170 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



pletely straightened. They proved to be as ill- 

 tempered as I was after the calamity ! 



Todal was in the centre of a district more fre- 

 quented by bears than any other which I have 

 occupied when in Norway. I never myself saw one, 

 although I came upon a fresh track when crossing the 

 hill to Opdal ; but frequently sheep were killed by 

 them in the neighbourhood while we were in residence, 

 and my sons were thereby tempted to forsake the 

 river for a time and sleep out by the " kill," always 

 without results. There was a place on the road to 

 the little Norwegian church where the path skirted a 

 rather precipitous wooded bank. At this spot a work- 

 man returning to his home one evening rather merry, 

 saw, as he thought, another man leave the road and 

 hide, and heard a rustling in the bushes beneath him. 

 Jumping to the conclusion that this was one of his 

 boon companions intending to play him a trick, he 

 lurched heavily over and rolled down the bank, to find 

 himself almost on the top of a big bear ! Fortunately 

 Bruin was as much startled and alarmed as his 

 rash assailant, and made tracks for the mountain in 

 double quick time without resenting the unwarrant- 

 able intrusion, while Peder ran home along the road 

 sobered by fright, and determined in future to look 

 before he leaped. When my friend Sir Bargrave 

 Deane was tenant of Todal, a bear killed a sheep near 

 a soeter not three miles distant from the house, and 

 the farmer, knowing his reputation as a rifle shot, 

 sent at once to ask him to come and watch for it. He 

 was much tempted by the offer, but a too wise friend 

 who was his guest for the fishing, and had spent many 

 seasons in Norway, dissuaded him, as I should have 



