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 Jack Welch
SPEAKS
Wit and Wisdom from the World’s
Greatest Business Leader

Completely Revised and Updated

JANET LOWE

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

ffirs.indd iii 9/25/07 11:35:14 AM

ffirs.indd ii 9/25/07 11:35:14 AM
 Jack Welch
SPEAKS
Wit and Wisdom from the World’s
Greatest Business Leader

ffirs.indd i 9/25/07 11:35:13 AM

ffirs.indd ii 9/25/07 11:35:14 AM
 Jack Welch
SPEAKS
Wit and Wisdom from the World’s
Greatest Business Leader

Completely Revised and Updated

JANET LOWE

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

ffirs.indd iii 9/25/07 11:35:14 AM

 Copyright © 2008 by Janet Lowe. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under
Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the
prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment
of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222
Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or
on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission
should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or
online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have
used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or
warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this
book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended
by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies
contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult
with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall
be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but
not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services or for technical
support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United
States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or
fax (317) 572-4002.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content
that appears in print may not be available in electronic formats. For more
information about Wiley products, visit our Web site at www.wiley.com.
ISBN 978-0-470-15261-4
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ffirs.indd iv 9/25/07 11:35:15 AM

 This book is dedicated to my dear brothers,
David Walker, Lisle Kincaid, and
Dale Lawrence Lowe.

ffirs.indd v 9/25/07 11:35:15 AM

ffirs.indd vi 9/25/07 11:35:15 AM
 Contents

Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1

IN ONE DECADE: FROM LETTERMAN TO SEINFELD 13

AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY 24
Growing Up in Salem 24
The First to Go to College 29
Sports Were Everything 33
Ice Can’t Form on a Swift-Moving Stream 37
Take This Job and Do It 46

QUALITIES OF A LEADER: WELCH STYLE 50

The Challenge: To Be Fair 50
The Temperament of a Boss 52
The Thrill of Victory 54
A Typical Meeting with Chairman Welch 57
Humor Us 60

vii

ftoc.indd vii 9/25/07 11:35:38 AM

 viii CONTENTS

WELCH’S WORLD: GENERAL ELECTRIC 62

The Engine Called General Electric 62
GE: Just an Everyday $163 Billion
Family Store 68
Beyond National Borders 69
Heros 72
The Holy City 74
GE Jargon 79
Dirty Diamonds and Other GE Scandals 81

THE FABRIC OF LEADERSHIP 87

Be a Leader, Not a Manager 87
No Ideas du Jour 91
The Trap: Measuring Everything,
Understanding Nothing 96
Don’t Sell Hats to Each Other 97
Share Information 101
The Creed 104
Four Types of Leaders 107
The Best Mutual Fund in the World 110

WELCH, THE CHANGE AGENT 113

Change Before You Have To 113
Go for the Leap 119
Managing Paradox 121
Productivity: Unlimited Juice in the Lemon 122

THE HARDWARE REVOLUTION 128

Putting Money on the Right Gambles 128
Three Big Circles 132
Be Number 1 or Number 2:
A Concept That Should Be Gone 136

ftoc.indd viii 9/25/07 11:35:38 AM

 Contents ix

Flattening the GE Wedding Cake 139

Downsizing 142
Honey, I Shrunk GE 145

THE SOFTWARE REVOLUTION 147

The Soft Values 147
Workout 151
Simplicity 156
Speed 159
Self-Confidence 163
Labor Unions 166
A Boundaryless GE 169
Searching the Planet for the Best Practices 174
Teamwork 177
Stretch 178
Six Sigma Quality 182
It All Comes Out in the Wash 189

TAKING STOCK 193

Fail Your Way to Success 193
Welch’s Critics 201
The German Point of View 207
Being a Good Citizen 210
Work /Life Balance 221
How Much Is Leadership Worth? 222
What Made Jack Welch a Success? 223

THE ROCKY ROAD TO RETIREMENT 225

The Race for Jack’s Job 225
How the Contenders Have Done 229
The Honeywell Hustle 230

ftoc.indd ix 9/25/07 11:35:39 AM

 x CONTENTS

Honeywell after GE 234

GE after Jack 234

THE REINVENTION OF JACK WELCH 237

Falling in Love 237
Back at Harvard Business Review:
A Moral Dilemma 239
Who Is Suzy? 241
The Dirty Divorce 242
Passing Back the Perks 244
The Wedding 245
The New Couple 246
The John F. Welch College of Business 247
Jack’s New Career 248

SUMMING UP 250
General Electric and Jack Welch—
A Chronology 252

Endnotes 259
Permissions 287

ftoc.indd x 9/25/07 11:35:39 AM

 Acknowledgments

Thanks to Joan O’Neil, Kevin Commins, Mary Daniello,

Laura Walsh, and others at John Wiley & Sons for their
enthusiasm, support, and expert knowledge.
Many thanks to my literary agent, Alice Fried Martell,
for her faith and diligence. Joyce Hergenham and
Dr. Steve Kerr of General Electric were extremely
helpful in preparing this book. Support for the book
also was provided by Art and Lorena Goeller, Randall
Michler, Barbara Yagerman, and Bill Bryant.

xi

flast.indd xi 9/25/07 11:35:57 AM

flast.indd xii 9/25/07 11:35:58 AM
 Jack Welch
SPEAKS
Wit and Wisdom from the World’s
Greatest Business Leader

flast.indd xiii 9/25/07 11:35:58 AM

flast.indd xiv 9/25/07 11:35:58 AM
 Introduction

Here is how the preface began for the original 1998

edition of Jack Welch Speaks: “This is a book about lead-
ership and about one of the most praised and perhaps
the most feared and certainly one of the most confound-
ing and controversial bosses in America.” Jack Welch
was then chairman of General Electric, a dominant
force in the world economy. He’s no longer in that posi-
tion; but Welch remains one of the most praised, con-
founding, and controversial of U.S. business leaders.
This book is still about leadership, but it has become
about reinvention also. It is about how Jack Welch
went—using his own words—from “prince to pig” and
back again. It is about a remarkable man who did not
retire and simply disappear from the world’s economic
canvas but rather moved from a master manager to the
master of his own universe.

cintro.indd 1 9/25/07 11:36:19 AM

 2 JACK WELCH SPEAKS

The year 2001 was a cataclysmic year for Americans,

with the shock and the horror of the September 11 ter-
rorist attacks dominating our lives. But for Jack Welch,
it also was a year of personal and professional turmoil.
Welch was on target to retire at the end of 2000; but
there was concern that he was stalling, that retirement
would be traumatic for a man who had been so deeply
embedded in his job. Come October, he’d narrowed his
successor down to three candidates but still had not
identified the finalist. Then suddenly Welch decided to
make a last-minute bid to capture another U.S. giant,
Honeywell International. He would stay on at GE to
complete the ambitious project. The $45 billion deal
would have been the largest industrial merger in world
history. It would increase GE’s size by one-third and give
GE a near monopoly in several areas, including building
engines for large regional jets. Although U.S. antitrust
officials gave approval, the European Commission
finally demanded so many divestitures that the deal lost
its appeal to GE. In July 2001, Welch called the merger
off. With nothing left to do, he retired in September after
21 years at GE.
At the same time, Jack was working with a collabora-
tor on what he called the hardest thing he’d ever done,
his autobiography. Then, during a fall book publicity
interview with Harvard Business Review, Welch, who was
married, fell in love with the writer/editor interviewing

cintro.indd 2 9/25/07 11:36:19 AM

 Introduction 3

him. By the end of the year, he was involved in an affair

and facing both a messy divorce and financial disclo-
sures that delivered agonizing blows to his reputation.
Welch was definitely in the news, and the spin wasn’t
positive. “Welch divorce will deflate superhero myth,”
blasted one headline.
But back to the basics: John Francis “Jack” Welch, who
led General Electric for more than two decades, is a global
legend, the man who drew the blueprints for the recon-
struction of U.S. industry. Welch was voted “most respected
CEO” in Industry Week’s survey of chief executives several
times. Business Week proclaimed Welch “the gold standard
against which other CEOs are measured.”1 This hadn’t
always been the case. Industry Week also noted that Welch,
“the most acclaimed SOB of the last decade [1980s] is the
most acclaimed CEO of this one [1990s].”2
When Welch slid behind the wheel at GE in 1981, he
peeled right out onto the road to change—high-speed,
gut-wrenching change. Most experts, and certainly many
GE employees, couldn’t understand why he was ripping
up and rebuilding a company that seemed to be in fine
shape. Some believed that Welch was engaged in a rapa-
cious drive for size and power.
Let’s face it. Jack Welch is not an easy man to like or
understand. Once called the toughest boss in America,
Welch added some of the most feared words to the
business lexicon: restructuring, downsizing, rightsizing.

cintro.indd 3 9/25/07 11:36:20 AM

 4 JACK WELCH SPEAKS

He ignited a movement at GE that soon spread to the

entire U.S. workforce. But Welch denied being a pyro-
maniac; he was assigned to the fire watchtower and told
the world he saw smoke. Soon, others saw it, too.
When Welch took over at GE, he seemingly stepped
into a successful, well-managed, respected, historic
company—a little dull perhaps, but impressive. That
year, 1981, GE’s net income was up 9 percent to almost
$1.7 billion. Only nine other Fortune 500 companies had
earned more.
Yet Welch had been on the inside for more than 20
years. Since graduating from college, he had never
worked anywhere but at GE. As one observer put it,
“Jack Welch made GE, but GE also made Jack Welch.”
As an insider, Jack saw what others had not fully recog-
nized: a stodgy GE headed for ossification. Welch real-
ized that the business world faced dramatic changes in
its new global, high-technology environment. He also
knew GE wasn’t ready for it.
Welch became known as a “tough-love capitalist,” and
soon other companies were forced to follow his lead.
“Welch’s GE,” said Victor H. Vroom, professor at the Yale
School of Organization and Management, “is a model for
the promise—and the problems—of creating the modern
industrial company.”3 After two decades of Welch-inspired
challenges and changes, GE still is leader of the pack
among the best-managed and most financially successful

cintro.indd 4 9/25/07 11:36:20 AM

 Introduction 5

enterprises anywhere. Only a handful of U.S. corpora-

tions of GE’s age remain at the forefront of their indus-
tries and are formidable competitors in the global arena.
Welch was a busy man at GE. Along with powering
up training and evaluation and driving home quality
and efficiency, he was involved in more than a thousand
acquisitions. This averages out to more than two per
month. When he retired, GE employed nearly 300,000
people in about 15 major businesses ranging from jet
engines to credit cards.
Who is this most feared and admired leader? If, as
Welch claims, the label “toughest boss in America” is
unfair, the “toughest competitor in America” is not. The
Economist described him as a “restless Irish-American.”4
Certainly, Welch never seems to rest. An outgoing, exu-
berant news and information junkie, Welch speaks with
a slight stammer, bites his nails, and looks every minute
his age. Though he is almost bald, his 5-foot-8-inch
frame is trim and wiry. His penetrating, pale blue eyes
sparkle with curiosity, interest, and intellect.
In 1982, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Mr. Welch
can spend a day visiting a factory, jump on a plane,
catch a few hours sleep, and start all over again; in
between, he might stop in Sun Valley, Idaho, and, as he
puts it, ‘ski like crazy for five days.’ ”5
He still has fire in the belly at age 72. Welch spikes
words across sentences like a volleyball player smashing

cintro.indd 5 9/25/07 11:36:20 AM

 6 JACK WELCH SPEAKS

a ball over the net. He slams his points home like a bridge
player holding high cards in the trump suit. He speaks in
short, incomplete sentences marked by the accent of a
Boston cop. He was famous for interrupting subordinates
when they hesitated momentarily. He is sometimes
“excitable to excess,” former GE vice chairman Edward
Hood once observed.6
Even ill health hasn’t slowed him down. In May 1995,
he underwent quintuple-bypass heart surgery. He returned
to work on Labor Day, 1995. After his retirement, Welch
had three back surgeries; but he remarried for the third
time and remains a globe-trotting writer, speaker, and
consultant. One small concession: He’s given up his
beloved golf.
The Washington Post once called Welch an “unlikely
prophet”; yet despite the stuffy image the company had
when Welch took over, GE has long been dedicated to
management innovation. Notions such as strategic plan-
ning, decentralization, and market research all arose
from the fertile brains of GE managers. It is no surprise,
then, that sound management flows from GE culture, a
company that promised to “bring good things to life.”
Yet few people expected the originality and daring that
Welch brought to the job.
Indeed, Welch did not follow a traditional career path at
the company. He started out in a plastics Skunk Words
(research and development services) and deftly sidestepped

cintro.indd 6 9/25/07 11:36:21 AM

 Introduction 7

the corporate mainstream for about half of his work life.

Welch entered the race for GE’s top slot perceived as an
outsider, too young and too troublesome. Welch got the job
in his own scratchy way, and he did the job in his own
scratchy way.

This was my second book about a business leader,

primarily stated in his own words. The first was the best
seller Warren Buffett Speaks (Wiley, 1997). Though Buf-
fett and Welch are vastly different men with different
styles, skills, goals, and accomplishments, they share
many similarities: Both are the absolute best at what
they do. Both have been intensely smitten with their
own work and focused on it. Both men are out-front,
unabashedly American middle class. Both attended
public school and graduated from state universities.
Buffett was raised as a Protestant and Welch as a Cath-
olic; and though neither attend their childhood churches
much, both stick to hard-line principles when doing
their jobs. In the same way that Buffett led the Midwest
triumph over Wall Street, Welch led the factory-town
New England victory over international business. Both
show us that the American dream survives. Both dem-
onstrate that everyday people have plenty of dignity,
capability, and intelligence to accomplish whatever
they aspire to do.

cintro.indd 7 9/25/07 11:36:21 AM

 8 JACK WELCH SPEAKS

One last similarity: The two men share their ideas lib-
erally. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway annual report has
become a best seller among professional and invidual
investors. The Washington Post reported that Welch’s
“annual letter to shareholders has become closely
watched by other corporate leaders and business pro-
fessors for news on the latest thinking on management,
and his techniques are being adopted throughout corpo-
rate America.”7
Welch often explains that the business world is rid-
dled with paradoxes and that successful business leaders
in the future will accept paradox as normal. Well, Jack
Welch is a paradox himself; and said Dr. Steve Kerr, GE’s
former chief learning officer, that is the most interesting
thing about him. His complexity makes him unique,
sometimes exasperating, but always intriguing.
Welch clearly has blemishes and blind spots. He had a
tendency to fight too long for lost causes, such as his
refusal to accept public and government demands that
GE clean up pollutants it put in New York’s Hudson River.
While he talked about giving opportunity and encour-
agement to women and minorities, his management
team remained overwhelmingly male and white. Jeffrey
Immelt, who followed Welch as GE chairman, said he
has been haunted by a group photograph of GE upper
management and the obvious imbalance. He’s vowed to
improve the picture.

cintro.indd 8 9/25/07 11:36:21 AM

Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
—an amusement which, as the men were still employed in blacking the
rigging, gave promise of an early repetition.
Slung from a block at the mainmast head was a small triangular stage,
made of three battens, on which sat a very dirty individual with a pot of slush
before him and a tarring-brush in his hand, with which he was polishing off
his morning’s work on the shining mast.
Seated on the bitts below was a sturdy Norwegian, who, as if disdaining the
compromise usually adopted by the coasting inhabitants, appeared in the
caricature of a full-dressed Tellemarker, with a strip of jacket like a child’s
spencer, of orange tawny wadmaal, great loose blue trousers with a waistband
over his shoulder blades, crimson braces, and two strings of silver bullets
dependent from the collars of a very dirty shirt. He was caressing a
particularly ugly dog, which he called Garm,—an appellation which proved him
to be what in England would be called a fast man; it is much as if an English
young gentleman were to call his dog Satan. He was haranguing, of course,
on the vast superiority of Norway to Sweden, and the infinite degradation
which the former country had received from the union of the crowns,—that
being not only the most favourite topic of Norwegian declamation, but, in the
present instance, at all events, the most injudicious and unsuitable subject in
which to exhibit before so mixed an audience.
They behaved, however, exceedingly well, and rather trotted him out, much
to the disgust of Torkel, who had sense enough to perceive what was going
on, and would have infinitely preferred their beating him: after vainly
endeavouring to draw his countrymen away, he had walked forward, and was
looking moodily over the bows.
“As for the Swedes,” said our judicious friend, “they are nothing better than
swindlers. I have, for my sins, to go to Gotheborg every year, to lay in stores
for the winter, and I am sure to be cheated. We don’t let Jews land on our
shores, and I must go to Gotheborg to find them.”
“Well, but we have no Jews either.” said a bye-stander; “they do not come
to us, they go to the Free Towns.”
“You are all Jews; the real Jews don’t go to you, that is very true, but it is
because they know that the Gotheborgers are hogs, and their law does not
allow them to have anything to do with unclean animals. Yes, you are all
swine together. Why, I tell you a Norwegian dog would not touch anything
Swedish. Come here, Garm!”—and he pulled out of his pocket a bit of ham,
evidently filched from the breakfast table.
 Here the Parson thought he detected a glance of intelligence between
Captain Hjelmar and the man at the mast-head, who, much amused, had left
off his work to listen.
“Come here, Garm!”—placing the tempting morsel on the deck.
The dog wagged his tail, evidently preparing to seize it.
“Svenske!” said the man. The dog, who had been well trained in this
common trick, turned up his nose with apparent disgust, and refused the
meat.
“There!” said he, “I defy any Swede among you all to make a true
Norwegian dog eat a bit of it. Garm knows what you all are, don’t you,
Garm?”
Just then, by the merest accident in the world, the slush-kettle got
unhitched from the stage above his head, and came tumbling over on the
deck, and in its descent, taking the unfortunate Norwegian on the nape of his
neck as he was leaning forward to caress his dog, pitched the whole of its
contents between his jacket collar and his back.
Captain Hjelmar rated the man severely for his carelessness in spoiling his
decks, and, ordering him off the stage, directed the boatswain to put his
name into the black list. The man, however, did not seem much cast down
about it, but slid down the greasy mast with a broad grin on his countenance,
while the Norwegians carried their discomfited companion forward to purify
him; and Garm, profiting by the confusion, proved a traitor to his country, by
not only swallowing down the Swedish ham, but also by licking up as much as
he could of the Swedish slush that had poured from the head and shoulders
of his master on the Swedish deck.
The coast of Sweden and the banks of the Gotha below the town, offer a
striking contrast to the lovely scenery they had left. There are the rocks and
the fringing islets, as in Norway, but here they are all flat, and most of them
absolutely bare. The coasts, too, where they could be seen, exhibited ledges
of rock and wastes of sand, with just enough cultivation to make the
desolateness painful, by connecting it with the idea of people living there.
Eider ducks would dive before them, and wild-fowl in little knots would cross
their course, and hoopers would go trumpeting over their heads, with their
white wings reflecting the sun like silver, and dippers of all sorts would play at
hide-and-seek with the waves, and seals would put up their bullet-heads to
gaze at them as they passed. The water is always beautiful when the sun
shines directly upon it; but the eye must not range so far as the shore, for no
sunshine could gild that.
There was a good deal of life, and traffic too, upon the waters, for
Gotheborg, the nearest port to the Free Towns and to all foreign trade
whatever, as well as the outlet of the river navigation, may be considered the
Liverpool of Sweden.
As they proceeded the scenery slightly improved: the right bank began to
be dotted with houses and small villages, wretched enough compared with
the picturesque places on the other end of the Skaggerack, but at all events
showing signs of life. At length they became continuous, and at a couple of
miles distance, the three churches of Gotheborg, with the close cluster of
houses, came into view. The anchor was dropped opposite to the fishing
suburb of Gammle Hafvet, and a shore-going steamer came alongside to
receive the passengers; which steamer, much to the fishermen’s delight,
contained their old friend Moodie, who, on hearing that the Norway packet
had been signalized, had gone to meet her on the chance of seeing them.
Moodie was a singular character,—a cadet of good family, and brought up to
no profession; he had been from his childhood passionately fond of field
sports, in all of which he excelled. At an early age he had become his own
master, with a good education, some usage of the world, a handsome person,
a peculiarly active frame and sound constitution, and two hundred a year,
pour tout potage. Rightly judging that England afforded no fitting scope for
his peculiar talents, without the imminent danger of a committal for poaching,
he had expatriated himself to Ireland; which country, he had, in a sporting
point of view, thoroughly studied, and made himself completely master of its
resources; he knew when every river in the whole island came into season
and went out, and the best and cheapest way of transferring self and
encumbrances from one point to another. He knew the times at which the
woodcocks and the snipes would arrive, and the out-of-the-way places at
which they may be safely shot; he could give a catalogue raisonnée of all the
wayside public-houses in sporting localities, and was hand-in-glove with half
the disreputable squireens of Ireland. Certainly, he bagged more grouse
annually than many a man who pays a rent of five or six hundred a year for
the privilege of supplying the London markets.
It was on the Erne that the fishermen had met him, and Moodie being an
extremely well-informed and gentleman-like man, besides being a thorough
sportsman, they had struck up with him what might be called an intimate
acquaintance, which, now that they met as Englishmen on a foreign land,
might be considered an intimate friendship.
 It was the railroads, and the consequent invasion of the cockneys, which
had expatriated Moodie from his adopted country; people began to preserve,
too, and to let their fishing and shooting-grounds; even the Erne was not
what it had been, and Moodie, whose whole belongings, besides his live stock
in the shape of dogs, were contained in two portmanteaus and as many gun-
cases, packed them, and one morning found himself standing on the quay of
Gotheborg.
If, instead of the coast of Sweden, it had been the coast of the Cannibal
Islands, Moodie would soon have found himself at home; but here he had
letters of introduction, and Karl Johann, who had a high opinion of the
English, was very anxious to get an infusion of English blood among his
Swedes. Moodie’s peculiar talents, too, which in England might have
consigned him to the county jail, in Sweden found their legitimate outlet; he
soon found a beautiful little country house on the banks of the Gotha; had no
difficulty in renting the exclusive right of fishing for some miles above and
below it; paid the rent and all expenses of boats and boatmen, and put a
handsome sum into his pocket besides, by supplying Gotheborg with lake
salmon (salmo ferox). He then got the rangership of a royal forest, by which
he kept his numerous hangers-on in what he called butcher’s meat, and
traded with the Zoological Gardens and private collections in the wild beasts
and birds of the country, by means of which traffic, he had furnished himself
with the choicest collection of sporting fire-arms and fishing tackle to be found
in the north. Besides which, Moodie had become a public character. Sweden
has its wild beasts as well as its ordinary game,—he who destroys a wolf or a
bear is a public benefactor, and Moodie had a peculiar talent for tracking
them. Every farmer within a hundred miles of Gäddebäck would pull off his
hat to him; but that is not saying much, for a Swede is always pulling off his
hat, and if he had nothing else to pull it off to he would be making his
salaams to the cows and sheep.
It was not a great deal of Gotheborg the fishermen saw that evening; their
experience of the country was confined to a march by the shortest road from
the landing place to Todd’s Hotel, and their subsequent view to a sort of
Dutch interior, of which pipes, tobacco, bottles, glasses, juniper beer of native
manufacture, and thin vinous importations from Bordeaux, made up the
accessories; but the fishermen had much to inquire after, and Moodie had
much to tell.
Breakfast, always a luxurious meal in the north, at least, in summer time,
on account of the quantities of berries and the abundant supply of cream,
brought a visitor,—a young artillery officer, a friend of Birger, by name
Dahlgren, and by rank Count, who had his quarters in the inn,—for the
Swedish officers have no mess like ours, but lodge permanently in the hotels,
paying a fixed sum per week, and dining at the table d’hôte. Like Birger, he
was a painter, but whereas the guardsman exercised his art simply as an
amateur, or at most, in the public service of his country, his friend, Count as
he was, exercised his as a profession, and as a means of eking out his scanty
pay.
There would be a grand review that afternoon, he said, and it would be well
worth seeing, for Gotheborg is the great artillery station of Sweden, and the
Commander-in-Chief, with his staff, who were on a tour of inspection, had
arrived by the canal steamer from the new fortress of Wanås, on the Wetter.
This piece of information, which the artilleryman detailed with great glee,
was received by Birger with a wry countenance, as certain to detain him
within doors as long as the General remained at Gotheborg,—for it will be
remembered he was at that very time unable to join his regiment on account
of pressing family affairs.
This did not affect the others, so, leaving their friend to amuse himself as
best he might, by improving his sketches or watching the magpies from the
window, they started, under the pilotage of their new ally, for a tour of
observation.
Whatever else Gotheborg is famous for, certainly the most remarkable thing
in it is its flocks of magpies,—birds which, in our country, are extremely wild,
and by no means fond of town life. Gregarious, in the proper sense of the
term, they are not, but they are as numerous as sparrows in London, very
nearly as tame, and much more impudent. This by no means arises from any
affection which the inhabitants have for the bird—for magpies are ugly and
mischievous all the world over, and quite as mischievous in Gotheborg as
anywhere else,—but from a popular superstition they are under the especial
protection of the devil—and truly the devil cares for his own: they build their
nests and bring up their young under the very noses of the schoolboys; they
feed them with stolen goods, filched from every kitchen,—and often and
often, among the delicacies of the season, they regale them with spring
chicken of their own killing. But no one molests a magpie; Heaven only knows
what would be the consequences of killing one; and, though Government has
set a price on their heads, they sleep in safety, under the protection of their
great master.
The town ought to be handsome, but it is not; the description would look
well on paper. A great broad canal through the centre, with quays all the way
on both sides, as at Dublin, only twice as broad, forming a very wide street;
and from this five or six similar canals, similarly furnished with quays and
streets, branch off at right angles. The banks of all these canals are planted
with trees, and arranged as shaded footways. All this sounds as if the place
ought to be pretty, but, though every word of this is true, the reality falls far
short of the ideas it conveys. The houses are mean and low, and, the
windows being flush with the sides, the whole appearance is pasteboard-like
and unsubstantial, which the reality is not. The Swedes build their wooden
houses in very good taste, and they harmonise very well with the scenery, but
they should stick to that—ne sutor ultra crepidam: let not the carpenter aspire
to be a mason. Every house, large or small, in town or in country, has very
large panes of glass,—the very cabins have them; the glass is as bad as bad
can be, full of flaws and waves, and very thin besides; even this produces a
bad effect; besides, it is impossible to admire the finest of towns, when
walking over streets so roughly paved that eyes and thoughts must be
continually directed towards the footing.
There is a capital market, and the canals bring the hay, and the fuel, and all
other heavy articles from the interior, to the very doors of the houses. It was
singular to see floating haystacks and faggot piles—for so they looked, the
hulls of the boats being completely hidden by their freight,—towed up in
strings by the little steam-tugs, and moored to the quays. If Gotheborg is not
a prosperous town, Sweden will not support one at all, for it is impossible for
any situation to be more favourable for trade. The river itself forms a secure
harbour, its only fault being that vessels of heavy draught cannot anchor
within a mile of the town. The interior water communications comprehend all
the midland provinces, and the landing and shipping of goods is as easy as art
can make it; besides, it is the outermost port of the whole country.
The markets, certainly, are well supplied, especially that of fish, both salt
and fresh-water. Beef and mutton are among its articles of export to the
southern coasts of Norway, and there is not a bad display of vegetables for so
northern a country. The quantities of spinach which are seen everywhere, and
which mingle with every dish, rather surprise the traveller, till he finds out that
the sandhills which he has seen on each side of him all the way up the river,
are covered with it, growing wild—wild as it is, English garden spinach is not
at all better flavoured. Singularly enough, melons are plentiful; one would
almost as soon expect to meet with pines in these latitudes,—but the short
summer of Sweden is peculiarly favourable for them.
The trade of the place does not look very lively, and the bustle in the
streets is nothing at all like that of Bristol or Liverpool. What little stir there
was just then, seemed to be rather military than mercantile. Dirty, slovenly-
looking artillerymen, with ugly blue and yellow uniforms, putting one
disagreeably in mind of the Edinburgh Review; overalls patched extensively
with leather that terribly wanted the blacking-brush; and dingy steel
scabbards, that did not know what emery-stone was, were clanking about the
streets, followed by little crowds; and groups of officers were standing at the
doors of the hotels and lodging-houses. Evidently a review was not an
everyday business.
The Parson and Captain were soon deserted by their military cicerone, who
left them, to prepare for his part in the military display, having directed them
into the street that leads to the scene of action. This was a large meadow, or
small park, to the east of the town, rather a pretty promenade, enclosed with
trees, which was now crowded with people. Towns, especially trading towns,
are not remarkable for costume. The people, seeing such a variety of
foreigners, get to be citizens of the world themselves, and so lose their
nationalities. But there were a few fancy dresses, too, from the country
round; short round corduroy jackets, sometimes a sort of tartan, too, but
which invariably had rows of buttons sewed as thick together as they could
stand. Among the women, a handkerchief was frequently tied round the head
instead of a bonnet; but every one, almost, carried his or her bunch of
flowers, an article which abounded in the markets; these were very often
carried in the hats, or stuck through the knots of the kerchiefs.
And now the bugles of the artillery were heard, and the rumbling of wheels,
and the trampling of horses, as battery after battery rolled into the park. The
Swedes call them horse artillery, but they are, in reality, only field batteries;
for of horse artillery, properly so called, that most beautiful of military toys,
they have none. Their guns, twelve pounders, are drawn by six horses, each
of which carries a man. In bringing the guns into action, the off-man of each
pair dismounted, and these were joined by three others, whose seat was on
the limbers. These are hardly men enough to work so heavy a gun, allowing
for the casualties of action, but on emergencies the driver of the middle pair
also lends his services.
There was nothing showy in the review, the manœuvres of which were
confined to advancing and retreating in line, and forming column, and
deploying into line again; but all at a foot’s pace, or at a very slow trot. They
had no idea of changing front, or retreating in echéllon, or any of those showy
manœuvres in which the prolong is used. In fact, so far as display went, it
was a very slow affair indeed; the men, however, seemed to know their work
pretty well, and though individually dirty and slovenly and without the well set
up carriage of our own soldiers, they bore, as a body, rather a soldier-like
appearance. They ride very forward, absolutely on the horse’s withers—this is
said to give the horse greater facility of draught; and it may, but at all events,
it gives a most awkward and unsoldier-like appearance to the men, which is in
no way improved by the manner in which they carry their swords—the elbows
sticking out at right angles to the body, and their knuckles thrust into their
sides, as if they had a pain in their ribs.
The guns seemed to be very much under-horsed, but perhaps this is more
apparent than real; for the Swedish horses, though small, are strong and wiry,
and their enclosed country is not only not calculated for horse artillery
manœuvres, but does not admit of them. The chances are, that a whole
campaign might be fought in Sweden without the artillery being required to
move faster than at a foot-pace. So far as numbers went, they mustered at
least three times as many guns as can be got together at Woolwich for love or
money at the best of times.
The army of Sweden is very curiously constituted, and it is not easy to
reckon up its effective strength. The regular army does not consist of above
10,000 men; the guards—than which no finer body of men is to be seen in
Europe,—the artillery, and three or four garrison regiments, who are stationed
at Wanås, in the interior, and Carlscrona, and one or two other fortresses on
the coast.
The militia, which is called Beväring, consists of every man in the country
between the ages of twenty and twenty-five; these have regular days of
exercise, generally Sunday evenings in the summer, which is with them by no
means a popular arrangement, for those are the hours which the ingenuous
youths of Sweden devote to dancing, an amusement of which they are
passionately fond. This really is a much more effective force than it seems, for
the Swedes are natural soldiers; besides which, it gives them all a habit of
drill, which might be rendered serviceable in case of invasion; for, as every
man in the country has been drilled in his youth, they are all capable of
immediately taking their places in the ranks of the regular regiments. It would
be a very great improvement if they were drilled to ball practice, like the
Swiss and Tyrolese, for a Swede is terribly clumsy with fire-arms, and on a
skal, is just as likely to shoot himself or his comrade, as a bear or a wolf.
But the strength of the Swedish army lies in its Indelta, a description of
force peculiar to that country—unless the military colonies of Russia be
considered a parallel case.
 The crown possesses large estates, and these are leased out, like the
knight’s fees in old times, on man service, and for that purpose are divided
into hemmans, each hemman furnishing a man, who has a portion of it by
way of pay—the hemman is not a measure of size, but of produce. Fertile
hemmans are small, waste or barren hemmans are large; and thus it often
happens, when a crown estate has been cleared and brought into cultivation,
though quite as productive as some other estate, it furnishes a much smaller
quota.
The holder of such a property, is then bound to serve himself, if capable,
and to furnish a certain number of efficient soldiers, horse or foot, according
to the size of his estate. The whole country is divided into military provinces,
under colonels; these are subdivided into districts, under captains, with their
proper complement of subaltern and non-commissioned officers, who are paid
by the tenure of certain reserved farms, which they hold in virtue of their
commissions.
Whenever the Indelta is called out—and a third of them assemble in camp
every summer,—the crown tenants of the estates that furnished it are bound,
at their own expense, to cultivate the farms which the soldiers hold, and to
return to them their lands, when they are dismissed from active service, in the
same condition in which they took charge of them, accounting for any sale of
produce which they may have made.
The service of the Indelta is very popular, and for every vacancy there are
at least half a dozen candidates. No application is ever received without
written testimonials from the clergyman of the applicant’s parish, and no man
is ever admitted who has been convicted of any crime. Many of these crown
holdings have been purchased and re-purchased, and transferred from hand
to hand so often, that they are regarded as a sort of private property, and
their tenants very often complain of being burthened to a greater extent than
their countrymen. This, however, is as unreasonable as that a tenant should
complain that in paying rent he is not on an equality with the proprietor in
fee. The sale of crown lands is merely the transference of a beneficial lease.
So far as the morals of the people are concerned, the patronage of the
Indelta, and the reward it holds to good conduct, act very beneficially; as to
the efficacy of the force, the wars of Gustavus Adolphus and of Charles XII.,
may form a pretty fair criterion. The strength of this contingent to the
Swedish army, may be reckoned at 20,000 infantry, and 5,000 cavalry, and
has the advantage of being always available.
 “You may come out of your hole now, Birger,” said his friend, the
artilleryman, who, arriving hot and dusty from the barracks, was lounging
down the streets, with his jacket open and his stiff military stock in his hand,
a free and easy style of dress, in which an English officer would think it just
impossible to put his nose beyond the barrack gates. “The General and all his
staff are gone in a body to Arfwedsen’s Villa, so you are safe for to-day.”
“And for to-morrow, too,” said Birger, “for the steamer starts for Stockholm
to-morrow morning early; while you were amusing yourselves, I have been
doing business. As soon as I heard from the sound of your guns that the
General was safe, I stepped down to the quay, went on board the Daniel
Thunberg, and engaged two cabins—we will toss up who is to have the cabin
to himself.”
“Why, where’s Moodie?”
“Moodie!” said Birger, taking out his watch, “why, by this time Moodie is at
Agnesberg.”
“And where is Agnesberg?”
“The first stage to Trollhättan. He had transacted his business, and
transferred his herd of deer to the Zoological men before we came, so he said
he would start at once for Gäddebäck, and prepare to receive us. I rather
think there is some bear hunting afoot, for the Stockholm post came in while
you were at the review, and I am sure I recognised Bjornstjerna’s great splash
of a seal, and his scratchy hand. At all events, off started Moodie.”
“Why! is it not necessary to lay a forebud.”
“Not on the main road; there is traffic enough between this and
Wenersburg to keep holl-horses (retained horses) always at the stations. He
will be at Gäddebäck, I will venture to say, before daybreak.”
“And when do we sail?”
“At ten to-morrow; we can see the falls and the canal before nightfall, and
sleep at Trollhättan to-morrow night; and on the following morning Moodie is
to send his boat for us. And now for dinner, I have ordered it at the Prinds
Karl; Todd’s is a very good house to sleep at, and not bad for breakfast, but I
want to shew you what Swedish cookery is, as far as you can get any worth
eating in the provinces.”
 p. 251.

“Ah! there spoke the guardsman.”

“Well, it is very true, as you will confess, if ever I get you to Stockholm; is it
not, Count Dahlgren?” addressing the artillery officer. “You dine with us, of
course; in with you, and wash off the stains of war, which are pretty visible at
present. You have not more time than you know what to do with. If we do sail
to-morrow, we will make a night of it to-night.”
“Like our first night at Mosse Eurd?”
“No, hang it, no; not so bad as that;—that was all very well for the men,
but we do not make such beasts of ourselves in this country. I have told
them, though, to put plenty of champagne in ice, and to provide the best
claret they have got; we will be merry—and wise, if possible.”
“And if not possible?”
“Why, then, the merry without the wise.”
Whether mirth, or wisdom, or a judicious mixture of the two prevailed that
evening at the Prinds Karl, need not be related; but the next morning saw the
party on the clean white deck of the elegant little river steamer Daniel
Thunberg, dashing along its broad, still stream, between rows of feathering
rushes, sometimes so tall as to eclipse the still flat and uninteresting country
beyond them. Ducks there were, in such numbers, that the fishermen half
repented their engagement with Moodie; and Jacob, to whom every spot was
familiar, kept up an incessant chorus of regrets, pointing out here a spot
where he had made a fortune with the långref, having hauled up a three-
pound eel on every hook,—there a corner where he had caught a pike so big
he could not lift it into the boat, but was obliged to tow it astern all the way to
Gotheborg,—and there a bay in the rushes in which he had bagged five
swans, eight geese, and more ducks than he could count, at a single shot,—
with as many more stories, equally veracious, as he could get people to listen
to; and in fact, could be stopped by nothing short of that grand event in a
Swedish day, dinner, which, announced by the steamer’s bell, was served with
great magnificence in the saloon.
These little steamers form as luxurious a conveyance as can be imagined;
they are galley-built, that is to say, the quarter deck is two or three feet
higher than the waist; the after part is divided into ten or twelve little private
cabins, each possessing its own port, and each furnished with its two sofas
and its table; the fore part contains the saloon, or common cabin. They do
not carry very powerful engines, but they burn wood, and are as clean and as
free from disagreeable smells as if they were sailing vessels.
At the locks of Lilla Edet, where a reef comes across the river, forming a low
but very picturesque fall, the fine scenery commences. The fall itself is
singular. The water of the Gotha, fresh from the great lake of Wenern, which
acts as an enormous cesspool, is as clear and bright as that of the Torjedahl,
but with ten times its volume; it slips off the smooth ledge of rocks as if it
were falling over a step; the ledge off which it slips is seen through it as
distinctly as if it were enclosed in a glass case, for the water preserves its
unbroken transparency till it reaches the bottom, and then spreads out into a
broad border of foam, like a fan with swansdown fringe.
From this point, a very perceptible difference was remarkable in the run of
the current, which retarded considerably the way of the steamer through the
belt of highlands which separates the low tract bordering the sea-coast from
the higher level of Wenersborglan; and it was not till past five, that the low
rumbling, earth-shaking sound of the great falls began to tremble on the ear.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
TROLLHÄTTAN.

“Gefjon drew from Gylfi

Rich stored-up treasure,—
The land she joined to Denmark.
Four heads and eight eyes bearing,
While hot sweat trickled down them,
The oxen dragged the reft mass
Which forms this winsome island.”

Skald Bragi the Old.

“It was a wondrous sight to see

Topmast and pennon glitter free,
High raised above the greenwood tree—
As on dry land the galley moves,
By cliff and copse and alder groves.”

Lord of the Isles.

“Birger, what is the Swedish for ‘Go to the devil?’ I cannot make
these little brutes of boys understand me,” shouted the Captain, who
was not in the best of humours, having already made half a dozen
slips on very dangerous ground. In all Sweden, there is not a more
slippery bit of turf than that which clothes the cliffs and highlands of
Trollhättan. The bank along which he was scrambling to get a good
view of the falls rounded itself off gradually, getting more and more
out of the horizontal and into the vertical at every step, till at last it
plunged sheer into the foaming turn-hole of the middle fall, in which
the very best of swimmers would have had no more advantage over
the very worst than that of keeping his head above water till he
went down the third leap, and got knocked to pieces on the rocks
below. There was not a root to hold on by stronger than those of the
dwarf cranberries, whose smooth leaves only aided the natural
slipperiness. Heather is not common anywhere in Sweden; but here
there was quite enough not only to give a purple brown hue to the
scenery, but also to add to the difficulty of keeping one’s feet, in a
way which any one who has walked the side of a highland hill in very
dry weather will fully be able to appreciate. It was very irritating
when one at last had attained a point of view—after traversing what
to a leather-shod stranger was really a dangerous path—to have the
current of one’s thoughts interrupted by a parcel of bare-footed
urchins, who came frolicking over the very same ground, and
insisting that the visitor should see everything, from the orthodox
point of view set down by Murray, and from no other whatever, and
moreover should pay for being tormented and unpoeticised, the
regulated number of skillings.
The rush of waters was certainly very grand and very magnificent.
Much has been written about it in books of travels, and much more
in the album kept at the inn for the purpose of enshrining and
transmitting to posterity the extasies of successive generations of
travellers; but the Parson, who ought to have been lost in admiration
—to his shame be it spoken—appeared chiefly solicitous to procure
bait, which he and Torkel had been diligently hunting for in the
shallows. It was not without considerable difficulty that a trout
sufficiently small to fit the snap-hooks of the trolling-litch could be
found, and when it was found, we are happy to say, it met with no
more success than it deserved; for though at very considerable
personal risk he tried as much of the rushing water as his longest
trolling-rod would command, he was not rewarded with a single run.
But for all that, there certainly are fish in all the pools about these
tremendous falls, and that he had the opportunity of satisfying
himself about before he left off; for just as he was giving it up for a
bad job, Torkel, who had an eye for a fish like that of a sea-eagle,
caught sight of something alive that had poked itself into one of the
runs from the saw-mills, a place not three feet across; and
unscrewing the gaff which he was carrying, and substituting for it
the five-pronged spear, he plunged it into the water and brought out
a black trout (salmo ferox) of ten pounds weight at the end of it.
From the nature of the water it is impossible that trout can abound
at Trollhättan in any great numbers. The river has scarcely any
tributaries below the falls; and as it is absolutely impossible for a fish
to surmount them, the breeding ground is very limited; but, on the
other hand, the clearness of the water is precisely that which best
suits the constitution of a trout; bleak and gwinead, which form their
principal food, are very plentiful, and from the depth of the water,
there is scarcely any limit to the growth of the fish; a man, who is
satisfied to catch now and then a monster, will do very well at
Trollhättan, and in the course of the season will have a few stories to
tell, which in England will be set down as altogether fabulous,—but
it does not answer for a day’s fishing. The traveller may as well
make up his mind to admire the scenery at his leisure,—it will not
answer his purpose to wet a line there.
The Parson having convinced himself of this, and, moreover,
having had one or two very narrow escapes, reeled up his line and
contentedly sought out his friends, who, by this time, had succeeded
in explaining to the swarms of guides that their services were not
required, and were sitting on a heathery bank feathered with birch,
exactly in front of the middle falls, comfortably eating gooseberries,
which grow there in such plenty that, though the place swarms with
children—a whole regiment of soldiers with their wives and families
being hutted in the vicinity,—the bushes were still full of them.
“That is a curious cave,” said the Captain, pointing to a hole which
seemed to enter the face of the precipitous rock by the side of the
great fall, and to penetrate it for some distance; at least, the depth
was sufficiently great to be lost in darkness; the bottom of it was on
a level with the water, and was not accessible without a boat.
“That!” said Birger, “that is Polheim’s grave.”
“Do you mean to say that any man was buried there?”
 “Not the man himself, only the best part of a man—his reputation.
Polheim was an engineer, and when the first idea of making a
practicable communication between the Wener and the sea was
entertained, he attempted to carry it into effect by burrowing out
that hole. If he had succeeded in boring through the rock, he would
have accomplished the largest jet d’eau in the world. However,
Government were wise enough to put a stop to it, and to employ a
cleverer man. Polheim died—it is said of grief,—his body buried at
Wenersborg; what became of his soul, I will not take upon me to
say; but as for his reputation, there is no doubt about that—that lies
buried there.”
“That canal certainly is a wonderful work for a country like yours,
where the extent of land is so great, and the produce from it so
small.”
“It would have been more wonderful still,” said Birger, “for it would
have been done when the country was still poorer, had it not been
for the Reformation.”
“The Reformation!” said the Captain. “What, in the name of
Tenterden Steeple and the Goodwin Sands, has the Reformation to
do with the Gotha Canal?”
“Not much with the canal, but a good deal with Bishop Brask who
planned it—the man whom Geijer calls, and very deservedly, ‘the
friend of liberty, and the upright friend of his country.’ The present
canal, nearly as you see it now, was sketched out in a letter still
preserved, which was written in the year 1526, by the Bishop, to
stout old Thurè Jensen, whom men called King of East Gothland—
that gallant old fellow, who, when he saw how the Diet of Westeras
was going, struck up his drums and marched forth, swearing that no
man in Sweden should make him heathen, Lutheran, or heretic.
Before the Bishop’s scheme could be converted into a reality, stout
old Thurè was a headless corpse, and Brask a voluntary exile. But
the good which men do, lives after them. Gustavus, who had always
respected Brask, and would fain have retained him in his See of
Linköping, carried out many of his plans—and in the course of time
this, as you see, was carried out too, though it was not for a
hundred years or more after the successful king and the deprived
bishop had gone to their respective accounts.”
“Jacob has just been giving us another version of the story,” said
the Captain, “something about Gefjon and Gylfi.”
“O, the Gylfa-Ginning. Stupid old fool!—that did not happen here,
but down in the south, between Sweden and Denmark. So far,
however, he is quite right,—at least, if you believe the Prose Edda;
the Goddess Gefjon was the first canal maker in Sweden, and the
event happened in the reign of King Gylfi.
“Thus it was:—
“King Gylfi ruled over the land of Svithiod (Sweden), and at that
uncertain date which is generally known as ‘once upon a time,’ he
recompensed a strange woman, for some service she had done him,
with as much land as she could plough round with four oxen in a day
and a night; but he did not know, till the share struck deep into the
earth and tore asunder hills and rocks, that it was the Goddess
Gefjon that he was dealing with. So deep were the furrows, that the
place where the land had been became water, for the oxen, which
had come from Jötenheim (the land of the Goths), were really her
sons, whom she had yoked to her plough.”
“Phew-w-w,” whistled the Parson.
“What is the matter?” said Birger.
“Only that as Gefjon is the northern Diana, I thought you might
have made a mistake; her nephews, possibly, not her sons?”
“O, that goes for nothing in Sweden,” said the Captain, laughing;
“there are plenty of cases in point. I have no doubt Birger is quite
right.”
“Well, if you come to scandalising national divinities,” retorted
Birger, “I am sure that story about Endymion was never cleared up
very satisfactorily.”
 “Clear up your own story, at all events, and place the oxen in any
relationship to the maiden goddess which you may think best suited
to her fair fame.”
“Then I will call them what the Edda calls them,” said Birger,
gallantly, “her sons, and never sully the fair fame of the maiden
Gefjon either. The whole is an allegory. Sweden achieved the sea-
path, or inland navigation by the labour of her own sons, and that is
what the old Skald Bragi means when he likens them to oxen, and
says—

“‘Four heads and eight eyes bearing,

While hot sweat trickled down them,
The oxen dragged the reft mass
That formed this winsome island.’

And now Gefjon and her sturdy sons have been at work again. The
whole south of Sweden is an island now, and it is this canal from the
Cattegat to the Baltic that makes it so.”
“Well, so it is; and though it is a long while since the days of the
Goddess Gefjon, or even of good Bishop Brask, the work is complete
at last, and a very creditable work it is. I think, by-the-way, that we
English had something to do with it.”
“England had a hand, and a very considerable one, in the other
end of it,” said Birger, “but these locks are home manufacture, and
the thing really has answered very well. See what a trade it has
opened with the Wener only, which was the original plan; the
communication with the Baltic being a sort of after-thought of the
Ostergöthlanders, carried out by Count Platen. This part of the
canal, which was opened in 1800, has made four of our inland
counties, Wenersborglan, Mariestadslan, Carlstadslan, and Orebrö,
into so many maritime states; and now the other end has done the
same for Jonköping and Linköping. In national wealth, it has paid a
dozen times over. There is no one who has ever lived, since the days
of Oxenstjerna, to whom we owe so much as we do to Count Platen.
In the very heat of the war—that is to say, in 1808—he conceived
the idea of prolonging the water communication to the Baltic. He
went over to England to inspect, with his own eyes, the Caledonian
canal. He engaged Telford, returned to Sweden, and, within two
months, sent in his plans, with their specification and estimates,
which, strange to say, have not been exceeded in the execution. It is
this old part of the canal, however, which is, at all events, the most
showy job; here are two miles of solid rock cut through, and, as you
see, these falls are pretty high—not less than a hundred and twenty
feet of them, besides the rapids,—they require, therefore, a good
many locks; in fact, as you see, it looks more like a staircase than
anything else.”
“It certainly was a singular sight,” said the Captain, “to see our
steamer high above our heads, and the masts of the brigs sticking
out from the tops of the rocks, and far above the highest trees.”
“This part of the canal is the most showy,” said Birger; “no doubt
but Platen’s work was not altogether so easy as it looks. Any one can
appreciate the skill of an engineer, who sees a great body of water
surmounting a steep wall of rock; but a still greater amount of skill is
evidenced in laying out a plan; so as to render such tedious and
expensive works unnecessary. When I was a youngster, I was sent
by the Kongs-Ofwer-Commandant’s Expedition, to survey, by way of
practice, the two lines from our fortress of Wanås-on-Wettern to the
two seas, and I really do not know which is the most wonderful
conception. The original plan was only eight feet deep, but they are
deepening it two feet more, and making the width of the locks
twenty-two feet throughout. We shall see the Linköping battalion at
work on this to-morrow. I must go and pay them a visit while we are
staying at Gäddebäck. I know a good many of the officers.”
“It is a military work, then?”
“Not exactly, though, like most other large undertakings, it is done
by soldiers. It is a speculation, something like those in your own
country, which is taken in hand by shareholders, with a board of
directors, though I believe Government gives them a lift of some
sort or other; but in this country, in time of peace, you can always
get as many soldiers as you want for labourers, from a corporal’s
party up to a battalion, or a brigade, for matter of that. You lodge so
much money in the hands of the Government officer appointed for
that purpose, and a regiment, or a company, or a detachment,
receives orders to march and hut themselves in such a place. Your
engineer, or foreman, or bailiff, as the case may be, gives his orders
to the officer in command, who sees them carried into effect. It
costs more in hard money—and, what is a worse thing for us
Swedes, ready money—than any other sort of labour, but it answers
exceedingly well for those who can afford the first outlay, for the
men are under military discipline, and Government are responsible,
not only that you shall have so many men to work, but so many
sober men, fit to work, which, in this country, as you know, is not
exactly the same thing.”
“And how do the soldiers like it?” said the Captain, who, though he
did not say so, certainly was thinking that it was not precisely the
situation of an officer and a gentleman, to do duty as foreman of the
works for some speculating farmer, or builder, or engineer.
The idea never seemed to strike Birger, who, by-the-way,
belonging to the Royal Guards, was himself exempt from such
service. “It is rather popular,” said he, “with all classes; the men like
it because they have a considerable increase of pay, and as for the
officers, except one or two who are on duty for the day, they have
but a short morning and evening parade, just to see that their men
are all right, and then they may do what they please. They lose
nothing, either, for all places are equally dull in the summer, when
everybody is at work; there can be no festivities going on anywhere,
and so they shoot, or fish, or lounge, or make love, at their leisure.
But here we are at the parade-ground,” he continued, as they came
upon a cleared space in the forest, surrounded by very neat and
compactly-built huts, some of considerable pretensions, framed with
trunks of pines, and walled and roofed with outsides from the saw-
mills, arranged as weather-boards; others, more humble, were
constructed of pine-branches and heather; but all alike compact,
neat, firm, tidy-looking, and arranged in military order, in straight
lines, with their officers’ huts in front.
The sun was not far from its setting, and the soldiers having put
aside their tools, were throwing on their belts in a way that certainly
would not have satisfied an English adjutant, and were hurrying,
with their muskets in their hands, to their respective posts. There
was a short private inspection by the non-commissioned officers,
while the band, a pretty good one, were tuning their instruments;
after which the companies formed into line, faced to the west, and
as the lower limb of the sun touched the horizon, the officers saluted
with their swords, the men presented arms, and accompanied by the
band, sang in chorus, every man of them joining in and taking his
part in it, the beginning of Grundtvig’s glorious hymn to the Trinity.

“O mighty God! we Thee adore,

From our hearts’ depths, for evermore;—
None is in glory like to Thee
Through time and through eternity.
Thy Name is blessed by Cherubim—
Thy Name is blessed by Seraphim—
And songs of praise from earth ascend,
With thine angelic choirs to blend.
Holy art Thou, our God!
Holy art Thou, our God!
Holy art Thou, our God!
Lord of Sabaoth.”

The air was simple enough, though beautifully harmonized; but

there is nothing in the whole compass of music so magnificent as
the combination of some hundreds of human voices trained to sing
in harmony; the band would have injured the effect, but in truth it
was hardly heard, overwhelmed as it was by that volume of sound,—
except, indeed, the roll of drums which accompanied the final
“Amen,” swelling and prolonging the notes, and then dying away like
a receding peal of thunder. The men recovered arms, were
dismissed, and in ten minutes were dispersed over the parade
ground, playing leap-frog, fencing, wrestling, foot-ball; while not a
few were lighting fires, and boiling water for their evening gröd.
Birger stepped on, to see if he could meet with his friend, while
the other two, thinking that they should most likely be in the way
among people who, if they spoke English or French at all, spoke it
with difficulty; turned into the well-beaten track that led to the inn
and landing place of Trollhättan.
Before they arrived there the night had already closed in; that is
to say, it had faded into twilight, for that is the nearest approach
which a northern summer’s night makes to darkness. All that the
travellers then saw of the inn was the light which, glancing from
every window, beamed forth a welcome which it had evidently been
beaming forth to others before them; judging from the din which
arose from the evening relaxations of a dozen or so of jolly
subalterns. These, who had money enough, or who fancied they had
money enough to spend in luxury, had fixed their quarters at the
inn, instead of the pretty looking green huts which their less wealthy
or more prudent comrades had run up in the camp.
In fact, the sitting rooms of the inn offered at that time fewer
temptations than the very clean, bare bed-rooms, with their very
white sheets, and very warm down coverlets. Winter and summer
alike, the feather bed is uppermost, and here it was still; though the
only reason why the windows were not left wide open all night, was
the clouds of musquitos which, entering by them, menaced the
repose of the sleepers.
Jacob, whom the party had somewhat inconsiderately left in
charge of the baggage, had, much to their surprise, deceived them
all in making no mistake, and leaving nothing behind; the carioles
had been landed, and were ready packed for their journey on the
morrow, as duly as if the fishermen had seen to them themselves;
but in his own country Jacob had become quite a different character,
and piqued himself in showing to the Norwegians in his own person
how vast was the superiority of the Swedes.
 Birger was not seen again till the party was collected at a
sufficiently early hour of the morning round a magnificent breakfast
of fruit and fish, which had been laid out under the verandah of the
inn,—a narrow esplanade which looked out upon the yet quiet
waters of the brimming Gotha, at the very point where they were
gathering their strength for their first furious plunge.
Most cataracts commence with a rapid: so still and calm was the
Gotha at this point, that the esplanade in question was the general
landing place from Wenersborg, and was furnished with iron rings
for the purpose of mooring the boats, several of which, very fair
specimens of Swedish boat-building, were hanging on to them,
scarcely stretching out their respective painters, so gentle was the
current. Among them lay a very handsome gig with bright sides, well
scraped oars, and a white English ensign fluttering in the morning
breeze; from which Moodie, who had come in state with four rowers,
had just landed, and by means of which, the travellers were to
complete their journey.
In truth, Gäddebäck was not very accessible in any other way; it
had been originally built as a pic-nic house by the Mayor of
Wenersborg, who, when he had been half-ruined by the great fire
that had taken place there the year before, was glad enough to
contract his expenses, and to find a person to take it off his hands.
It suited Moodie well enough, and its low rent suited him also, but
there were not many men whom it would suit at all. It had been
built exclusively for pleasure parties, and these were expected to
arrive there either by boat or by sledge, according as the surface of
the river was, water or ice. No one had ever troubled themselves
with any other entrance, and it was no sort of drawback to the place
in its original state, that communication with the main land was
entirely cut off. The still, deep brook which gave to the place its
name (pike brook), had spread out behind the house into a broad
reedy morass, which in spring, during the floods, was a broad reedy
lake, but in summer a sort of neutral ground, between land and
water, through which was led a precarious track, which might be
passed on wheel, or indeed on foot, provided the traveller did not
object to very clear water, not much above his knees. The actual
spot on which the house was situated in the middle of all this, was a
patch of parky ground, abounding in beautiful timber, which was five
or six feet above the general level; that part of it which lay next the
river was firm, and hard, and covered with short green turf, but this
subsided to landward, first into wet sponge, secondly into bog, and
lastly into reedy water, in proportion as it receded from the river. The
brook, divided by this patch of dry land, soaked into the main
stream, on either end of it, completely insulating the domain.
This suited Moodie exactly, for the little park was full of all sorts of
grouse and other birds, which looked as if they were at perfect
liberty, as indeed they were, only that having had their pinions cut,
and not being able to swim, they could not pass the girdle of water
—herons, and cranes, and bitterns, were stalking about, or watching
for fish in the shallows, like their wild brethren, for though excellent
waders, and quite in their element on the soppy shores to landward,
they could not swim any more than the grouse. There were some
deer, also, of various kinds, but as these had no sort of objection to
take the water, they were confined in little paddocks, those being
classed together who would keep the peace.
On the esplanade, between the house and the river, lay a dozen
dogs, mostly English, on excellent terms with the great brown bear,
who, though perfectly tame, was secured from paying any inquisitive
visits to the deer paddocks by a collar and chain, with which he was
made fast to a substantial post at the door.
The whole front of the house had been occupied by a ball-room,
with windows opening into a verandah. This verandah had become a
general marine store—oars, boat-hooks, masts, sails, were arranged
along it on hooks; but so tidily and regularly were they disposed,
that they looked as if they had been placed there for ornament;—
fishing rods of all lengths were there, and a large assortment of eel-
lines and night-lines, and trimmers, and gaffs, and pike-wires, and
spears, and other poaching implements, together with a goodly
assortment of drags and flues in the back ground; while a full-sized
casting net, hung up to dry, displayed its leaded semi-circle to the
sun: for be it remembered, Moodie made a profit of his pleasure,
and not only kept his own establishment in fish, but very seldom
allowed the Gotheborg steamer to pass without dispatching in her a
heavy birchen basket, consigned to Jacob Lindegren, the fishmonger.
Neither was the interior at all out of character: the ball-room had
been divided by wooden partitions into three very tolerable
apartments—an ante-room or broad passage in the middle, and on
either side his dining room and what he called his study, that is to
say, the place where he made his flies. The passage, which was
sufficiently littered, contained little other furniture than a turning-
lathe and a carpenter’s bench, with shelves and pigeon-holes round
the sides for the necessary tools; but both rooms were pictures of
tidiness; the furniture was plain enough, certainly, but the walls were
covered with sketches, of Moodie’s own drawing, and with sporting
trophies of every kind: huge bear skins and wolf skins occupied
whole panels, surmounted, perhaps, by the grinning skull of a lynx,
or a huge antlered head with the skin on; between these were cases
containing most of the wild birds found in the country, all stuffed by
his own hands; together with specimens of eggs, hung up in a
pattern, but each labelled with the name of the bird it belonged to.
Between the windows was a formidable armoury, while over one
door was a stuffed otter, and over the other a wild cat, and the rug
itself was formed of badgers’ skins bordered with fox; for Moodie
had imported an English grate and had built a fire-place, besides the
invariable stove.
Such was the sportsman’s paradise, into which Moodie welcomed
his guests. There was accommodation, such as it was, for an
unlimited number of them; for there were several empty rooms of
one sort or another; and a rough box, hastily run up with planks
from the saw mills, filled with dry poplar leaves and covered with a
bear skin, was a bed much better than any of them had been
accustomed to. As for washing, their toilet apparatus was laid out
every morning on the stage to which the boats were moored, and a
dive into the river was the very best way of washing the face after
shaving,—at least, so Moodie seemed to think, for though his room
was pretty well fitted up, inasmuch as such toilet would be difficult in
the winter, when the river was as hard as a stone, in summer he
always chose the boat stage for his own dressing room, as well as
for that of his guests.
No one was sorry for a rest; journals had to be written up, notes
had to be compared; there was something, too, in lounging lazily in
the sun, or smoking a peaceful cigar under the shade of the awning,
or teasing the bear, or feeding the grouse, and knowing all the while
that there was no duty neglected, and no opportunity lost. Not but
that excursions in a quiet way were made—now upon the water with
the trolling tackle, now on the high grounds of the royal forest, now
on neither land nor water, but on the marshy debateable land,
astonishing the ducks that swarmed among the reed beds which
divide the left bank of the river from the sound land; but nothing
very particular was done, beyond existing in a very high state of
quiet enjoyment.
 CHAPTER XIX.
GÄDDEBÄCK.

“I hung fine garments

On two wooden men
Who stand on the wall;
Heroes they seemed to be
When they were clothed;
The unclad are despisèd.”

Hávamál.

The day had been oppressively hot, more actual heat, perhaps—
reckoning by the degrees of Reaumur or Farenheit—than had been
experienced on the fjeld of the Tellemark;—but that was dry,
bracing, exhilarating heat, such as is felt on the mountain side; this
was the moist, feverish warmth, caused by the sun’s rays acting on
the wide expanse of the Wener Sjön and its marshy shores, and
secretly and imperceptibly drawing up vapours, which would
eventually fall in rain,—not, perhaps, on the spot from which they
had been raised, but on the cold distant mountains of Fille Fjeld,
which at once attracted and condensed them. There was not a cloud
in the sky, but the sun would not shine brightly or cheerily either.
The long summer’s day was, however, drawing to a close, and the
party were sitting at the extreme end of a little jetty which Moodie
had built out into the river on piles of solid fir. This was covered with
an awning of striped duck,—of little use as an awning so late in the
day, for the sun was low enough to peep under it, but still kept up,
partly to tempt the air of wind, which every now and then fluttered
its vandyked border, and partly as a preservative against the dews,
which would be sure to fall as soon as the sun dipped below the
horizon.
From a flag-staff, stepped on the outermost pile, hung a huge red
English ensign, every now and then stirring in the breeze, half
unrolling its lazy folds and then dropping motionless against its staff.
Moodie was very particular about this flag, and hoisted it every
morning with his own hands,—for ever since he had fairly turned his
back upon his native land, he had become intensely national.
In the front and beneath them the broad, clear, deep, still,
brimming river, full four hundred yards from bank to bank, glided
quietly along with a calm unbroken surface, and a motion hardly
sufficient to bring a strain upon the chain cable of the little cutter
that was moored some twenty yards off the head of the pier, with
her triangular burgee fluttering out in the breeze that was not strong
enough to move the heavier ensign, and displaying the red cross
and the golden R.Y.S. so well known in every port in Europe. It was
a singular thing to see it here though, a hundred miles in the heart
of Sweden, with the tremendous Falls of Trollhättan between it and
the sea.
Made fast to the rails of the jetty were half a dozen boats, of all
shapes and sizes—from the long narrow galley with its four well-
scraped ashen oars, to the little white flat-bottomed duck-punt,—for
Gäddebäck, though not, strictly speaking, an island, except during
the freshets of early summer, was so perfectly insulated by the
sluggish brook and the marshy ground through which it flowed, as to
make all communication with the main land, except by boat,
extremely precarious.
Dinner had been over for some time, and the party had adjourned
to the jetty, as the coolest place they could find. They were sitting
with their wine glasses before them, while two or three bottles of
light claret were towing overboard, suspended in the cool water of
the river by as many night-lines.
 “Upon my word,” said the Captain, throwing open his waistcoat,
“the West Indies is a fool to this; and it is not unlike a tropical
climate either,—moist, damp, and hot,—stewing rather than
broiling.”
“To tell you the truth,” said the Parson, “I am surprised at your
selecting this spot for your residence, beautiful as it certainly is; with
all this marsh land about it, it cannot fail to be unhealthy.”
“Well, I do not know,” said Moodie, “they do talk of agues,
certainly, but these things never hurt me, and the place suits me
well enough; there is plenty of shooting—ducks and snipes without
end; and on the other side of that range of heights, not three miles
from us, is a royal forest, well preserved, in which I have full
permission to kill anything I like, except stags, elks, and perhaps
peasants, though they do not make much fuss about a man or two
either; and, besides, the Ofwer Jagmästere is a particular friend of
mine. And as for fishing, it is not altogether such as I should choose,
no doubt, for it is mostly trolling,—but there is some capital fishing,
such as it is. I will show you what we can do to-morrow at the upper
rapids,—we have not been there yet. It is a singular sort of sport,
certainly; but if you are half the poacher you used to be, you will like
it for its novelty. However, the greatest attraction that the place has
in my eyes, lies in its situation: this river is the high road from
Gotheborg to Stockholm, and steamers pass it every day. Living on
this Robinson Crusoe island of mine, I can command the best market
in the country, and in fact, I do realize a very fair income by my fish
and my game. Look at my yacht, too, where else could I put it to so
great use. A short canal and a single lock passes me into the great
lake Wener, where I command some of the best rivers and some of
the best bear-country in Sweden. If I want to smell salt water again,
I have but to put my cutter in tow of the market-tug, and to steam
away to Gotheborg; and when I want to be sulky, here I am, looking
after my menagerie of Scandinavian birds and beasts, and adding
odds and ends to my museum. I dare say people wonder at the old
flag ‘that braved a thousand years, the battle and the breeze,’ as
they pass backward and forward in the steamers; but no one stops
here, and you may be sure no one would find me out by land. This is
just the place for me; besides, it is not always so hot as it is now,—I
have driven my cariole across this river, many a time.”
“By the way, what do you do with yourself in the winter?” said the
Captain; “you were never very much given to reading, and your
shooting and fishing must fail you then.”
“Fishing, yes; shooting, no,” said Moodie; “the finest bear shooting
is in the winter.”
“What! do you meet with bears in the forest?”
“Pooh, nonsense! you Englishmen are always fancying that we
kick bears out of every bush in Sweden.”
“You Englishmen!” said Birger, glancing at the flag.
“Well, well,—you Johnny Raws, I should say,—you freshmen—you
griffins. I was just as bad myself, though: I remember the day I
landed at Gotheborg, marching off with my gun over my shoulder to
a little wooded valley at the back of the town where the Gotheborg
cockneys have their villas, and attacking a Swede, dictionary in
hand, with ‘Hvar er Bjornerne’—how the scoundrel laughed.”
“Well, but what do you mean by bear shooting then,—where do
you meet with it?”
“Why, you travel a hundred miles to get a shot at a bear, and think
little of it too. The bear hunter must keep up a correspondence with
the Ofwer Jagmästerer of the different provinces, and get
information whenever the peasants have ringed a bear as they call it
—that is to say, ascertained that he is within a certain circle, and
then out with the sledge and the dogs, and the rifles, and away up
the river, or across the lake, as it may be. You do not meet with a
bear at every turning, I can assure you. I have killed a pretty many
though, one way or other, since I have been here.”
“That you have,” said the Captain,—“at least, if all those trophies
that ornament your walls are honestly come by; but by your own