Then, as the signal was given that all friends of the passengers must leave the steamer, he took Frithiof’s hand and held it fast in his.
“God bless you, my boy—I think you will bring honor to our name, sooner or later. Now, Sigrid, wish him well, and let us be off.”
He called little Swanhild to him, and walked briskly down the gangway, then stood on the quay, talking very cheerfully, his momentary depression quite past. Before long the steamer began to glide off, and Frithiof, even in the midst of his bright expectations, felt a pang as he waved a farewell to those he left behind him.
“A happy return to Gamle Norge!” shouted Herr Falck.
And Sigrid and Swanhild stood waving their handkerchiefs till the steamer could no longer be seen.
“I am a fool to mind going away!” reflected Frithiof. “In three weeks’ time I shall be at home again. And the next time I leave Bergen, why, who knows, perhaps it will be to attend my own wedding!”
And with that he began to pace the deck, whistling, as he walked, “The Bridal Song of the Hardanger.”
CHAPTER V.
The event to which we have long eagerly looked forward is seldom all that we have expected, and Frithiof, who for the last two months had been almost hourly rehearsing his arrival in England, felt somewhat depressed and disillusioned when, one chilly Monday morning, he first set foot on English soil. The Southerner, arriving at Folkestone or Dover, with their white cliffs and sunny aspect, gains a cheerful impression as he steps ashore; but the Norwegian leaving behind him his mountains and fjords, and coming straight to that most dingy and unattractive town, Hull, is at great disadvantage.
A fine, drizzling rain was falling; in the early morning the shabby, dirty houses looked their very worst. Swarms of grimy little children had been turned out of their homes, and were making their way to morning school, and hundreds of busy men and women were hurrying through the streets, all with worn, anxious-looking faces. As he walked to the railway station Frithiof felt almost overpowered by the desolateness of the place. To be a mere unit in this unthinking, unheeding crowd, to be pushed and jostled by the hurrying passengers, who all walked as if their very lives depended on their speed, to hear around him the rapidly spoken foreign language, with its strange north-country accent, all made him feel very keenly that he was indeed a foreigner in a strange land. He was glad to be once more in a familiar-looking train, and actually on his way to London; and soon all these outer impressions faded away in the absorbing consciousness that he was actually on his way to Blanche—that on the very next day he might hope to see her again.