Fox could not maintain. He thought Russia would be a free nation before England. Yet he lived in an England which was even in his youth, that is a century ago, freer than Russia is to-day. It is extraordinary that a man who loved poetry as Fox did, should positively The song he chose was that exquisite melody, "I saw from the beach," and when he came to the third verse, beginning: I Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning The close of our day, the calm eve of our night, heard the breath of one who stood beside me come thick and labored, as though the breast of the man-who was no other than Theodore Hook-had a burden laid upon it |