“But devil take it, man, surely you can see that this ape of a schoolmaster dare not keep you out of your money. Let me come with you; we’ll go up and tackle him together, and then—then you’ll see.” And Klaus clenched his fists and thrust out one shoulder fiercely.
But when January came, there was Peer in oil-skins, in the foc’s’le of a Lofoten fishing-smack, ploughing the long sea-road north to the fishing-grounds, in frost and snow-storms. All through that winter he lived the fisherman’s life: on land, in one of the tiny fisher-booths where a five-man crew is packed like sardines in an air so thick you can cut it with a knife; at sea, where in a fair wind you stand half the day doing nothing and freezing stiff the while—and a foul wind means out oars, and row, row, row, over an endless plain of rolling icy combers; row, row, till one’s hands are lumps of bleeding flesh. Peer lived through it all, thinking now and then, when he could think at all, how the grand gentlefolk had driven him out to this life because he was impertinent enough to exist. And when the fourteen weeks were past, and the Lofoten boats stood into the fjord again on a mild spring day, it was easy for Peer to reckon out his earnings, which were just nothing at all. He had had to borrow money for his outfit and food, and he would be lucky if his boy’s share was enough to cover what he owed.
A few weeks later a boy stood by the yard gate of an engineering works in the town just as the bell was ringing and the men came streaming out, and asked for Klaus Brock.
“Hullo, Peer—that you? Been to Lofoten and made your fortune?”
The two boys stood a moment taking stock of one another: Klaus grimy-faced and in working-clothes—Peer weather-beaten and tanned by storm and spray.
The manager of the factory was Klaus’s uncle, and the same afternoon his nephew came into the office with a new hand wanting to be taken on as apprentice. He had done some smithy work before, he said; and he was taken on forthwith, at a wage of twopence an hour.
“And what’s your name?”
“Peer—er”—the rest stuck in his throat.
“Holm,” put in Klaus.
“Peer Holm? Very well, that’ll do.”