im 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 night 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 if he loved them.

Thus it was that on the afternoon of the seventh day of July, 188-,
having, for purposes of identification, a letter in my pocket to "Olaf
of the Mountain from his friend Dr. Robson," I stood, in the rain in
the so-called "street" of L----, on the ------ Fiord, looking over the
bronzed feces of the stolid but kindly peasants who lounged silently
around, trying to see if I could detect in one a resemblance to the
picture I had formed in my mind of "Olaf of the Mountain," or could
discern in any eye a gleam of special interest to show that its
possessor was on the watch for an expected guest.

There was none in whom I could discover any indication that he was not
a resident of the straggling little settlement. They all stood quietly
about gazing at me and talking in low tones among themselves, chewing
tobacco or smoking their pipes, as naturally as if they were in Virginia
or Kentucky, only, if possible, in a somewhat more ruminant manner. It
gave me the single bit of home feeling I could muster, for it was, I
must confess, rather desolate standing alone in a strange land, under
those beetling crags, with the clouds almost resting