Then I should inflame the peasants against the armed farm-boys,
day-labourers, and poachers, and against the sportsmen from town, who
stroll around without permission and crack away where they please. It
only wants a beginning and a little combination, for the peasant, in his
heart, is furious at this senseless shooting.

Perhaps some day, when not a single bird is left, my idea of an
inspector may come to be honoured and valued. Would that a godly
Storthing [Footnote: Parliament.] may then succeed in finding a pious
and well-recommended man, who can instruct the people in a moral manner
as to where the humid Noah accommodated the ostriches in the ark, or
what he managed to teach the parrots during the prolonged rainy weather.

We, too, have recently had a deluge. The lakes and the river have risen
to the highest winter-marks. But the soil of this blessed place is so
sandy that roads and fields remain firm and dry, the water running off
and disappearing in a moment.

It has also blown from all quarters, with varying force, for three
weeks. We press onward over the plain, and stagger about among the
houses, where the gusts of wind rush in quite unexpectedly with loud
claps. The fishing-rod has had to be carried against the wind, and the
water of the river has risen in the air like smoke.

And the sea, white with wrath, begins to form great heavy breakers far
out in many fathoms of water, rolls them in upon the strand, inundates
large tracts, and carries away the young wrack-grass and what we call
'strandkaal' [Footnote: Sea-kale.]--all that has grown in summer and
gathered a little flying sand around it as tiny fortifications; the
sea has washed the beach quite bare again, and fixed its old limits