“It can hardly be done, I’m afraid; they haven’t time to stop now.”
“That’s a pity. I want to see the man himself.”
He went on rowing. It became harder and harder to keep up, but he stared fixedly at me as I leaned on the rail smiling, while Christofersen stood laughing at my side.
“Since you’re so anxious to see the man himself, I may tell you that you see him now,” said I.
“Is it you? Is it you? Didn’t I guess as much! Welcome home again!”
And thereupon the fisherman dropped his oars, stood up in his boat, and took off his cap. As we went on through the splendor of the morning, and I sat on the deck of the luxurious English yacht and saw the beautiful barren coast stretching ahead in the sunshine, I realized to the full for the first time how near this land and this people lay to my heart. If we had sent a single gleam of sunlight over their lives, these three years had not been wasted.
“This Norway, this Norway...
It is dear to us, so dear,
And no people has a fairer land than this our homeland here.
Oh, the shepherding in spring,