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Not that he hadn't the knowledge; he was a learned man, and had studied this and that, but he lived too freely, and spent other people's money. It came out later that he had left the place after a sharp reprimand from his superior, Amtmand Pleym; but nothing was done about his family officially, and they went on living there, a good while after his wife and three children.
The Amtmand, by letter to all the authorities, likewise requires the tariff to be hung conspicuously in all the inns; which tariff, says the law, "is altered according to the rise and fall of provisions."
When I came to study out all this, and consider the duties and obligations imposed on me as a traveler going a journey of three or four hundred miles; that I was to be subject to contingencies and liabilities depending upon the elements both by land and sea; that serious responsibilities fell upon me if I held the reins of the post-horse, and probably heavy risks of life and limb if the post-boy held them; that the inn-keeper, station-holder, alderman, or two men chosen miscellaneously from the ranks of society, were to judge of damages that might be inflicted upon the horse; that I must register my name in a day-book, and enter formal complaints against the authorities on the way about every ten miles; that the tariff might rise and fall five hundred times during the journey, for aught I knew, according to the rise and fall of provisions or the pleasure of the Amtmand; that conspiracies might be entered into against me to make me pay for all the lame, halt, blind, and spavined horses in the country, and my liberty restrained in some desolate region of the mountains; that I could not speak a dozen words of the language, and had no other means of personal defense against imposition than a small pen-knife and the natural ferocity of my countenance when all these considerations occurred to me, I confess they made me hesitate a little before launching out from Lillehammer.
He was unmarried, having never been able to afford a wife. His chief, Amtmand Pleym, had inherited him from his predecessor, and paid him the same miserable wage that had been given before; Heyerdahl took it, and went on writing at his desk as before. Isak plucked up his courage, and went to see him. "Documents in the Sellanraa case ...? Here they are, just returned from the Department.
When I looked out on the bright hill-sides, and saw the sun glistening on the dewy sod, and heard the post-boys in the yard whistling merrily to the horses, I was prepared to face the great Amtmand itself. In a little while the horse and cariole designed for my use were brought up before the door, and the landlord informed me that all was "fertig."
Asked Geissler about it, I understand, but Geissler put him off; said he couldn't cultivate a hundred yards of land. So he sent in an application to the Amtmand, and I'm instructed to see the matter through. More of Geissler's muddling!" Lensmand Heyerdahl came up to the farm, and brought with him his assistant, Brede.
In this formidable book he may also specify any complaint he has to make against the station-holder, boy, horse, cariole, or any body, animal, or thing that maltreats him, cheats him, or in any way misuses him on the journey; but he must take care to have the inn-keeper or some such disinterested person as a witness in his behalf, so that when the matter comes before the Amtmand, or grand tribunal of justice, it may be fairly considered and disposed of according to law.
For administrative purposes, Norway is divided into twenty districts, viz.: The cities of Christiania and Bergen and eighteen "Amts" or provinces, which coinside with the diocese of the church, and there is a very close relation between the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities. The chief magistrate in each of the counties, nominated by the king, is known as an "Amtmand."
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