It was far on into the morning of the next day, when Anne Kvæn roused me with a shake, as she had been accustomed to do since I was a child, and told me that my father had started that morning for Tromsö. He had been up to my room before he went, and when he came down again said that I lay smiling in my sleep, and "looked so happy, poor boy"!
It was very seldom that any sympathetic words came from my father, so these are imprinted on my memory.
My father himself at that time was anything but cheerful. The steamboat dispute lay heavy on his heart, and he now wanted to try, as a last resort, to have the matter thoroughly aired in the newspapers, and it was about this that he now wanted to apply personally to a solicitor at Tromsö.
These circumstances, however, did not come to my knowledge at that time.
CHAPTER V
CONFIRMATION
While matters were in this state between our parents, the time came for Susanna and me to be confirmed. As I was not entered until some time after the confirmation course had begun, it was arranged that, besides the class in the church every Monday, I was to read alone with the minister on Fridays.