hing,
at least, for it sends the heaps of ware out to sea, and I can imagine
how it will surprise the Queen of England when she knows how we stink.
And I have a grievance of my own, viz., boys shooting with blunderbusses
and powder, and with so little wit that my eyes flash with anger every
time I see them creeping on their stomachs towards a starling or a
couple of lean ring-plovers, and I shout and cast stones to warn the
innocent creatures, since the farmer of Jaeren is, as it were, his
thrall's thrall, and lets the servant-boys make a fool of him and play
the concertina all night, which might be put up with, but no powder and
shooting should be allowed, so that Jaeren may not become a desert for
bird-life, and only concertinas left and rascals of boys on their
stomachs as above.

Yours very truly,
LAURITZ BOLDEMANN SEEHUS.

KRYDSVIG, December 25, 1889.

MR. EDITOR,

After having, in the course of a long and very stormy life, given heed
to the clouds of the sky and the various aspects of the sea, which can
change before your eyes as you look, like a woman who discovers another
whom she likes better, and you stand forsaken and rejected, because a
girl's mind is like the ocean above-mentioned, and full of storms as the
Spanish Sea, and I early received my shock of that kind for life, of
which I do not intend to speak, but the weather is of a nature that I
have never before observed in this country, with small seas, rare and
moderate storms, and on this first Yule-day a peace on the earth and
such a complacent calm on the sea that you might row out in a trough.
The wreckage that came in on the 8th and 9th December last was the only
extravagance, so to speak, of the sea this year, for there was too much
in some places, and this will probably give the Lensmand a pretext for
holding an auction, to the great ruination of the people, for the planks
were rare ones, both long and good-hearted timber. But at an auction
half the pleasure is lost, besides more that is very various in
kind--for instance, brandy: and the town gentlemen who sell such liquor
to the farmer must answer to their consciences what substances and
ingredients such a drink is cooked out of, as it brings on mental
weakness and bodily torment, proof of which I have seen numberless times
in strong and well-fabricated persons, especially during the Yule-days.
But this is not my friendship's time, for they say at the far