298 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



quiet blue serge suit, with trousers, and brown boots low at 

 the heel, and a white collar sticking into a closely cropped 

 black beard, and straight combed-out hair, and a straw hat ! 

 might be anyone ! 



C. A. H. does not change his get-up much, but when he 

 goes home to hang his bearskins in the ancestral hall, he 

 will have to do so. Sisters hate beards. 



They, the Dons and Gisbert and Hamilton, have all gone 

 up the hill to be entertained by a local magnate to-day. I 



was asked, and was 



there before, on our 



first visit, and it was 



quite charming 



gramophone music, 



cigars with red and 



gold bands, delightful 



whiskies - and - sodas, 



and nice cosy rooms, 



with the windows all 



shut. But the cut on 



my left foot felt pain- 

 ful on putting on 

 shore boots, and the house being uphill I felt obliged to deny 

 myself the pleasure, and passed a very quiet afternoon on 

 board. The engineer's children came off to see me (and 

 incidentally their father). The eldest was about twelve, 

 I think, and they talked Norwegian to me, and opened their 

 blue eyes wide and puckered their fair faces with wonder, 

 when they found I could not understand their little words, 

 however distinctly and slowly they said them. They insisted 

 then on my playing the pipes to them again, and apparently 

 were hugely pleased. 



I was sometimes sorry for the engineer's lot when we were 

 at sea, in bad weather, for he is pale, rather like a gentle 

 Louis Stevenson, and seemed to have little to interest him at 

 sea beyond the engine, but now I do not pity him for his 

 welcome home from such a beauty of a daughter, with such 

 jolly blue eyes, so full of wonder and fun. The whole family 

 looked over my pictures and were interested in ice-bears 



