the schoolmaster and the priest had advised him to try to borrow money and take a teacher's course. It was a great temptation. He would like to rise and get on in the world; and whenever he and his mother were alone together, she always impressed upon him that that was the way he ought to take. But his father was a Lofoten fisherman and a head-man, and he would like to be like his father, too. He had never forgotten what the pastor's wife had once said to him. "I know now what Olaf Trygvason looked like. He was just exactly like your father."

He remembered now, too, what the schoolmaster had once said about the Stadsland Lofoten boat. She was a descendant of the old dragon-prowed vessels which hundreds and hundreds of years ago bore the vikings to their discoveries and battles all over the world; and the fisherman of to-day still sails in the same kind of boat the hundreds of miles northward to battle with wind and wave. Lars would certainly be just what his father was.

He slept and dreamed he was fighting in the battle of Svolder. His father was Olaf Trygvason, and he himself was Einar Tambarskjælver. He drew a bow with a stronger hand than others, and his bow broke.

"What was that, that broke with such clangor?" asks Olaf.

"Norway from thy grasp, O king," said Lars; and he started up in bed, and there lay that duffer Oluf fast asleep!

His father replied that he had thought of speaking to Karen Seamstress about it.

Marya looked up at him.

"Oh, you might intrust that little piece of work to me," she said, her face brightening.

"Well, there's no one could do it better," he said.

Marya had a piece of red material that was just large enough to make a petticoat for herself, and the same day she took it out and cut off a piece about a foot wide and a good two feet in length for the pennon, and then hunted up some bright blue woolen yarn, and set to work to embroider a K and an M upon the red ground. She worked away with a happy face, because they were his initials, but at the same time she felt inclined to cry.

One day she dressed herself in her best, and, telling the children to be good, set off up the road, with a rope in her hand. She was going up to her brother's, in the valley, to fetch home a cow that had been up there on the mountain pastures all the summer. Her mother had given her the cow as a calf, and every spring since she had taken it up there for the summer, and every autumn brought it down again. It was a strange expedition both for the cow and for her. they set out from the little farm by the sea, Russia would turn her handsome, white head over her shoulder to look back at the houses and low. She had stood in the cow-shed there all the winter, and it was her home.

When

"But the boat has n't got a pennon, Father. Are n't you going to have a red pennon at the masthead like all the others?"

was not easy for her to leave it, either. When they had come farther in toward the valley, however, Russia began to scent the mountain air that she knew from the long, bright days on the sæter

pastures, and her step grew lighter, she whimpered, and quickened her pace. Màrya, too, forgot the children and the cottage by the sea, and walked more easily; for she was on her way home to the only place in the world where she was happy.

On this occasion her mind was full of all the bustle down by the sea, but when she had passed Lindegaard, and the valley lay before her in the hot autumn sunshine, with its farms and woods, where bright patches of scarlet leafage stood out here and there from the deep green of the fir-clad hills, she breathed more freely, and her step grew lighter.

Farther on, the valley began to close in and become more sheltered, the river gleamed far below, and the hills came nearer, as if to welcome her; and she sat down on a stone and wiped the tears from her eyes.

By evening she had reached the little farm where her mother lived as a pensioner of her brother. The small, sun-browned buildings were surrounded with green and yellow fields, the whole forming a picture in its setting of green forest. Marya could hardly imagine anything more beautiful. The night was frosty, with bright moonlight, and she lay listening to the wind in the trees, but heard no sound of waves; and she folded her hands and prayed, for here she felt there was a good God. Down by the sea He stood only for the day of judgment, storm, misfortune, and terror, and she did not pray there; she set her teeth and defied Him.

The next day they went down together, she and the big, red cow with the white head and beautiful horns tipped with brass buttons. The cow turned and lowed her farewell, and was

answered by her comrades in the cowhouse. Màrya, too, walked sadly, for she was turning her back on home.

As she went down the valley, her eyes rested lovingly on the mountains and wooded slopes; then came the wide country-side, where it was still beautiful; then Lindegaard; and beyond that were the peat-bogs and the

sea.

But here Russia raised her head, and sniffed the well known air of her little winter home by the sea, and instantly her step grew lighter.

Màrya thought of the children, and wondered if anything had happened to them while she was away; and she quickened her pace as the cow had done.

And so they reached the field, the cow lowing softly, and Màrya calling to the children to ask if all had gone well at home.

§ 3

If Kristàver had to go the round of the country-side and beg people to become guarantors for a bank loan, he would have to make a special occasion of it. He had shrunk from it and put it off as long as possible, but one day a letter came from the bailiff of the inland parish to say that if he did not pay for the boat at once, he would send men to fetch it away again.

One cold, windy November day he set out on his errand. He would not go to Brandt at Lindegaard or to any of the well-to-do farmers in the farming district; he would have to keep to the cottagers out on the shore, for the poor are the readiest to give help to one another.

Many a night when he lay awake, he had gone over his comrades in his mind, and now he weighed and con

sidered them in a manner he had not done before. One was a good-fornothing, to whom he would be under no obligation, another a miser, a third a sanctimonious fellow who would manage to get rid of him with a flood of pious phrases; but here and there among them a face would appear before his mind's eye that ordinarily was all smiles and gaiety, but which nevertheless held his attention, for perhaps, after all, its owner might be more obliging than most.

There was a little red house with a gray cow-shed beside it, out by the wood below Lindegaard, where his sister lived with her husband, Elezeus Hylla. Relatives are not always the first one would apply to, however, and, besides, Elezeus was one of those who look to see whether their wives use too much cream and coffee when they are away, and he often beat her black and blue. And yet no one could be angry with him long, for among his comrades he was a capable man both on land and sea.

He was chopping wood in the shed when Kristàver came, and they went at once indoors. Berit appeared from the kitchen, and on this occasion was neither black nor blue; and she even ventured to bring the kettle in and put it on the stove, although her husband sat looking on. There were plants on the window-sills behind the little white curtains, and there was a spicy smell from the juniper with which the floor was strewn.

Kristàver sat down by the door and lighted his pipe. He told story after story and laughed heartily, finding it all the time becoming more and more difficult to say what he had come for. Berit looked at him and thought he was not like himself. Her cheeks

were hollow, but red, and her beautiful golden hair was twisted into a large knot at the back of her neck. She had married Elezeus only because she had had a child by another man.

"Is it true, after all, what people say?" she asked, as she spread a cloth on the table.

"Say? Have people anything special to talk about just now?" he asked. "Yes," she replied; "that you 've inherited such a lot of money from America."

"I? From America?"

"Yes, and that it 's with that money that you've bought your boat."

Oh, was that how matters stood? And Elezeus sat staring at him, his large eyes standing almost out of his head with curiosity, and his white teeth gleaming beneath his brown mustache. It was so funny, so irresistibly funny, that in a spirit of mischief Kristàver did not contradict the story.

"Ah, yes," he said. "It's strange how things sometimes happen." More than this, however, he would not say at present.

As they sat drinking coffee, Elezeus suggested that he should go with him to Lofoten in the winter, and Kristàver answered that was just what he had come about, and he should certainly go with him.

Elezeus did not stop here, however. He said he had been thinking of having nets of his own, so as to have a whole share in the fishing; but he needed a guarantor. Did he? Well, Kristàver was quite willing to back a bill for him, of course.

When he left the house, he burst into a laugh.

"I'm a fool, and a fool I always shall be," he said to himself.

"It

Inside the cottage Elezeus was walking up and down excitedly.

"Now you can see," he said to his wife. "Was n't I right? He has inherited money! Is n't it wonderful how things go for some people? Perhaps it's some thousands. You'll see, he 'll be buying a large farm soon, and begin to drive about in a fourwheeled carriage, ha! ha! You must go down this evening and ask him to lend us the money to buy a cow with."

"No, indeed I won't," she said. "You'll have to do that yourself."

"You won't? Is that the way to answer me? You'd better take care! You'd better take care!"

Kristàver trudged on in the cold north wind, going in to one after another of his acquaintances, but always meeting with a refusal.

Andreas Ekra was a well-to-do man, head-man on the Storm-Bird, and had shared a hut with Kristàver for many years, but he said "No." People seemed to think that it did not do to be too open-handed when you had n't a penny to do it with.

Kristàver's knees seemed to grow weaker as he went from house to house, leaving each with a fresh refusal. He held his hat on with one hand, and swung the other vigorously; he had the whole day for the business, and would have to put up with a few more refusals.

A man was coming toward him in a white blouse and a sou'wester, his left hand deep in his trousers-pocket. He had a goatee, and as he walked his right shoulder was in advance of his left. It was Peter Suzansa, the headman on the Sea-Fire.

"Are you out this windy day?" he

Yes, Kristàver was just out for a walk. They both stood, as fishermen generally do, looking out to sea, which which was grayish white under the north wind.

Peter Suzansa had the reputation of lying as readily as a horse trots. He told the most dreadful stories with the most serious face, and no one believed a word of them. He was now over sixty, and his beard was gray; he had recently lost his wife, and had an unmarried daughter living with him who was awaiting her confinement. Today he was looking old.

As they stood there, Kristàver, despite everything, forced himself to ask his assistance in the matter of the bank-loan; and after all it was Peter, who had had so much trouble lately, who now said that he thought it might be managed.

When they parted, Kristàver walked with a lighter step, but he still had to have another name. He met with several refusals afterward, but they were easier to bear now.

As twilight fell he drew near to two little red houses up by the peat bogs. They belonged to Henry Rabben, a man of a rather different type from the others in the neighborhood. No one could explain why it was that every one looked up to him. He was a fisherman and a farm laborer like the others, had no more learning than they, and was in possession of no great wealth; but however much noise might be going on in a room when he entered it, it instantly became quiet, and every one in it was ready to make room for him. He was of medium height and broad-shouldered. On week days he went about in patched clothes