friend and friend, has a sympathetic and humorous smile for every incident or accident of the chase. When I lost a fish with Anders, we relieved our feelings in unison by bilingual imprecations of sulphurous intensity; but when anything tragic occurred on the rare occasions on which I had Eric to myself, he always said something which changed irritation to merriment, and plucked the flower of pleasure from the nettlebed of mishap.

Like Anders, he calls the ladies by their Christian names without any prefix, because, in his noble mind, a woman needs no empty title to imply respect; but the gentlemen are treated more conventionally, and two, father and son, are respectively spoken of as Mr. Old Jackson and Mr. Young Jackson, to distinguish them from each other and from the sons of the soil.

Eric has not quite the lithe activity of the younger and taller Anders: he does not walk so fast, for at fifty-five it is impossible to simulate the elasticity of a lost youth; but he never shows fatigue, and sets about preparing tea when we are all dog-tired as if he had not

been rowing hard all day and carrying heavy fish for miles in the lengthening shadows at a steady jog-trot pace. The cheerful afternoon refreshment which the ladies have gradually forced upon us is taken at some prearranged rendezvous to which they and the anglers converge tea-cups and kettle appear miraculously from some secret cache, and neat little impromptu spoons are deftly cut from birch twigs to stir the fragrant beverage.

"Where you get this tea?" asks Eric with a shake of his wise grey head, as he puts the gauze-covered packet of it into the kettle, which is also teapot. "It is not China or Congo. No, we cannot buy it sam' size here." He values no present of whisky or aqua-vitæ like a packet of Ceylon, and always preserves the exhausted leaves for use at the family table, where we hope the second brew may not prove too strong for the digestion of “me tochter's child."

Though a far better linguist than Anders, he is not infrequently obscure, and often unintentionally comic; but every novel expression is delivered with such a merry twinkle, that it

is difficult to believe that he is not doing it on purpose, while it is impossible to reproduce the true inwardness of that rich humour. "You going on," he says to me, when he is packing up. "I running strax following immediately after;" and the same form of speech occurs in conversation on slippery rocks: "You catching the garf - handle and not slipping; and when Anders reports a heavy bag at the end of the day, he smiles approval and says, "Mr. Young Jackson must have a prize, I s'pose." On hearing of our complaints that rype were unapproachably wild on the fjeld, he announced that a dog would arrive in a few days, "then you bring home more than you can carry, I am safe"; and after modestly presenting me with my knife, he refused all payment, and turned the subject in the most delicate manner, by a glance at my lately unshaven chin, and the remark, "It is good for the beard, I am responsible."

One Sunday he came upon us sketching near his house, and his polite admiration, as he stood and watched us, was most entertaining; for my part, I was convinced that if he

devoted a couple of days to that untried branch of art he would have beaten us all.

He is the handy-man and universal genius of the valley; and when an unfortunate labourer showed signs of insanity, it was Eric who was immediately sent for to act as doctor, nurse, and guardian until proper arrangements could be made for the man's safety. He is also a trapper of birds and beasts, and lightened that memorable long wet tramp from Grana-fossen by describing to me how to snare the capercailzie in the winter darkness. "It is sam' you call trap; yes, it is trap." He also on that occasion gave me a history of his difficulties with his landlord, who enforced his ancient right of service on the most inconvenient days of the year. not liking my getting so much money, he not liking my being boatman to the gentlemen." He deeply regretted that we could not have a sheep belonging to "me tochter's man," not because of the loss of profit to the family, but because it was such a good specimen.

"He

"It

is good, very good ship," said Erik, with the

characteristic and eloquent shake of the head;

"I

knew him in the spring!" But the perverse animal was irretrievably lost, and would probably have to be hunted on the fjeld in the winter, killed with a rifle-bullet, and brought home on a pony.

Having been at one time (of course) a bootmaker, our friend heard with real concern that the ladies occasionally came home with wet feet, and so he thoughtfully brought in a young man one evening to measure them for some jack-boots which should for ever defy the element which has no terrors for Norwegians; his only regret was that he had not time to do the job thoroughly himself, so it had to be undertaken by "me tochter's man." I am wandering from the river, but I hope that I have made it plain that Eric's qualities of head and hand and heart make him a most acceptable companion to a fisherman; and I have endeavoured to show why I think he is far more than this, and how it is that he inspires a feeling of strong affection in the minds of those who come in contact with him. We all respect and like Anders, who, I am sure, is better appreciated by his compatriots, but