Bernt lay ill under her care the whole winter, and did not go fishing that year. People thought, too, after this that he was now and then a little strange.
He had a horror of the sea, and would never go on it again. He married the Fin girl and moved up to Malangen, where he bought a clearing, and is now doing well.
CHAPTER IV
AMONG THE VÆTTE ROCKS
It was summer. Susanna and I were now in our seventeenth year, and it was settled that we should be confirmed in the autumn.
It was this year that my father was involved in his unequal struggle with the authorities—among whom were the sheriff and the minister—as to whether our trading-place should be a permanent stopping-place for the Nordland steamer. This was a matter of vital importance to my father, and the dispute about it, which also interested the whole district, had already begun to be rather warm.
This was, in fact, not the least important object that the sheriff had in view when he came that summer on a visit to the minister, who was a very influential man.
Outwardly there was as yet no rupture between my father and the minister, and it must have been for the purpose of manifesting this publicly that during the sheriff's visit my father was invited over to the minister's two or three times.