l be
------ if I tell you unless you make oath." My friend is a swearing
man, though he says he swears for emphasis, not blasphemy, and on this
occasion he swore with extreme solemnity. I saw that he was in earnest,
so made affidavit and was rewarded.
"Now," he said, after inquiring about my climbing capacity in a way
which piqued me, and giving me the routes with a particularity which
somewhat mystified me, "Now I will write a letter to Olaf of the
Mountain and to Elsket. I once was enabled to do them a slight service,
and they will receive you. It will take him two or three weeks to get
it, so you may have to wait a little. You must wait at L---- until Olaf
comes down to take you over the mountain. You may be there when he gets
the letter, or you may have to wait for a couple of weeks, as he does
not come over the mountain often. However, you can amuse yourself around
L----; only you must always be on hand every n-
ight in case Olaf comes."
Although this appeared natural enough to the doctor, it sounded rather
curious to me, and it seemed yet more so when he added, "By the way, one
piece of advice: don't talk about England to Elsket, and don't ask any
questions."
"Who is Elsket?" I asked.
"A daughter of the Vikings, poor thing," he said.
My curiosity was aroused, but I could get nothing further out of him,
and set it down to his unreasonable dislike of travelling Englishmen,
against whom, for some reason, he had a violent antipathy, declaring
that they did not know how to treat women nor how to fish. My friend has
a custom of speaking very strongly, and I used to wonder at the violence
of his language, which contrasted strangely with his character; for he
was the kindest-hearted man I ever knew, being a true follower of his
patron saint, old Isaac, giving his sympathy to all the unfortunate, and
even handling his frogs as i-