He didn’t want to be burdened with them. I saw those stockings again up there.”

Ane Maria said: “I don’t understand what this has to do with you.”

But then her husband spoke up again. “What stockings are these, I’m asking?”

When it was explained to him, he sat there, his face dark; and Ane Maria began to cry. Her husband said: “So! That was the year I came home and you had no change of stockings for me. And you thought you were grand enough to give stockings away!”

“I’m sorry I did it,” said Ane Maria, sniffing.

A young relative of hers called Teodor broke in: “In any case, it’s none of your business, Edevart.”

“No. But what business is it of yours if August has gold teeth?”

“Listen to the little brat!” Teodor burst out. “He’s forgotten that the priest failed him.”

Edevart, pale and wild-eyed: “You know what you are forgetting? You are forgetting that you’ve got a rupture and wear a truss.”

Teodor gets up snorting.

The man of the house, Karolus, drags him down onto the bench again. Edevart was in no mood to draw back; he was roused and was afraid of nothing.

The young man Teodor ended up saying that he had his own good teeth and didn’t need any blacksmith working on them. To which Edevart replied that it was just as well, because he’d never be the sort of man who could afford teeth like those August had.

After that, Teodor couldn’t let things rest there but started up again and continued his abuse for quite some time. He might have taken less time if Edevart hadn’t constantly answered back—but he did.

From that day on, August and Edevart became partners in inshore fishing. They caught much codling and haddock for their domestic use, and weren’t above giving away a meal of fish to others when they had enough for the day for themselves. More than one housewife blessed them during the long autumn.

When the time came for them to get ready for the Lofotens, Edevart asked one day: “Are you fixed up?”

“No,” said August. “Nobody’s mentioned anything.”

“Aren’t you going to have a word with somebody?”

“No. Not when all the men are against me.”

“So what will you do this winter?”

“I’ll take myself off to sea again,” August answered.

Edevart said: “If only I could come along, too!”

Neither of them got away that winter; and Edevart didn’t even go to the Lofotens, though he could have signed on as a full hand. This was a disappointment for his parents. His father was not a fisherman himself, but earned a little looking after the telegraph wires over a wide area. Edevart, on the other hand, disappointingly had no job to fall back on. The lad ought to have thought more about his own interests, but now there was nothing to be done about that. August began buying up furs and hides in the district, and took Edevart along to help carry them.

It transpired that August wasn’t all that short of dalers in his pocket, and he arranged to pay Edevart the same wages an ordinary hand would get for a winter in the Lofotens. This was thus a very fair arrangement, and Edevart did not lose anything by it. Moreover, he learned much from August, and looked up to him as a great sea dog and one hell of a fine fellow.

So they bought skins: mostly calfskins, occasionally a sheepskin or two, now and then a cowhide. Suddenly all the dogs came down with sickness; a stray dog brought in distemper and infected the whole district. August and Edevart, as the only grown men left at home, were often called upon to destroy an animal for humane reasons, whereupon they flayed it and got the skin free. But fur trading: did August know the business? He was not without some knowledge of it, he claimed. Among his many occupations in foreign lands, he had worked for a time on a sheep farm in Australia.

With the approach of Lent, August expanded his business. He began buying more valuable pelts—otter, fox, and ermine. He got hold of a gun and a couple of traps of different kinds and had a go at hunting. It worked. No shot had been heard for a long time in those parts. Foxes and otters were by no means rare; and one fine day August came home with both a silver fox and an otter.