t on the spot says, as near as I could make
it out, that there was never such an example of courage and valour known
in the world, and calls upon the people to admire this glorious deed of
their fathers. "Courage and valour;" cried Braisted, indignantly; "it
was a cowardly butchery! If they had so much courage, why did they allow
900 Scotchmen to get into the very heart of the country before they
tried to stop them?" Well, war is full of meanness and cowardice. If it
were only fair fighting on an open field, there would be less of it.

Beyond Laurgaard, Guldbrandsdal contracts to a narrow gorge, down which
the Lougen roars in perpetual foam. This pass is called the Rusten; and
the road here is excessively steep and difficult. The forests disappear;
only hardy firs and the red pine cling to the ledges of the rocks; and
mountains, black, grim, and with snow-streaked summits, tower grandly on
all sides. A broad cataract, a hundred feet high, leaped down a chasm on
our left, so near to the road that its sprays swept over us, and then
shot under a bridge to join the seething flood in the frightful gulf
beneath. I was reminded of the Valley of the Reuss, on the road to St.
Gothard, like which, the pass of the Rusten leads to a cold and bleak
upper valley. Here we noticed the blight of late frost on the barley
fields, and were for the first time assailed by beggars. Black
storm-clouds hung over the gorge, adding to the savage wildness of its
scenery; but the sun came out as we drove up the Valley of Dovre, with
its long stretch of grain-fields on the sunny sweep of the hill-side,
sheltered by the lofty Dovre Fjeld behind them. We stopped for the night
at the inn of Toftemoen, long before sunset, although it was eight
o'clock, and slept in a half-daylight until morning.

The sun was riding high in the heavens when we left, and dark lowering
clouds slowly rolled their masses across the mountain-tops. The Lougen
was now an inconsiderable stream, and the superb Guldbrandsdal narrowed
to a bare, bleak dell, like those in the high Alps. The grain-fields had
a chilled, struggling appearance; the forests forsook the
mountain-sides and throve only in sheltered spots at their bases; the
houses were mere log cabins, many of which were slipping off their
foundation-posts and tottering to their final fall; and the people,
poorer than ever, came out of their huts to beg openly and shamelessly
as we passed. Over the head of the valley, which