We went back to the post-house again for a meal--it was fine to be at a place where one could get food for the mere buying--and we saw there a woman swinging an infant in a cradle slung from the ceiling. How it did arouse memories! How often we had seen in a Lapland farm-kitchen a basket dangling from the rafters at the end of reindeer traces, and a youngster packed in it, and the fond mother crooning the Lappish equivalent of "Hush thee, my baby," and launching the small unfortunate back through fifteen feet of space every time it swung up to her.
A well-dressed cripple hobbled into the room when we were eating, with his knee-cap half cut off by the jamming of a log-raft. He persisted in exhibiting the wound, and then rubbed his sleek, round belly to intimate that he was starving. As he was one of the most prosperous-looking men we had seen in Rovaniemi, it did not occur to us for some time that he was soliciting alms, and it was not till he had put the matter still more forcibly, that we exuded coinage to the extent of three halfpence. He put it in his pocket and shook hands cordially with each of us, and intimated in a few simple and carefully-chosen words that we should receive our reward in due course from on high. In fact he was really so business-like about his begging, that we quite expected that he would bring out a book of printed forms and give us a receipt.
We did not get much privacy at Rovaniemi. The landlord regarded us much in the light of a travelling circus, and brought us in relays of callers whenever we were on the premises. We were not too shy, however, to make use of them. We pumped them on every subject on which they could give information, and amongst other things on how we were to continue our journey down to the coast, and where we should best find shipping for England. We had had a sufficiency of the bumpy-bumpy motion of the Finnish post-cart to prefer other means of transport if it was available, and so we asked with interest about the river route. There seemed a good deal of diversity of opinion. Finally the best steersman in Rovaniemi was brought in, a white-haired old fellow, with a clever, clean-shaven face, and he offered to take us down as far as a series of falls twenty kilometres above Kemi, and no farther. He proposed to take us so far for M.50, a tremendous sum in Northern Finland when one remembers that the rates for posting, all inclusive, varied between M.0·14 and M.0·19 per kilometre, the mark being about tenpence English.