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The two largest glaciers of the Folgefond are the Buar Bræ, near Odda, and the Bondhus Bræ, near Sundal, and to spend a day at either of them is a real treat. But it is not wise to visit these glaciers without someone who knows them, for one might easily fall into one of the great fissures in the ice, known as crevasses, especially if lately-fallen snow had hidden the opening of the mighty crack.
Urquhart confined himself to the two boys, and told them about the Folgefond of its unknown depth, of the crevasses, of the glacier on its western edge, of certain white snakes, bred by the snow, which might be found there. Their bite was death, he said. "Frost-bite," said Patrick Nugent, who knew his uncle's way; but Lancelot favoured his mother. "Hoo!" he said.
Vera, who had a grain of pity in her, hoped that Urquhart had been spared; but whether he was or not she never knew. No signs of disturbance were upon him at the ensuing picnic, unless his treatment of Macartney with a kind of humorous savagery betrayed him. They talked of the Folgefond, that mighty snow-field beyond the fiord which the three men intended to traverse in a day or two's time.
Thus they relate that where the Folgefond now lies was once a fertile and well-peopled valley, called Folgedalen, and that in one night its farms, forests, people, and cattle were buried in snow as a judgment for some great sin.
I hadn't the slightest idea. It's a thing I never did before. I rather like it." Throttled or not, the guide saved the situation. He saved it, undisguisedly, for his own sake; for he had no zest for helping to carry a bier over the Folgefond. They made a litter of alpen-stocks and the mackintosh, and so between them carried Urquhart down the mountain. No need to dwell on it.
"It's slightly important, but I suppose I couldn't do the Folgefond by any chance?" "You are saying a good deal," said Urquhart. "I'll put it like this, that by some chance you might, but by no chance in the world could Patrick." "Hoo!" said Lancelot, "and why not, pray?" "His mother would put her foot on it. Splosh! it would go like a cockroach." "I know," said dreamy Lancelot.
Lucy with very bright eyes looked from one to the other of her lovers. Each wore a mask. She determined to ask James to give up the Folgefond, discerning trouble in the air. They went home by water, and Lancelot added his unconscious testimony. He was between Urquhart's knees, his hand upon the tiller, his mood confidential. "I say " he began, and Urquhart encouraged him to say on.
And it is the weight of all this fresh snow on the top of the accumulation of centuries which produces the glaciers. The Folgefond, in the Hardanger district, is the snowfield which most people who visit Norway see sooner or later, and since it covers an area of 120 square miles, at a height of about 5,500 feet above the sea, it is visible from a great many points of view.
After all, what good could come of freebooting? The game was up. Like all men of his stamp, he cast about him far and wide for a line of action; for directly the Folgefond walk was over he would be off. To stay here was intolerable just as to back out of the walk would be ignominious. No, he would go through with that somehow; but from Odde, he thought, he might send for his things and clear out.
Soon we reach the bay in which is Rosendal, where one could spend a very pleasant week or so, with trout fishing to be had in the streams and lakes, and mountain walks up to the edge of the great Folgefond snowfield. The steamer calls for a few minutes, and then goes on up the beautiful little branch fjord known as the Mauranger, at the extremity of which lies Sundal.
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