194 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



the grumbling or ill-humour one sometimes experi- 

 ences in a crowded railway carriage or omnibus in 

 more civilised regions ; everybody seemed to take the 

 inconvenience as part of the fun, and some took 

 children on their knees, while others sat backwards 

 or forwards, compressing their bodies into the smallest 

 possible compass. 



One of the first to join the motor was a poor old 

 farmer with a bandage over his left eye, who had been 

 my companion down the valley from Gjora when I 

 arrived on the previous Saturday. The head of a 

 match had flown off as he struck it and burnt his 

 eye, and he had travelled down to consult the doctor. 

 A party of friends escorted him to the ferry, and the 

 driver eagerly questioned him as iro the result of his 

 visit. I am sorry to say that no hope was held out 

 to him of ever recovering the sight of the injured eye. 

 He was evidently still in considerable pain, but bore 

 it philosophically and bravely. We soon passed the 

 ruins of poor Hvilested on our left, and next on our 

 right the Grodal pass, down which we had descended 

 on our homeward journey from Alfheim in 1902. 



After Gjora the journey became a repetition of 

 the one described in the last chapter. My horse and 

 cart were waiting for me at the post-office at Gjora, 

 in charge of a merry little blue-eyed skydskarl, who 

 persisted in trying to talk to me, regardless of our 

 entire ignorance of each other's tongues. He had 

 never travelled over the route before, and seemed 

 constantly afraid that we were losing our way, although 

 I assured him, in what I imagined to be Norwegian, 

 that there were not many roads on the high fjeld. 

 We crossed the ferry, accompanied by the poor blinded 



