After climbing on in this way for a short while we came to a little cove between two towers, with enough land for three or four trees to find soil to grow on, and beneath them a perfect bed of wild strawberries. It was a very small and very primitive bath chamber, but trees afforded shade from the sun's powerful rays, and two massive walls shut us in from curious eyes.
Near the Castle gate the water was smooth, but the current round other parts of the battlements was great, and almost baffled the wonderful swimming powers of Grandpapa and his friend, the delightful student who joined us at Nyslott, fresh from his newly-won honours at the University. They swam round it – but they had a struggle to accomplish their feat.
Our student was a great acquisition to the party, though many scenes we lived together were not altogether devoid of embarrassment. We spoke English, French, and German, but he knew no language that we knew. For his University work he had learned book-German, and could read it well, but he had never heard it spoken, and his tongue had never framed the words. Still, with this solid foundation, we soon taught him, and at the end of the three weeks that he spent with us, we flatter ourselves his German was excellent! Many a laugh we had over his deliciously amusing struggles, and, in spite of being a Finlander, he laughed too.
We also had many quaint linguistic adventures with our "hotel keeper."
That custodian was a poet – a real live poet. He used to disappear for hours; and we wondered where he was, until one fine day, as we rowed home to our enchanted Castle, we saw a man on the top of the watch tower waving his arms and gesticulating with dramatic gestures into space. This was our Vahtimestari. From his exalted position, with one of the most beautiful panoramas eye could wish lying at his feet – resting on a famous battlement, that had withstood the ravages of love and war – he evolved his magic verse. Truly no scene could be more inspiring, no motive more sublime, for even we humble humdrum matter-of-fact Englishwomen felt almost inspired to tempt the poet's muse. But happily no – our friends are spared – the passion was but fleeting.
One day our Vahtimestari met us all smiles. We could not quite understand what he meant, but Grandpapa and our student told us some strange news as soon as the Vahtimestari had imparted it to them.
It seemed that a party of people had rung the bell on the shore for the Castle boat to go to fetch them, so, accordingly, our nocturnal host had gone across to earn his penny per head for ferrying them over. A papa, mamma, son, and daughters, with a couple of acquaintances, comprised the party. They calmly owned they had not come to see the Castle – they had seen it before. They had come to see the English ladies. Was it really true that two Englishwomen were staying there as the papers stated? Had they actually come from London? What were they like? What did they do? And why on earth did they sleep among the ghosts and hobgoblins?
Then, in a hushed voice and with subdued breath they asked —
"Are they mad?"
"No," the man answered, "he didn't think they were, they seemed much like other folk."
"Could they talk."
"Not Finnish; but they understand a little Swedish, and talk French and German with their friends."
"Did they do anything very remarkable or strange?"
"No. They cook their breakfast, and afterwards eat it; write, work, sketch, and bathe; in fact, they are ordinary people and seem quite sane."
"Could they see the strange ladies?"
"He was afraid not, as they were on shore."
"Might they see where they slept?"
"Certainly," replied the Vahtimestari.
And on reaching the room they exclaimed —
"Why, this is an ordinary room with windows, how very disappointing," whereupon, much distressed and disillusioned, they turned and departed.
At this very time we were walking on the promenade in front of the bath-houses, where a nice fat comfortable-looking old gentleman stood before me, and cap in hand asked in English —
"Excuse me, do you like Finland?"
"Very much," I replied, smiling at the question; "but why do you ask?"
"I am a Finn – we all are Finns, and we are very proud of our country, about which most of Europe knows nothing, or at least next to nothing, and I am desirous to hear what you think of it all?"
"I am delighted with it. But again I must ask why you inquire?"
"Because we all know about you from the newspapers (not one word of which we could read ourselves), and we are very anxious you should like us and our land, and tell the people in England we are not barbarians as they suppose. Please excuse my speaking to you, but I am the spokesman of many, who will be delighted to hear you are satisfied, and wish you a pleasant journey. If a stranger may be so bold – I thank you for coming."
"Finland certainly deserves to be better known," I replied.
"You think so? oh, I am glad;" and after a few minutes more conversation he said, "I hope you will enjoy Punkaharju."
"How do you know I am going to Punkaharju?"
"I heard so, and that you are actually living in our Castle, and that you are going through the country to Uleåborg."
I almost collapsed; but he was so nice and so smiling I dared not be angry at his somewhat inquisitive interest in my movements.
On another occasion it was an elderly general who calmly sat down and addressed me in German, in order to inquire what I was going to write, how I was going to write it, and when it would appear.
These are only three instances of several, all showing the keen interest of the people that the land may be known and the Finlander a little better understood than he is by half the world to-day, who seem to imagine him to be a cross between a Laplander and an Esquimo – instead of what he really is, a very cultured gentleman.
My sister eased the troubles of life for me by kindly doing the packing; but once, so she says, virtue seized me in a rigid grip – and I packed.
It was at Olavin Linna– at our Castle. We were leaving next day, and one Gladstone had to be filled with things we did not want for a short time, and the other to be packed with everything we required immediately.
I worked hard. Sorted everything; filled the Gladstone with clean linen, guide books, foods, papers, etc., strapped it, and then, feeling the incarnation of industry and pride, threw myself on that precious deck-chair to rest and read.
Presently my sister danced into the room. I told her of my virtue, received her congratulations and thanks, beamed with delight at my success, and answered her question as to the whereabouts of her bathing cap that "I had never seen it."
"Strange," she said, "I feel sure I left it on the window-sill to dry last night as usual, and it has gone, and I want a swim."
We both looked. We went down into the courtyard and scrambled among the lilac bushes immediately below the window. Finally, we decided it had been left on the tree at the bathing ground the night before. So off she went round that dangerous edge to find the cap. It was not there.
We called Grandpapa – Grandpapa called the Vahtimestari– the Vahtimestari called his under man; every one explained to every one else what was missing. At last the custodian remarked —
"Oh, now I understand what you mean; that sponge bag which lies beside the bathing dresses to dry; I didn't know what you meant by 'cap to bathe.'"
"Yes, yes, that is it," replied Grandpapa; "where is it?"
"I don't know."
"But it must be found. This lady dives and swims under water, and her long hair would get wet without it."
And so we looked, and looked, and all looked again.
"Let us go and buy another," remarked my sister in desperation.
"Impossible," replied our student, who had now joined in the search, "you might get one in Helsingfors, but nowhere else."
We were in despair. Before evening the whole town had heard of the English ladies' strange loss, and the bathing cap was as much commented upon as though it had been a dynamite bomb.
Confession, they say, is good for the soul. Then let me own my sin. The next day that bathing cap was found —I had packed it up!
Wherefore my sister on all inconvenient occasions says —
"Yes, she packed once; she put away everything we wanted, and left out everything we had no use for."
How cruelly frank one's relations are!
Alas! my haunted Castle is restored, and the revels of the ghosts and the goblins are now disturbed by the shrieks and snorts of the modern locomotive.
CHAPTER XII
PUNKAHARJU
Every one we met in Finland told us to make a point of seeing Punkaharju, just as strangers in London might be advised to visit the Tower, though in this case the great show was not a historical place, the work of men's hands, but a freak of Nature in one of her most charming moods.
Punkaharju being only a short distance from Nyslott, we proceeded thither in a small steamer supposed to start at noon.
By one of those lucky chances that sometimes occur in life, we happened to arrive at the steamer half an hour before the time she was advertised to sail, and were, to say the least of it, barely on board before a whistle sounded, when away we went. We were amazed at this proceeding, and, taking out our watches, discovered it still wanted twenty minutes to the time printed in the newspapers and on the advertisement at the bath-house.
It was only another instance showing that punctuality is absolutely considered of no value in Finland, for the steamer actually did start twenty minutes before its appointed hour, and no one then or after made the slightest complaint.
Imagine our Flying Scotchman speeding North even one minute before the advertised hour!
Having been told that Punkaharju was very full during the summer holiday season, we had therefore asked our charming student friend, who preceded us by a day, to kindly engage rooms to await our arrival. What was our surprise when we arrived at the little pier, not only to meet him beaming with smiles as he hurried to say he had secured rooms, but to find a lady who had travelled with us some days before from Wiborg and spoke English well, warmly welcoming us, the while she exclaimed —
"I found the Hotel was so full when I came that I told the landlord rooms would be required to-night, for I did not wish you to be disappointed."
She was a stranger, and her thoughtfulness was very kind. The plot thickened, however, a moment afterwards, when the Russian General, who had also travelled for a whole day on a steamer with us, arrived in his scarlet-lined uniform, and, saluting profoundly, begged to inform Madame he had taken the liberty of bespeaking rooms "as the Hotel was very full."
This was somewhat alarming, and it actually turned out that three suites of rooms had been engaged for us by three different people, each out of the goodness of his heart trying to avoid the dreadful possibility of our being sent away roofless. No wonder our host, thinking such a number of Englishwomen were arriving, had procured the only carriage in the neighbourhood and ordered it and a cart to come down to the pier and await this vast influx of folk. Although the Hotel was not a hundred yards actually from where we stood, everybody insisted on our getting into the little carriage for the honour of the thing, and my sister and I drove off in triumph by a somewhat circuitous route to the Hotel, only to find all our friends and acquaintances there before us, as they had come up the short way by the steps.
Even more strange was the fact that each one of our kind friends had told a certain Judge and his wife of our probable arrival, and promised to introduce the strange English women to them, while, funnily enough, we ourselves bore an introduction from the lady's brother, so, before any of our compagnons de voyage had time to introduce us, we had already made the acquaintance of the Judge and his wife through that gentleman's card. They were all exceedingly kind to us, and we thoroughly enjoyed our short stay among them. Such friendliness is very marked in Finland.
Punkaharju is certainly a strange freak of Nature. Imagine a series of the most queerly-shaped islands all joined together by a natural roadway, for, strange to say, there is a ridge of land sometimes absolutely only the width of the road joining these islands in a connective chain. For about five miles these four or five islands are bound together in this very mysterious manner, so mysterious, in fact, that it seems impossible, as one walks along the roadway, to believe it is nature's freak and not man's hand that has made this extraordinary thoroughfare. It is most beautiful in the wider parts, where, there being more land, the traveller comes upon lovely dells, while the most marvellous mosses and ferns lie under the pine trees, and the flowers are beautiful.
No wonder Runeberg the poet loved to linger here – a veritable enchanted spot.
The morning after our arrival we had a delightful expedition in a boat to the end of the islands; but as a sudden storm got up, in the way that storms sometimes do in Finland, we experienced great difficulty in landing, and were ultimately carried from the boat to the beach in somewhat undignified fashion. However, we landed somehow, and most of us escaped without even wet feet. Just above us was a woodman's house, where our kind Judge had ordered coffee to be in readiness, and thither we started, a little cold and somewhat wet from the waves that had entered our bark and sprinkled us. On the way we paused to eat wild strawberries and to look at the ancient Russian bakeries buried in the earth. These primitive ovens of stone are of great size, for a whole regiment had been stationed here at the time of the war early in the last century when Russia conquered Finland. And then we all sat on the balcony of the woodman's cottage and enjoyed our coffee, poured from a dear little copper pot, together with the black bread and excellent butter, which were served with it.
On that balcony some six or eight languages were spoken by our Finnish friends, such wonderful linguists are they as a nation. At the end of our meal the wind subsided and out came the most brilliant sunshine, changing the whole scene from storm to calm, like a fairy transformation at the pantomime.
We walked back to the Hotel, and the Finlanders proved to be right. As a beautiful bit of quaint nature, Punkaharju equals some of the finest passes in Scotland, while its formation is really most remarkable.
A ridiculous incident happened that day at dinner. Grandpapa, like a great many other persons in Finland, being a vegetarian, had gone to the rubicund and comfortable landlord that morning and explained that he wanted vegetables and fruit for his dinner. At four o'clock, the time for our mid-day meal, we all seated ourselves at table with excellent appetites, the Judge being on my left hand and his wife on my right.
We had all fetched our trifles from the Smörgåsbord, and there ensued a pause before the arrival of the soup. Solemnly a servant, bearing a large dish, came up to our table, and in front of our youthful Grandpapa deposited her burden. His title naturally gave him precedence of us all – an honour his years scarcely warranted. The dish was covered with a white serviette, and when he lifted the cloth, lo! some two dozen eggs were lying within its folds.
"How extraordinary," he said; "I told the landlord I was a vegetarian, and should like some suitable food; surely he does not think I am going to eat this tremendous supply of eggs."
We laughed.
"Where is our dinner?" we asked, a question which interested us much more than his too liberal supply.
"Oh! it will come in a moment," he replied cheerfully.
"But did you order it?" we ventured to inquire.
"No, I cannot say I did. There is a table d'hôte."
Unmercifully we chaffed him. Fancy his daring to order his own dinner, and never inquiring whether we were to have anything to eat or not; he, who had catered for our wants in the mysteries of that castle home, so basely to desert us now.
He really looked quite distressed.
"I'm extremely sorry," he said, "but I thought, being in a hotel, you were sure to have everything you wanted. Of course there is a table d'hôte meal."
At this juncture the servant returned, bearing another large dish. Our dinner, of course, we hoped. Not a bit of it. A large white china basin, full of slices of cucumber, cut, about a quarter of an inch thick, as cucumber is generally served in Finnish houses, again solemnly paused in front of Grandpapa. He looked a little uneasy as he inquired for our dinner.
"This is for the gentleman," she solemnly remarked; and so dish number two, containing at least three entire cucumbers for the vegetarian's dinner, was left before him. Another pause, and still our soup did not come; but the girl returned, this time bearing a glass dish on a long spiral stand filled with red stewed fruit, which, with all solemnity, she deposited in front of Grandpapa.
His countenance fell. Twenty-four eggs, three cucumbers, and about three quarts of stewed fruit, besides an enormous jug of milk and an entire loaf of bread, surrounded his plate, while we hungry mortals were waiting for even crumbs.
Fact was, the good housewife, unaccustomed to vegetarians, could not rightly gauge their appetites, and as the gentleman had ordered his own dinner she thought, and rightly, he was somebody very great, and accordingly gave him the best of what she had, and that in large quantities.
After dinner, which, let us own, was excellent, we had to leave our kind friends and drive back in the soft light of the night to Nyslott, for which purpose we had ordered two kärra (Swedish for cart), karryts (Finnish name), a proceeding which filled the Judge and his wife with horror.
"It is impossible," they said, "that you can drive such a distance in one of our ordinary Finnish kärra. You do not know what you are undertaking. You will be shaken to death. Do wait and return to-morrow by the steamer."
We laughed at their fears, for had we not made up our minds to travel a couple of hundred miles through Finland at a not much later date by means of these very kärra? Certainly, however, when we reached the door our hearts failed us a little.
The most primitive of market carts in England could not approach the discomfort of this strange Finnish conveyance. There were two wheels, undoubtedly, placed across which a sort of rough-and-ready box formed the cart; on this a seat without a back was "reserved" for us. The body of the kärra was strewn with hay, and behind us and below us, and before us our luggage was stacked, a small boy of twelve sitting on our feet with his legs dangling out at the side while he drove the little vehicle.
Grandpapa and I got into one, our student friend and my sister into the other, and away we went amid the kindly farewells of all the occupants of the hostelry, who seemed to think we were little short of mad to undertake a long tiring journey in native carts, and to elect to sleep at our haunted castle on an island, instead of in a proper hotel.
We survived our drive – nay more, we enjoyed it thoroughly, although so shaken we feared to lose every tooth in our heads. It was a lovely evening, and we munched wild strawberries by the way, which we bought for twopence in a birch-bark basket from a shoeless little urchin on the road. We had no spoon of course; but we had been long enough in Finland to know the correct way to eat wild strawberries was with a pin. The pin reminds us of pricks, and pricks somehow remind of soap, and soap reminds us of a little incident which may here be mentioned.
An old traveller never leaves home without a supply of soap; so, naturally, being very old travellers, we started with many cakes among our treasured possessions. But in the interior of Suomi, quite suddenly, one of our travelling companions confided to us the fact that he had finished his soap, and could not get another piece. My sister's heart melted, and she gave away our last bit but one, our soap having likewise taken unto itself wings. He was overjoyed, for English soap is a much-appreciated luxury in all foreign lands. Some days went by and the solitary piece we had preserved grew beautifully less and less; but we hoped to get some more at each little village we came to. We did not like to confide our want to our friend, lest he should feel that he had deprived us of a luxury – we might say a necessity.
Every morning my sister grumbled that our soap was getting smaller and smaller, which indeed it was, while the chance of replacing it grew more and more remote. Her grief was so real, her distress so great, that I could not help laughing at her discomfiture, and, whenever possible, informed her that I was about to wash my hands for the sake of enjoying the last lather of our rapidly dwindling treasure. At last she became desperate.
"I don't care what it costs," she said; "I don't care how long it takes, but I am going out to get a piece of soap, if I die for it."
So out she went, and verily she was gone for hours. I began to think she had either "died for it," or got into difficulties with the language, or been locked up in a Finnish prison!
I was sitting writing my notes, when suddenly the door was thrown open, and my sister, her face aflame with heat and excitement, appeared with a large bright orange parcel under her arm.
"I've got it, I've got it," she exclaimed.
"Got what – the measles or scarlet fever?"
"Soap," she replied with a tragic air, waving the bright orange bag over her head.
"You don't mean to say that enormous parcel contains soap?"
"I do," she replied. "I never intend to be without soap again, and so I bought all I could get. At least," with a merry twinkle and in an undertone, she added, "I brought away as little as I could, after explaining to the man for half an hour I did not want the enormous quantity he wished to press upon me."
Dear readers, it was not beautiful pink scented soap, it was not made in Paris or London; heaven only knows the place of its birth; it gave forth no delicious perfume; it was neither green, nor yellow, nor pink, to look upon. It was a hideous brown brick made in Lapland, I should think, and so hard it had probably been frozen at the North Pole itself.
But that was not all; when we began to wash, this wondrous soap which had cost so much trouble to procure – such hours in its pursuit – was evidently some preparation for scrubbing floors and rough household utensils, for there was a sandy grit about it which made us clean, certainly, but only at the expense of parting with our skin.
My poor sister! Her comedy ended in tragedy.