The Visionary: Pictures From Nordland

e terrible two days' storm began, which is still spoken of by many as on

est Fjord-or perhaps as large a number of wrecks might have been heard of as in the famous storm of 1849, when in one day several hundred boats

ouse yielded at each burst, groaning at every joist, and we a

aid the roof would be broken in, and the wind in the chimney made a deep, weird, growling noise, which in the fiercest atta

en by some remark about the weather, or when one or other of the men ca

pite of the harbour's good position, had been trebly moored in the afternoon. I saw him several times fold his hands as if in prayer, and then, as if c

me from the storehouse. I saw drops of perspiration standing on my father's forehead, and w

and came back with an old large-type prayer-book, in which he

ing called, gathered in the

s of the hymn, while those of us who knew the tune joined by degrees in the refrain. It was altogether as if we were holding prayers in a ship's cabin while the vessel was in danger, a

less reason for anxiety than we, for his brig lay with extra moorings under land in a little creek sheltered fro

e, and, tired as we were, we went to bed

rom the house roof lay spread over the yard, part of the outer pannelling of the wall on the windward side was torn away, and the end of th

d and longest rope, which was fastened to the mooring ring on the rock at the mouth of the bay. There was only the ship's dog on board, a large white poodle, w

e of it scarcely touched the water. It was blowing so hard, too, that a man could hardly stand upright,

stood in the shelter of a rocky knoll, from which I

oss the sea. Beneath the cliffs the waves came in like great, green, foam-topped mountains, breaking on the s

over the land by the wind like smoke. At another place the waves stormed in a Titanic way a sloping rock, which lay, now in foam, now high and dry, and I s

ntured out with one of the men, from the windward side, in a six-oared boat. After a short stay on board he stepped down alone into the boat wi

e waves washed in several times. As the boat slowly worked its way along, fath

gan to haul in the line, drawing after it through the water a thick cable, which the man on board was paying out gradually. He had just begun to fasten it to th

acht too, which, with her one overstrained rop

nto the surf, almost as if she thought of throwing herself into the water to go

still shelter himself, but it was only to take up from it the line, which he calmly wound several time

he faced with bent head, broke right over him and the rock. The interval

ood firm, and he now made the final

rned his strong pale face towards our house for a moment, as if it were quite possible that he was now bidding it farewell, and be

in foam, and gone by, n

vered, besides the boat, which had been torn from the rock, the app

nd taken clothes and skin with it. He now lay unconscious from the pressure of the water, and with one ar

and supported him while they ca

d, and had a difficulty in speaking; but father, who ex

and wide; from that day forward, he was one of my father's trusted