there was a stone outside my hut, a tall grey stone. it looked as if it had a sort of friendly feeling towards me; as if it noticed me when i came by, and knew me again. i liked to go round that way past the stone, when i went out in the morning; it was like leaving a good friend there, who i knew would be still waiting for me when i came back.
then up in the woods hunting, sometimes finding game, sometimes none . . .
out beyond the islands, the sea lay heavily calm. many a time i have stood and looked at it from the hills, far up above. on a calm day, the ships seemed hardly to move at all; i could see the same sail for three days, small and white, like a gull on the water. then, perhaps, if the wind veered round, the peaks in the distance would almost disappear, and there came a storm, the south-westerly gale; a play for me to stand and watch. all things in a seething mist. earth and sky mingled together, the sea flung up into fantastic dancing figures of men and horses and fluttering banners on the air. i stood in the shelter of an overhanging rock, thinking many things; my soul was tense. heaven knows, i thought to myself, what it is i am watching here, and why the sea should open before my eyes. maybe i am seeing now the inner brain of earth, how things are at work there, boiling and foaming. ?sop was restless; now and again he would thrust up his muzzle and sniff, in a troubled way, with legs quivering uneasily; when i took no notice, he lay down between my feet and stared out to sea as i was doing. and never a cry, never a word of human voice to be heard anywhere; nothing; only the heavy rush of the wind about my head. there was a reef of rocks far out, lying all apart; when the sea raged up over it the water towered like a crazy screw; nay, like a sea-god rising wet in the air, and snorting, till hair and beard stood out like a wheel about his head. then he plunged down into the breakers once more.
and in the midst of the storm, a little coal-black steamer fighting its way in . . .
when i went down to the quay in the afternoon, the little coal-black steamer had come in; it was the mail-packet. many people had gathered on the quayside to see the rare visitor; i noticed that all without exception had blue eyes, however different they might be in other ways. a young girl with a white woolen kerchief over her head stood a little apart; she had very dark hair, and the white kerchief showed up strangely against it. she looked at me curiously, at my leather suit, my gun; when i spoke to her, she was embarrassed, and turned her head away. i said:
“you should always wear a white kerchief like that; it suits you well.”
just then a burly man in an iceland jersey came up and joined her; he called her eva. evidently she was his daughter. i knew the burly man; he was the local smith, the blacksmith. only a few days back he had mended the nipple of one of my guns . . .
and rain and wind did their work, and thawed away the snow. for some days a cheerless cold hovered over the earth; rotten branches snapped, and the crows gathered in flocks, complaining. but it was not for long; the sun was near, and one day it rose up behind the forest.
it sends a strip of sweetness through me from head to foot when the sun comes up; i shoulder my gun with quiet delight.
