332 SHORT STALKS 



Three generations, besides several poor relations, herded 

 together, without a sign that they had ever had any com- 

 munication with the outer world. Indeed, in these re- 

 moter valleys they seem almost independent of all produce 

 save their own. Oatmeal and milk summed up the total 

 of their bodily needs. They seemed to have nothing on 

 earth to do but to cook and eat heavy messes of porridge. 

 It must be frightfully unsatisfying to judge by the fre- 

 quency with which they recur to it. So entirely did 

 they live on spoon meat that there was not a fork in the 

 house. This indifference to good food must I think be, in 

 part, due to sheer laziness. To eat flesh you must, at least, 

 first catch your beast. The Norwegian therefore contents 

 himself with oatmeal which needs only to be warmed 

 and stirred. Perhaps for the same reason, and on account 

 of emigration, labour is dear in Norway where everything 

 else is cheap. To hire a man for a day costs as much as a 

 sheep. However, every man is "jack of all trades," and 

 every household is self-supporting. To them the English- 

 man who is unable to cobble his own boots is a subject 

 of melancholy interest, that one should be sunk so low. 

 I once sent a small cask of beer to Norway, which 

 the voyage had put into such a forward condition 

 that I had a difhculty in drawing it. They thought 

 a brewer who did not know how to tap his own beer an 

 extraordinary phenomenon ! 



During visits made to Norway in more recent years I 

 was struck by the advance made by the Bonder, or ftirmer- 

 peasant class, in their standard of comfort. Owing to im- 

 proved communications many articles of food formerly 

 unknown to them, and especially good white flour wliich 



