90 
WILD NORWAY. 
level meadow all the way down. But now, just below, 
a belt of thick young birch-scrub grew right down to 
the water s edge, and I resolved to finish the fight here. 
The final scene occupied some minutes ; but each suc¬ 
cessive effort of our gallant foe was less vigorous than 
the last, and each run ended nearer to our shore, till 
at length, while I walked backwards into the meadow, 
Ivar crept up from below, and, deftly seizing his oppor¬ 
tunity, the gallant salmon was borne ashore on the 
gaff. Oh, the relief to aching arms to lay down the 
rod, and for a few minutes to lie resting on the grass 
and sweet-scented thyme! 
Our fish was a clean-run hen-salmon of 22 lbs., with 
several sea-lice still sticking to her silvery flanks and 
tail, and measured forty inches in length by twenty 
in girth. The whole operation, from hooking to gaffing, 
had only lasted twenty minutes, but the impressions 
left on the tablets of memory are indelible. 
Our host, we found, had also landed a fish of 21 lbs., 
killed on large Namsen fly, and we sat down to dinner 
at 10 p.m. 
II. Tight Lines and Hard Lines. 
Sunday in Siirendal, by local custom, commences at 
six o’clock on Saturday evening, when secular pursuits 
are relinquished for just twenty-four hours. 
Our first Sunday—that which fell on the 12th of 
June—proved to be one of the very few really warm 
summer days enjoyed during the whole season. The 
sun shone with semi-tropical heat, and the new-fallen 
snow on the three thousand feet peak of Haanstad- 
Knyken opposite our windows, contrasted strangely 
