Ticket No. "9672"

CHAPTER IX.

Sylvius Hogg was the name that the stranger in­scribed up­on the inn reg­is­ter, that same evening, di­rect­ly un­der­neath the name of Sand­go­ist, and there was as great a con­trast be­tween the two names as be­tween the men that bore them. Be­tween them there was noth­ing what­ev­er in com­mon, ei­ther men­tal­ly, moral­ly, or phys­ical­ly. One was gen­er­ous to a fault, the oth­er was miser­ly and par­si­mo­nious; one was ge­nial and kind-​heart­ed, in the arid soul of the oth­er ev­ery no­ble and hu­mane sen­ti­ment seemed to have with­ered and died.

Sylvius Hogg was near­ly six­ty years of age, though he did not ap­pear near­ly so old. Tall, erect, and well built, healthy alike in mind and in body, he pleased at first sight with his hand­some ge­nial face, up­on which he wore no beard, but around which clus­tered curl­ing locks of sil­very hair; eyes which were as smil­ing as his lips, a broad fore­head that bore the im­press of no­ble thoughts, and a full chest in which the heart beat un­tram­meled. To all these charms were added an in­ex­haustible fund of good hu­mor, a re­fined and lib­er­al na­ture, and a gen­er­ous and self-​sac­ri­fic­ing dis­po­si­tion.

Sylvius Hogg, of Chris­tia­nia--no fur­ther rec­om­men­da­tion was need­ed. That told the whole sto­ry. And he was not on­ly known, ap­pre­ci­at­ed, loved and hon­ored in the Nor­we­gian cap­ital, but through­out the en­tire coun­try, though the sen­ti­ments he in­spired in the oth­er half of the Scan­di­na­vian king­dom, that is to say in Swe­den, were of an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter.

This fact can eas­ily be ex­plained.

Sylvius Hogg was a pro­fes­sor of law at Chris­tia­nia. In some lands to be a bar­ris­ter, civ­il en­gi­neer, physi­cian, or mer­chant, en­ti­tles one to a place on the up­per rounds of the so­cial lad­der. It is dif­fer­ent in Nor­way, how­ev­er. To be a pro­fes­sor there is to be at the top of the lad­der.

Though there are four dis­tinct class­es in Swe­den, the no­bil­ity, the cler­gy, the gen­try, and the peas­antry, there are but three in Nor­way--the no­bil­ity be­ing ut­ter­ly want­ing. No aris­toc­ra­cy is ac­knowl­edged, not even that of the of­fice-​hold­er, for in this fa­vored coun­try where priv­ileged per­sons are un­known, the of­fice-​hold­er is on­ly the hum­ble ser­vant of the pub­lic. In fact, per­fect so­cial equal­ity pre­vails with­out any po­lit­ical dis­tinc­tions what­ev­er.

Sylvius Hogg be­ing one of the most in­flu­en­tial men in the coun­try, the read­er will not be sur­prised to learn that he was al­so a mem­ber of the Stor­thing; and in this au­gust body, by the well-​known pro­bity of his pub­lic and pri­vate life even more than by his mighty in­tel­lect, he wield­ed a pow­er­ful in­flu­ence even over the peas­ant deputies elect­ed in such large num­bers in the ru­ral dis­tricts.

Ev­er since the adop­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion of 1814, it may be tru­ly said that Nor­way is a re­pub­lic with the King of Swe­den for its pres­ident; for Nor­way, ev­er jeal­ous of her rights, has care­ful­ly guard­ed her in­di­vid­ual­ity. The Stor­thing will have noth­ing what­ev­er to do with the Swedish par­lia­ment; hence it is on­ly nat­ural that the most promi­nent and pa­tri­ot­ic mem­bers of the Stor­thing should be re­gard­ed with dis­trust on the oth­er side of the imag­inary fron­tier that sep­arates Swe­den from Nor­way.

This was the case with Sylvius Hogg. Be­ing ex­treme­ly in­de­pen­dent in char­ac­ter, and ut­ter­ly de­void of am­bi­tion, he had re­peat­ed­ly de­clined a po­si­tion in the Cab­inet; and a stanch de­fend­er of all the rights of his na­tive land, he had con­stant­ly and un­flinch­ing­ly op­posed any threat­ened en­croach­ment on the part of Swe­den.

Such is the moral and po­lit­ical gulf be­tween the two coun­tries that the King of Swe­den--then Os­car XV.--af­ter be­ing crowned at Stock­holm, was obliged to go through a sim­ilar cer­emo­ny at Dron­theim, the an­cient cap­ital of Nor­way. Such too is the sus­pi­cious re­serve of Nor­we­gian men of busi­ness, that the Bank of Chris­tia­nia is un­will­ing to ac­cept the notes of the Bank of Stock­holm! Such too is the clear­ly de­fined line of de­marka­tion be­tween the two na­tions that the Swedish flag floats nei­ther over the pub­lic build­ings of Nor­way, nor from the masts of Nor­we­gian ves­sels. The one has its blue bunting, bear­ing a yel­low cross; the oth­er a blue cross up­on a crim­son ground.

Sylvius Hogg was a thor­ough Nor­we­gian in heart and in soul, and stout­ly de­fend­ed her rights up­on all oc­ca­sions; so, when in 1854 the Stor­thing was dis­cussing the ques­tion of hav­ing nei­ther a viceroy nor even a gov­er­nor at the head of the state, he was one of the most en­thu­si­as­tic cham­pi­ons of the mea­sure.

Con­se­quent­ly, though he was by no means pop­ular in the east­ern part of Scan­di­navia, he was adored in the west­ern part of it, even in the most re­mote ham­lets. His name was a house­hold word through­out Nor­way from the dunes of Chris­tiansand to the bleak rocks of the North Cape, and so wor­thy was he of this uni­ver­sal re­spect that no breath of calum­ny had ev­er sul­lied the rep­uta­tion of ei­ther the deputy or the pro­fes­sor. But though he was a Nor­we­gian to the core he was a hot-​blood­ed man, with none of the tra­di­tion­al cold­ness and ap­athy of his com­pa­tri­ots; but much more prompt and res­olute in his thoughts and acts than most Scan­di­na­vians, as was proved by the quick­ness of his move­ments, the ar­dor of his words, and the vi­vac­ity of his ges­tures. Had he been born in France, one would have un­hesi­tat­ing­ly pro­nounced him a South­ern­er.

Sylvius Hogg's for­tune had nev­er ex­ceed­ed a fair com­pe­tence, for he had not en­tered in­to pol­itics for the pur­pose of mak­ing mon­ey. Nat­ural­ly un­selfish, he nev­er thought of him­self, but con­tin­ual­ly of oth­ers; nor was he tor­ment­ed by a thirst for fame. To be a deputy was enough for him; he craved no fur­ther ad­vance­ment.

Just at this time Sylvius Hogg was tak­ing ad­van­tage of a three months' va­ca­tion to re­cu­per­ate af­ter a year of se­vere leg­isla­tive toil. He had left Chris­tia­nia six weeks be­fore, with the in­ten­tion of trav­el­ing through the coun­try about Dron­theim, the Hardan­ger, the Tele­mark, and the dis­tricts of Kongs­berg and Dram­men. He had long been anx­ious to vis­it these provinces of which he knew noth­ing; and his trip was con­se­quent­ly one of im­prove­ment and of plea­sure. He had al­ready ex­plored a part of the re­gion, and it was on his re­turn from the north­ern dis­tricts that the idea of vis­it­ing the fa­mous falls of the Rjukan--one of the won­ders of the Tele­mark--first oc­curred to him. So, af­ter sur­vey­ing the route of the new rail­road--which as yet ex­ist­ed on­ly on pa­per--be­tween the towns of Dron­theim and Chris­tia­nia, he sent for a guide to con­duct him to Dal. He was to meet this guide on the left bank of the Maan; but lured on by the beau­ties of the Maristien, he ven­tured up­on the dan­ger­ous pass with­out wait­ing for his guide. An un­usu­al want of pru­dence in a man like him and one that near­ly cost him his life, for had it not been for the time­ly as­sis­tance ren­dered by Joel and Hul­da Hansen, the jour­ney would have end­ed with the trav­el­er him­self in the grim depths of the Rjukan­fos.