142 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



above the bridge of the Sundal. Firstborn of Mrs. 

 Lort Phillips' architectural genius, it was also the first 

 to perish. On one of my latest visits to Norway I 

 was bound for Todal, another of Lort Phillips' fishing 

 quarters, and met on board the Tasso that distin- 

 guished ornament of the Civil Service, Wilson Fox, 

 who was on his way to join a party of relations at 

 Hvilested. We had reached Stavanger, and had all 

 enjoyed the first few hours of land after a rather 

 stormy passage. Our spirits were damped on our 

 return to the vessel by the news which the Captain 

 had heard from Messrs. Wilson's agent, that one of 

 Lort Phillips' houses had been totally destroyed by 

 fire on the previous day. There was still a chance 

 that neither Wilson Fox nor myself might be person- 

 ally affected by the calamity, but it was only just over 

 an even chance to be strictly accurate, five to two as 

 Lort Phillips has three other fishing quarters, Lilledal, 

 Oxendal, and Alfheim ; and if it was one of these we 

 should still find a roof to shelter us when we arrived 

 at our journey's end. 



We passed rather a disturbed and anxious time 

 until the arrival of the steamer at Bergen, where 

 we learnt with certainty that it was poor Hvilested 

 which had been totally destroyed by fire. The 

 open hearths, the pride of their designer, had proved 

 its undoing in the end. The tenants or their ser- 

 vants were not sufficiently alive to the danger of 

 fire to which the dry painted and varnished build- 

 ings in Norway are liable, and had kept up a fire in 

 the dining-room while absent from the house on a 

 late fishing expedition. Probably a flying ember had 

 ignited the floor ; at any rate from some cause or 



