196 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



me the more from the contrast it presented to the 

 track over which I had just been passing. Not half 

 a mile back my cart had upset fortunately I was not 

 in it and my suit case had been shot over the brae. 



It was four o'clock when I reached the house to 

 be welcomed as warmly as usual. I had eaten no- 

 thing since an early breakfast, so was glad of a 

 substantial lunch, which was followed almost without 

 a break by five o'clock tea. Time does not exist in 

 Norway, and meals are taken at uncertain intervals. 

 I had a short turn in the boat on the home lake 

 between tea and dinner, catching a few trout for the 

 stew, and drinking in the beauties of the lovely scene, 

 but was glad to turn in early in a funny little room 

 about seven feet square at the back of the dining- 

 room. If there was no room to swing a cat, I did not 

 want to swing one ; and there was another room of 

 about the same size next door to it, where my bath 

 was prepared for me in the morning. After spending 

 some ten hours in the open air I slept so soundly that 

 even the untimely notes of a certain white Wyandotte 

 cock, whom the party had christened " Caruso," failed 

 to disturb my repose. 



I woke next day quite refreshed but somewhat 

 stiff, and was not sorry to spend a rather lazy morn- 

 ing attending to my correspondence and exchanging 

 home news for the gossip of the valley. A glutton 

 had been trapped at one of the farms above Suisdal 

 at the foot of the Dovre Fjeld. The steel trap had 

 fastened upon his front paw, but he had succeeded in 

 biting it off, and getting away for a time. However, 

 the farmer had contrived to follow the blood trail, 

 and had come up with him and shot him. There was 



