“Yes, sir,” added his wife; “and you might add to that bark bread--which, as my husband says, is excellent--a delicious bit of salt fish, seasoned with whale oil. Sit down, stranger.”
“And if your worship does not like Saint Usuph’s[15] fare,” added the man, “and will have patience for a few moments, I can promise you a splendid piece of venison, or at least a pheasant’s wing. We are expecting a visit from the best hunter in the three provinces. Isn’t that so, good Maase?”
“Maase,” the name which the fisherman gave his wife, is a Norwegian word meaning “sea-gull.” The wife did not seem in the least offended, either because it was really her name, or because she took it as a term of endearment.
“The best hunter! I should say so,” she answered with great emphasis. “He means my brother, the famous Kennybol. God bless all his undertakings! He has come to spend a few days with us, and you shall drink a mug of good beer with him. He is a traveller like you.”
“Many thanks, my kind hostess,” said Ordener, with a smile; “but I must be content with your tempting salt fish and a bit of this bark bread. I have not time to wait for your brother, the mighty hunter. I must set off again immediately.”
Good Maase, flattered by the stranger’s praises of her fish and her brother, and vexed at his hasty departure, exclaimed: “You are very kind, sir. But why should you leave us so soon?”
“Must you venture among these mountains at this hour and in such weather?”
These answers roused the native curiosity of the young man’s entertainers as much as they excited their surprise.
The fisherman rose, and said: “You are in the house of Christopher Buldus Braal, fisherman, of the village of Surb.”
The woman added: “Maase Kennybol is his wife and servant.”
When Norwegian peasants wish to ask a stranger’s name in polite style, it is their custom to tell him their own.
Ordener answered: “And I am a traveller, who is neither sure of the name he bears nor of the road he travels.”
This strange reply did not seem to satisfy fisher Braal.
“By the crown of Gorman the Old,” said he, “I did not suppose there was more than one man in Norway just now who was not sure of his name. I mean the noble Baron Thorwick, who is to change his name, they say, to Count Danneskiold, on account of his famous marriage to the chancellor’s daughter. At least, dear Maase, that’s the latest news from Throndhjem. I congratulate you, stranger, upon this likeness between you and the son of the viceroy, the great Count Guldenlew.”