e metal. When he was six years old, however, his father was
transferred to Romsdal, which is, indeed, a wild and grandly picturesque
region; but far less desolate than Dovre. "It lies," says Bjoernson,
"broad--bosomed between two confluent fjords, with a green mountain
above, cataracts and homesteads on the opposite shore, waving meadows
and activity in the bottom of the valley; and all the way out toward the
ocean, mountains with headland upon headland running out into the fjord
and a large farm upon each."

The feeling of terror, the crushing sense of guilt which Bjoernson has so
strikingly portrayed in the first chapters of "In God's Way," were
familiar to his own childhood. In every life, as in every race, the God
of fear precedes the God of love. And in Northern Norway, where nature
seems so tremendous and man so insignificant, no boy escapes these
phantoms of dread which clutch him with icy fingers. But as a
counterbalancing force in the young Bjoernson, we have his confidence in
the strength and good sense of his gigantic father, who could thrash the
strongest champion in the parish. He used to stand in the evening on the
beach "and gaze at the play of the sunshine upon fjord and mountain,
until he wept, as if he had done something wrong. Now he would suddenly
stop in this or that valley, while running on skees, and stand
spell-bound by its beauty and a longing which he could not comprehend,
but which was so great that in the midst of the highest joy he was
keenly conscious of a sense of confinement and sorrow."[2] "We catch a
glimpse in these childish memories," says Mr. Nordahl Rolfsen, "of the
remarkable character, we are about to depict: Being the son of a giant,
he is ever ready to strike out with a heavy hand, when he thinks that
anyone is encroaching upon what he deems the right. But this same
pugnacious man, whom it is so hard to overcome, can be overwhelmed by an
emotion and surrender himself to it with his whole being."

[2] Nordahl Rolfsen: Norske Digtere, pp. 450, 451.

At the age of twelve Bjoernson was sent to the Latin school at Molde,
where, however, his progress was not encouraging. He was one of those
thoroughly healthy and headstrong boys who are the despair of ambitious
mothers, and whom fathers (when the futility of educational chastisement
has been finally proved) are apt to regard with a resigned and
half-humorous regret. His dislike of books was instinctive, hearty, and
uncompromisin