against it (his right arm frozen to it, in fact, from the elbow up)
with his back towards the bows. The snow was heaped on his head and
shoulders like a double cape. This one had no hair on his face; and
his complexion being very fresh and pink, and his eyes wide open, it
was hard to believe him dead. Indeed, while getting in the boat,
I had to speak to him twice, to make sure.

2. A much older man, and shorter, with a rough grey beard. He sat
in the stern sheets, with his right hand frozen on the tiller.
Our folk had afterwards to unship the tiller when they came to lift
him out: and carried him up to the house still holding it. Later on
we buried it beside him. This man wore a good blue coat and black
breeches; and at first we took him to be the captain. He turned out
to be the mate, Knud Lote, who had put on his best clothes when it
came to leaving the ship. His eyes were screwed up, and the brine
had frozen over them, like a glaze, or a big pair of spectacles.

3. Against his knee rested the head of a third man--one of the
three I had first seen sitting amidships. When the other two
toppled overboard this one had slid off the thwart and fallen
against the steersman. He was an oldish man, yellow and thin and
marked with the small-pox; the only one in the boat who might have
come from some other country than Norway. His eyes were cast down
in a quiet way, and he seemed to be smiling. He wore a seaman's
loose frock, ragged breeches, and sea-boots.

4 and 5. Stretched along the bottom-boards lay a tall young man
with straw-coloured hair and beard: and in his arms, tightly
clasped, and wrapped in a shawl and seaman's jacket, a young woman.
Her arms were about the young man and her face pressed close and
hidden against his side. He must have taken off his jacket to warm
her; for the upper part of his body had no covering but a flannel
shirt and cinglet.

While we stood there the tide drained back, leaving the bows of the boat
high and dry. As I remember, Obed was the first to speak; and he said
"She has beautiful hair." This was the bare truth: a great lock of it
lay along the bottom-board like a stream of guineas poured out of a
sack. He climbed into the boat and lifted the shawl from her face.

Those neighbours of ours, friends and acquaintances, who afterwards saw
Margit Pedersen a