To Angelholm
Trip Start
Unknown
1
8
24
Trip End
Jun 20, 2006
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Angelholm,
Sweden
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Angelholm
. I had eaten nothing since the proceeding night, and was prepared to do justice to the emblematic fish, leaving only is curved skeleton on the plate. As soon as our carriage was ready, we departed on the mail road towards the north. He was a very dreary drive. The land was for the most part cultivated, but not fenced with hedges as in England, and there was hardly a tree to be seen. It was freezing sharply, and I began to appreciate the advice the that had been given me about night-travelling in Sweden.My companion was a very intelligent man, but there was a tinge of melancholy in his manner which seemed just in harmony with my own feelings. Whenever he spoke of England he drew some comparison between its boundless resources and the poverty of his own country. "There is no chance here for a man to rise, for is no scope for him like there is in England."
He told me that an English Army captain had been for some years past a resident in Engelholm. This captain was a brother of Lord _________, and he led a rather secluded life, with his wife and two daughters.
"I suppose," said I, "that he speaks Swedish well, after living here so long?"
"No, he can't speak a word of it. He never will take the trouble to learn it, and I'm the only man in the village thatity can talk to. If you can stay over to-morrow, and call upon him, he'll be very glad to see you, for there are not many Englishman who come this way."
Had it been possible to stay, I would most willingly have done so; but it would not do to risk even an hour's delay. By-and bye, a turn down hill brought us to a beautiful dell, at the bottom of which flowed a broad river under a hanging wood. On its further bank was the village; and although it was now in the deep gloom of evening I could see enough of the scene to receive an impression which I shall never cease to associate with its name - "Engelholm" - Angel's Isle.
We stopped at the door of a comfortable house; and my friend led the way through a court-yard to a warm apartment, were a motherly old lady received me with a smile of welcome that at once made me at home. Fresh logs were put into the stove - a great pillar of three or four feet in diameter reaching up to the ceiling, and covered with white glazed tiles. Tea was brought in, and the luxury of its warmth was more than can be easily described.
My friend's name was Carl Schonbeck, which the sailors, with whom he served in the Crimea, finding someone difficult of pronunciation, abbreviated into Beck. The old lady was not related to him, for he was a lodger here. His parents lived some miles further inland. After tea, finding I was bent on getting forward early next morning, he took me down to the posting-station, to gain the needfull information about horses, etc.. An old driver who knew the road well gave us all the distances, from station to station, and the hours at which I might order horses to be ready, on as far as Halmstad, beyond which I should find "fast" stations, or such as could furnish them at once without the preliminary notice. As the coach had not yet overtaken us from Helsinborg, I only had to write the Forbud on slips of paper, and deliver them to the post-master, who sent them on at a nominal charge - I don't member exactly how much - and thus saved all farther trouble. After marking with pencil on my pocket map all the stations for changing, and ordering a "Hast med Vogn" (horse and trap) to be at the door at "Klokken halv-sex" (or half-past five) in the morning, we returned to our lodging.
The cold was now intense. I felt it piercing through my coat and rug as though they had been but sheets of paper, and got indoors with my teeth chattering, and my nose blue from its effects. The old lady "overhauled" my great-coat, tightened the buttons with a needle and thread, and put me in sailing trim for the morning. The evening being by this time far advanced, we retired to rest.
Now a Swedish bed-room is not like in English one; and as the one of which my friend Schonbeck was about to share with me was a very good specimen, I will try to describe it. In the first place, instead of having passages to communicate between the several apartments, they open from one directly into another. We passed out of the room, where we had taken tea, into an adjoining one, some twelve or fourteen feet square, and of good height. In one corner stood a great white stove, or "Kakel-ovn", as it is here called, in which a couple of birch logs were burning, and around which I hung to get perfectly dry and warm by the morning. At the other side of the apartment was a box, about the size of an English sofa; and a similar once stood in another corner. These were our bedsteads, each just wide enough to take one person. There were no blankets; but two feather beds - one to lie upon, and one to serve as a cover-lid; and they were by no means uncomfortable.
No time was lost in getting to sleep, which my fatigue made so sound, that is seemed only a few minutes before I heard a slight noise - the door opened, and a servant walked in with a tray, on which stood a lighted candle, some cups and saucers, coffee, cream, and light biscuits. She placed the tray on a little table, drew it up close to my bedside, and calling out "Klokkeen fem!" withdrew. "Now," said Schonbeck, who had raised himself up on his elbow in the bed on the other side of the room, "you had better make as good a breakfast as you can. What clothes have you in your portmanteau there?" I told him each article. "Put them all on; put on everything you have. It will be none too much - take my word for it!" He further pressed me to accept the loan of the cloak, but I would not, feeling doubtful about his getting it back again from Gothenburg; - but I did as bhe bade me about my own clothing, which I coated on until perfectly stiffened with it.
My friend next told me to hand him a slip of paper, and he would give me a note to an acquaintance of his in Qvebille, (one of the stations on my route,) and who kept the posting-house there. I handed him my pocket-book, and he wrote on one of its leaves the following note; - which may possibly interest the reader in the original, now open before me. It runs thus: -
"Min heders broder, - Var god och hjelp denna Engelakmannen pa vag til Gothenburg sa fort som mojligt. Han och jag har varit reskamrater. Din Van, C SCHONBECK"
"My honoured Brother, - be so kind as to help this Englishman on the way to Gothenburg as speedily as possible: he and I have been fellow travellers. Thy friend, C SCHONBECK"
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