dispatch them.

A NORSK STORY.

On one of the _fjords_, or bays, which so deeply indent the coast of
Norway lived two lads, sons of well-to-do farmers, who, besides their
fields of rye and wheat, their _marks_, or pasture fields, and their
_saeters_, or hay-making fields, farther away, had also an interest in
the fisheries for which Norway is so famous. The salmon, the herring,
and the cod are all caught in great numbers; so also is the shark, and
used for its oil, which passes for cod-liver oil.

The fathers of Lars and Klaus were, however, peasants. They worked on
their farms, and above their green pastures rose lofty mountains clad in
fir-trees, dusky pines, mottled beeches, and silver birches. Klaus and
Lars explored together the recesses of these mountains; together they
hunted for bears; together they sailed over the blue waters of the
_fjord_, in and out of the swift currents, and on and up into the
streams fed by the great ice _fjelds_. They were always together. If any
one wanted Klaus, he asked where Lars had gone; and if one had seen
Lars, he knew Klaus would soon follow. It was their delight to see which
could excel the other in the management of their fishing _jagts_, those
square-sailed slow craft, and for days they would cruise about the
haunts of the eider-duck--not to kill it, for that is forbidden, the
bird being too valuable, but to filch from the sides of its nest the
lovely down which the birds pluck from their own breasts.

They went to school, too, in the winter, and both were confirmed by the
village pastor as soon as they had been well prepared for that solemn
rite, which is of so much social as well as religious importance in
their country.

In the short hot summer they helped the fishermen split the cod and
spread them on the rocks to dry, or they made lemming traps and sought
to see how many of the hated vermin they could capture.

In short, their life was active, hardy, and full of keen enjoyment; they
were good-natured, and did not quarrel. Both were tall, finely grown as
to muscle, but they would have been handsomer had they eaten less salt
fish and more beef.

In a quaint little house at the foot of the mountains, near where
tumbled in snowy foam a beautiful _foss_, lived an old woman and her
grandchild Ilda. They were really tenants of Klaus's father; and in
their wanderings the boys often stopped for a glass of milk or a slice
of _fladbroed_ (oat-cake), which the old wom