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Updated: June 4, 2025
"Are you really in earnest, Salvé?" she asked, looking at him still in suspense. He nodded in confirmation. "Well, if it is your father's wish, may may God prosper you in it, my boy!" she said, going over to Gjert and stroking his forehead.
When their son Gjert was born in the spring following their marriage, he had been sitting by Elizabeth's bedside unable to tear himself away from her and the cradle, until a small present arrived from one of her friends in the town, who with others had often sent to inquire after her, when he got up and went straight out of the house and paced backwards and forwards with his hands behind his back outside, as she could see through the window, thoroughly out of humour, though when he came in again he was even more affectionate and attentive to her than before.
Gjert came in now with some of the things for the house which his father had bought in Arendal, and impressing the doleful-looking "bagman" into the service, took him down with him to the boat to help him to bring up the rest. He had only given his mother a hurried kiss, as he had seen at a glance that all was right this time.
His own little scion, although a couple of years older than Gjert, escaped punishment altogether the other lads, however, determining among themselves that he should have it the next time they met. And he would have had it, if Gjert, who should have been the one more particularly to desire revenge, had not unexpectedly taken his part.
Gjert was evidently ready to burst with some news or other, but he had to restrain himself until his father had taken his seat by the fire that was crackling brightly on the hearth in the kitchen, and had leisurely filled his pipe, and taken two or three pulls at it. "Now then, Gjert," he said, "you may tell it. I see you can't keep it in any longer."
"Well, Gjert," said his mother, after he had sat and looked round him for a moment or two, evidently expecting to be invited to gratify their curiosity, "were you on board?" "Not myself; but I talked to others who had been.
He lay and listened, though there was not much to be made out of her disjointed utterances. She grew more restless, and began to talk more excitedly "Never! never!" she said, vehemently; "he shall never hear a word about the brig," and she went on then in a confidential whisper "Shall he, Gjert? He shall find us in our berth, or else he will think we are afraid."
That lad down in the gig has been spinning you a fine one," said his father, as he sat down to the table. Gjert continued to talk all through the meal, and when it was over, while his mother came in and out of the room, and his father sat over at the window, partly listening and partly looking out at the weather.
Gjert was at school in Arendal, living at his aunt's; and Henrik was sitting by the light from the stove, cutting up a piece of wood into shavings. "It is beginning to blow again, Henrik," she said, and put a handkerchief round her head to look out. "It is no use, mother," he pronounced, without stirring, and splitting a long peg into two against his chest; "it's pitch-dark, isn't it?"
"Mother will come back when her aunt over in Arendal is well again," said the pilot, soothingly. But he soon broke out again. "You have nothing to blubber for," he said; "you can go in and see her if you like t-omorrow morning the first thing. You may go now and sleep in our bed." Gjert obeyed; and his father paced to and fro on the floor afterwards for a long while in great agitation.
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