a, which ended in renewed vows
and promises, I was sitting in the stern of our ten-oared boat, together
with my father and the two Martinezes, in the dark winter evening, while
the moon was sailing behind a countless number of little grey clouds.

Father sat in silence and steered, while the men rowed against a rather
stiff breeze which blew up the Sound, so that we might get the wind in
our sails the rest of the way.

I quietly thought over everything that had passed during this short
visit, and felt infinitely happy.

We reached home late at night. I tried to keep awake and to think about
Susanna and all she had said to me, but I slept like a log, and awoke
with a feeling of such health, happiness, and joy, as only those know to
whose lot it has fallen to sleep the sleep of the really happy. And thus
it was every night. I fell asleep before my prayers were ended, sang in
the morning, and felt light-hearted almost to reckless gaiety, happy and
ready for work the whole day long.

This proved how truly Susanna had said that our love would become to me
a spring of health, better than any doctor's human wisdom could devise.

CHAPTER X

_THE STORM_

It was late in the afternoon of the Saturday after Twelfth Night that
the terrible two days' storm began, which is still spoken of by many as
one of the most violent that has visited Lofoten within the memory of
man.

It was fortunate that the fishing had not yet begun--the storm raged
with grey sky, sleet, and tremendous seas from the south-west right up
the West 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 were lost. This time only a few boats were wrecked on their way to
the fishing, and several yachts and a couple of larger vessels were
stranded.

The storm increased during the night; we could feel how the house
yielded at each burst, groaning at every joist, and we all sat up and
watched with lights, as if by silent agreement.

All window-shutters, doors, and openings were carefully closed. The
tiles rattled noisily at each gust, so that we were afraid the roof
would be broken in, and the wind in the chimney made a deep, weird,
growling noise, which in the fiercest attacks on the house sounded like
a loud, horrible monster voice out in the night, sometimes almost like a
wild cry of distress.

We sat in the sitting-room in a silence that was only now and then