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And he raised his son's hands to the light. "And there's a wrist, Fris! He could take up an old man like me and carry me like a little child." Ole laughed feebly. "But I carried him; all the way from the south reef I carried him on my back. I'm too heavy for you, father! I could hear him say, for he was a good son; but I carried him, and now I can't do anything more.
Fris himself probably did not feel the change, for he had ceased to feel both for himself and for others. None now brought their human sorrows to him, and found comfort in a sympathetic mind; his mind was not there to consult. It floated outside him, half detached, as it were, like a bird that is unwilling to leave its old nest to set out on a flight to the unknown.
"He dived backward off the gunwale of a bark that was lying in the roads here taking in water, and came up on the other side of the vessel. He got ten rye rusks from the captain himself for it." "He must have suffered terribly," said Fris. "It would almost have been better for him if he hadn't been able to swim." "That's what my father says!" said a little boy.
The hymn-book was the business of Fris's life, and his forty years as parish-clerk had led to his knowing the whole of it by heart. In addition to this he had a natural gift. As a child Fris had been intended for the ministry, and his studies as a young man were in accordance with that intention.
"Never forget him, children!" he said; "and now go quietly home." The children silently took up their things and went; at that moment they would have done anything that Fris told them: he had complete power over them. Ole stood staring absently, and then took Fris by the sleeve and drew him up to the dead body. "He's rowed well!" he said. "The blood's come out at his finger-ends, look!"
They loafed about the harbor, chatting of old times. There was so much to recall from their schooldays. Old Fris with his cane, and the games on the beach! Per Kofod spoke as though he had taken part in all of them; he had quite forgotten that he used always to stand still gripping on to something and bellowing, if the others came bawling round him.
There was a deep wound in the forehead. When Pelle saw the dead body with its gaping wound, he began to jump up and down, jumping quickly up, and letting himself drop like a dead bird. The girls drew away from him, screaming, and Fris bent over him and looked sorrowfully at him. "It isn't from naughtiness," said the other boys. "He can't help it; he's taken that way sometimes.
It must have been the fluttering mind that his eyes were always following when they dully gazed about into vacancy. But the young men who came home to winter in the village, and went to Fris as to an old friend, felt the change.
"Yes, I think that was it," said Fris. "They were in the North Sea, and were surprised by a storm; and Peter had to go aloft." "Yes, for the Trokkadej is such a crazy old hulk. As soon as there's a little wind, they have to go aloft and take in sail," said another boy. "And he fell down," Fris went on, "and struck the rail and fell into the sea. There were the marks of his sea-boats on the rail.
Fris nodded with them, and a long tuft of hair flapped in his face; he fell into an ecstasy, and could not sit still upon his chair. "And were this world all devils o'er, And watching to devour us, We lay it not to heart so sore; Not they can overpower us." It sounded like a stamping-mill; some were beating their slates upon the tables, and others thumping with their elbows.
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