the honesty and willingness to oblige strangers of the Norwegian peasants, in districts where they have not been spoilt by tourists or, what is even worse, by rich sportsmen. I never during my three years in Selbo and Tydal had a single case of overcharging or the slightest attempt to in¬ fringe the bargain which I had made with the farmers of the valley for their sporting-rights. At the same time, I must say that I owed a great deal of this to the presence and advice of Peter Norbye, who, like all farmers, was keen at a bargain, and told me that the people would respect us all the more if we were the same. On my first attempt to buy a sheep for meat the farmer brought one too lean for my taste, and when I turned it on its back to feel the breast and said it would not do, he was surprised that an Englishman should know how to handle sheep. He fetched another for which he asked twelve kroner, but was satisfied with the ten I offered; after that we always agreed about price. For our lodgings and as much milk, cream and cheese as we wanted we paid one kroner per head per day, and as we wanted little more but groceries it was a wonderfully cheap trip.
I have never in any country found a rural population for whom I have such a high respect and liking as for the Norwegian farmers of the inland districts. In all affairs of local government, which they manage almost entirely for themselves, honesty, economy and good sense seem to be practised to an extent which no other country can show; and when we consider how poor that country is, how hard and difficult life is for the farmers in the remote inland districts, I must say that I know no people who can equal them in real civilisation. But they are people who must be treated with the respect that is due to them, for though their government is highly democratic, they are aristocratic in many of their ideas and feelings and intensely patriotic and self-reliant as well. I remember having a long discussion one day with Peter Norbye, who was considered a radical in the district, as to the extension of the parliamentary franchise which was then proposed. Pie said that “Husmen”—who are a sort of sub-tenants on the large farms, often almost indistinguishable from the actual proprietors in manners and appearance—had no right to votes, and that he would vote against this innovation though his party were ad¬ vocating it. On another occasion, when the question of the separation of Norway from Sweden became a burning question in Norwegian politics. I asked him why he, who had so much intercourse with Swedes and so many friends in Jemtland, could no longer live in union with them. He replied that the Swedes always treated them as an inferior nation, but that if it came to a fight the Norwegians would show that they were as good as the Swedes. I asked how the small population of Norway could resist the power of Sweden, if it came to blows, and he said that they had done it before, and if the Swedes invaded Norway they would meet the same fate as had befallen the Swedish army which invaded Trondhjem and had been attacked and routed in the snow on their way back in winter. And as he pointed out to me not many miles away the place where this had actually happened, this usually quiet and peaceable- looking man fired up, and his eyes glared in a way that showed me how deep his feeling was.
