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Updated: May 21, 2025
A three-horse sledge from the post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and pinched with cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house. 'And what's the good of all this jawing? thinks the footman who sits in the hall weary and haggard.
When he wishes to sleep in a post-station, he will find nothing softer than a wooden bench, unless he can induce the keeper to put for him on the floor a bundle of hay, which is perhaps softer, but on the whole more disagreeable than the deal board.
For three hours the iron lungs of the muleteer knew no rest or pause. Several times in the journey we stopped at a post-station to change our cattle, but the same brazen throat sufficed for all the threatening and encouragement that kept them at the top of their speed.
When we reached the post-station, which was about seven miles away, it was between three and four o'clock in the morning; and, after rousing the station-master and sending a driver with a team of fresh horses after the abandoned sleigh, we drank two or three tumblerfuls of hot tea, brought in blankets and pillows from the sleigh of Schwartz and Malchanski, and went to bed on the floor.
Leaving it there for the present, we made traverses back and forth across the river until we found the line of evergreen trees, and then started for the nearest post-station Price and I riding with Malchanski and Schwartz while our driver followed with the two rescued horses.
A mile or two of the southern slope of a hill had been cleared away, and over this a number of dark wooden farmhouses were scattered, with oats and potato-fields around them. An odd little church stood in midst, and the rich swell of a hymn, sung by sweet Swedish voices, floated to us over the fields as we drove up to the post-station.
Schwartz; and Malchanski bought another pavoska and fitted it up in similar fashion, and on the 19th of November we obtained from the Bureau of Posts two podorozhnayas, or, as Price called them, "ukases," directing every post-station master between Yakutsk and Irkutsk to furnish us, "by order of his Imperial Majesty Alexander Nikolaivitch, Autocrat of All the Russias," etc., etc., six horses and two drivers to carry us on our way.
We trusted to our combined good luck however, and were not deceived, for, with the exception of two days, we had charming weather during the remainder of our stay in Sweden. Having engaged a two-horse cart for the first post-station, we left Carlstad on the morning of the 11th of September. The clouds were still heavy, but gradually rolled into compacter masses, giving promise of breaking away.
As we descended towards the post-station of Vik we caught a glimpse of the Siljan Lake to the south, and the tall tower of Mora Church, far to the eastward. At Vik, where we found the same simple and honest race of people, we parted with the postillioness and with our host of Kettbo, who thanked us again in Pehr's name, as he shook hands for the last time.
It had happened thus: Arrived at B., while we were as yet in the outskirts a tall, thin, crusty gentleman in a green plush coat came to meet us, and, with many obeisances to the two painters, conducted us into the village, where, beneath the tall linden beside the post-station, stood a fine carriage with four post-horses.
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