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THE

FISHER GIRL

BY

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON.

TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN

BY

SIVERT AND ELIZABETH HJERLEID.

(Translators of Ovind.)

LONDON:
TRÜBNER AND CO.

1871.

[Entered at Stationers' Hall.]

TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.

Encouraged by the general appreciation with which our former translation "Ovind" was received last winter, we now offer to the English reader what we believe to be a faithful re-production of Herr Björnson's latest work. The poems are rendered in the metre of the original, and as in "Ovind" we have taken the liberty of adding headings to the chapters.

North Ormesby,

Middlesbrough,

December, 1870.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. I.

Peer, Peter, and Pedro.

CHAP. II.

"Some Other Boys."

CHAP. III.

Ready for Confirmation.

CHAP. IV.

One and Another.

CHAP. V.

A Mistake.

CHAP. VI.

The Sound of the Clock.

CHAP. VII.

The First Act.

CHAP. VIII.

At the Rural Dean's.

CHAP. IX.

Apprehensions.

CHAP. X.

Is Music Lawful?

CHAP. XI.

Reconciliation.

CHAP. XII.

The Scene.

CHAPTER I.

PEER, PETER, AND PEDRO.

When the herring has for a long time frequented a coast, by degrees, if other circumstances admit of it, there springs up a town. Not only of such towns may it be said, that they are cast up out of the sea, but from a distance they look like washed-up timber and wrecks, or like a mass of upturned boats that the fishermen have drawn over for shelter some stormy night; as one draws nearer, one sees how accidentally the whole has been built, mountains rising in the midst of the thoroughfare, or the hamlet separated by water into three, four divisions, while the streets crook and crawl. One condition only is common to them all, there is safety in the harbour for the largest ship; there is shelter and calm, and the ships find these enclosures grateful, when with torn sails and broken bulwarks, they come driving in from the North Sea to seek for breathing space.

Such a little town is quiet; all the noise there is, is directed to the quay, where the boats of the peasants are moored, and the ships are loading and unloading. The only street in our little town lies along the quay, the white and red painted, one and two-storied houses follow this, yet not house to house, but with pretty gardens in between; consequently it is a long broad street, which, when the wind is landward, smells of that which is on the quay.

It is quiet here,--not from fear of the police, for, as a rule, there is none,--but from fear of report, as everybody knows everybody. If you go along the street, you must bow at every window, for there sits an old lady ready to bow again. Besides you must bow to those you meet, for all these quiet people are thinking what is becoming to the inhabitants in general, and to themselves in particular. He who oversteps the bounds where his standing or position is placed, loses his good reputation; for you know not only him, but his father and grandfather and you seek out where there has been a tendency in the family before to that which is unbecoming.

Many years since to this quiet little town came the well esteemed man, Peer Olsen; he came from the country, where he had lived as a small stall keeper and by playing the violin. In this town he opened a little shop for his old customers, where besides other wares he sold brandy and bread. One could hear him going backwards and forwards in the room behind the shop, playing spring dances and wedding marches; every time he passed the door he peeped through the glass pane, when, if he saw a customer, he finished up with a trill, and went in. Trade went well, he married and got a son, whom he named after himself, yet not Peer but Peter. Little Peter should be what Peer felt HE was not, an educated man, so the lad was sent to the Latin school. Now when those who should have been his companions, thrust him out of their play because he was the son of Peer Olsen, Peer Olsen turned him out to them again, as that was the only way for the boy to learn manners. Little Peter, therefore, feeling himself forsaken at the school, grew idle, and gradually became so indifferent to everything, that his father could neither