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It is difficult to turn back from the first summer-day trip, in countries where summer is less beautiful than in Nordland; and on went Rolf, beyond the bounds of prudence, as many have done before him.
The vagabond from Nordland has his own adventures, his bonnes fortunes. There is a touch of Sterne about the book; not the exaggerated super-Sterne of Tristram Shandy, with eighteenth-century-futurist blanks and marbled pages, but the fluent, casual, follow-your-fancy Sterne of the Sentimental Journey.
All sorts of traditions about the speed and wonderful racing powers of the boats are current in Nordland, and romantic tales are told of some of them. The best boats in Nordland now came from Ranen, where boatbuilding has made great strides.
But the Gan-Finn had noticed that there was something amiss, and sat all the time in his furs, and mumbled and muttered to the Gan-flies, so that Jack dare not get between him and the doorway. The Finn was angry. Since there had been such a changing about of boats over all Nordland, and there was no more sale for his fair winds, he was quite ruined, he complained.
There is the mill; there, there stood my hut, that was burned; the big grey stone stands there all alone on the site of the fire. Iselin, Eva... The night of the northern lights spreads over valley and hill. I have written this to pass the time. It has amused me to look back to that summer in Nordland, when I often counted the hours, but when time flew nevertheless. All is changed.
Instead of the fruit-gardens here, he has the miles of cloudberry moors at home. Instead of a poor, uniform shore with nothing but mussels, he remembers a grand beach strewn with myriads of marvellously tinted shells. All natural conditions are intensified in Nordland, and are far more powerfully contrasted than in the south of Norway.
"Why, then, you'll have the full use of it. And may your reverence live to enjoy it for many a year," said I. At this the priest stared at me, and asked: "What is your name?" "Knut Pedersen." "Where are you from?" "From Nordland." But I understood why he had asked, and resolved not to talk in that bookish way any more. Anyhow, the well and the pipe-line were decided on, and we set to work....
An idea occurred to everybody but one, within the next few hours, which occasioned some consultation. Everybody but Erica felt and said that it would be a great honour and privilege, but one not undeserved by the district, for the Bishop of Tronyem to marry Rolf and Erica before he left Nordland.
In the newspapers in Norway you may see among the advertisements, "A confirmed shop-boy wants a place." "Wanted a confirmed girl, who can cook;" which means that their having been confirmed proves that they are considered respectable, and not deficient in capacity or knowledge. A hundred years ago Nordland was included in the diocese of Tronyem.
Meantime, the effect upon himself is seen and avowed. Between Svoermere and Benoni comes the frankly first-personal narrative of a vagabond who describes himself, upon interrogation, as "Knut Pedersen" which is two-thirds of Knut Pedersen Hamsund and hailing from Nordland which embraces Lofoten.
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