“No! Yes! What?” they cried in chorus; and one boy said: “That the sun’s fallen into the sea and set it on fire!”
The master quietly took up his hymn-book. “Shall we sing ‘How blessed are they’?” he said; and they knew that something must have happened, and sang the hymn seriously with him.
But at the fifth verse Fris stopped; he could not go on any longer. “Peter Funck is drowned!” he said, in a voice that broke on the last word. A horrified whisper passed through the class, and they looked at one another with uncomprehending eyes. Peter Funck was the most active boy in the village, the best swimmer, and the greatest scamp the school had ever had—and he was drowned!
Fris walked up and down, struggling to control himself. The children dropped into softly whispered conversation about Peter Funck, and all their faces had grown old with gravity. “Where did it happen?” asked a big boy.
Fris awoke with a sigh. He had been thinking about this boy, who had shirked everything, and had then become the best sailor in the village; about all the thrashings he had given him, and the pleasant hours they had spent together on winter evenings when the lad was home from a voyage and had looked in to see his old master. There had been much to correct, and things of grave importance that Fris had had to patch up for the lad in all secrecy, so that they should not affect his whole life, and—
“It was in the North Sea,” he said. “I think they’d been in England.”
“To Spain with dried fish,” said a boy. “And from there they went to England with oranges, and were bringing a cargo of coal home.”
“Yes, I think that was it,” said Fris. “They were in the North Sea, and were surprised by a storm; and Peter had to go aloft.”
“Yes, for the Trokkadej is such a crazy old hulk. As soon as there’s a little wind, they have to go aloft and take in sail,” said another boy.
“And he fell down,” Fris went on, “and struck the rail and fell into the sea. There were the marks of his sea-boots on the rail. They braced—or whatever it’s called—and managed to turn; but it took them half-an-hour to get up to the place. And just as they got there, he sank before their eyes. He had been struggling in the icy water for half-an-hour—with sea-boots and oilskins on—and yet—”