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Updated: May 8, 2025
The spray dashed in their faces, and Bernt and his next youngest brother Anton, who till now had helped his mother with the halliard, were at last obliged to hold the yard, an expedient resorted to when the boat cannot even bear to go with the last reef in this case the fifth.
He still sat for a while, but, as it grew lighter, Bernt saw that his father's face was deadly pale, his hair had parted in several places as it often does when death is near, and the skin was torn from his hands by holding on to the keel.
Whilst they two thus sat all alone on the bottom of the boat, Elias said to Bernt he must now needs believe that he too was about to be "along o' mother!" but that he had a strong hope that Bernt, at any rate, would be saved, if he only held out like a man.
When the sea had got its due, it became, as every one knows who has sat long upon an upturned boat, a good deal quieter. It became easier for Bernt to hold on; and with the growing day there came more hope. The storm lulled, and when it became quite light, it seemed to him he ought to know where he was, and that he lay drifting outside his own native place, Kvalholmen.
There she saw Bernt upon the rock, and the boat, bottom upwards, rocking up and down against it. She immediately ran down to the boat-house, launched the old four-oared boat, and rowed it along the shore, round the island, out to him. Bernt lay ill under her care the whole winter, and did not go fishing that year. People thought, too, after this that he was now and then a little strange.
When it rose again out of the water, with the keel in the air, Elias, Bernt, and the twelve-year-old Martin lay alongside, holding on by the withy-bands; but the third of the brothers was gone.
His inclination was to follow her, but he felt, too, that he must do what he could to save the rest of the freight he had on board namely, Bernt and his two other sons, the one twelve, the other fourteen, who had baled the boat for a time, but had now found a place in the stern behind their father.
Elias now thought of sailing home, but first went to the shop and laid in a supply of Christmas goods including a little keg of brandy for himself and his family. Delighted as he was with his purchase, both he and his wife took that day a little more than was good for them, and Bernt, the son, also had a taste. Their shopping done, they set out to sail the new boat home.
Then Elias gave to Bernt, who sat alongside him, his silver watch with the brass chain, which he had snapped in two in order to drag it from beneath his closely buttoned jacket.
Well, would I perhaps be kind enough to take out a couple of letters that had come for him? I trudge up town again, along the same road, pass by the joiners who are sitting with their cans between their knees, eating their good warm dinner from the Dampkoekken pass the bakers, where the loaf is still in its place, and at length reach Bernt Akers Street, half dead with fatigue.
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