shark-fishing had stood by him now. "Do like me," urged Klaus. "You're
a bit of a smith already, man; go to the workshops, and read up in your
spare time for the entrance exam to the Technical. Then three years at
the College--the eighteen hundred crowns will cover that--and there you
are, an engineer--and needn't even owe any one a halfpenny."

Peer shook his head; he was sure he would never dare to show his face
before that schoolmaster again, much less ask for the money in the bank.
No; the whole thing was over and done with for him.

"But devil take it, man, surely you can see that this ape of a
schoolmaster dare not keep you out of your money. Let me come with you;
we'll go up and tackle him together, and then--then you'll see." And
Klaus clenched his fists and thrust out one shoulder fiercely.

But when January came, there was Peer in oil-skins, in the foc's'le of
a Lofoten fishing-smack, ploughing the long sea-road north to the
fishing-grounds, in frost and snow-storms. All through that winter he
lived the fisherman's life: on land, in one of the tiny fisher-booths
where a five-man crew is packed like sardines in an air so thick you can
cut it with a knife; at sea, where in a fair wind you stand half the day
doing nothing and freezing stiff the while--and a foul wind means out
oars, and row, row, row, over an endless plain of rolling icy combers;
row, row, till one's hands are lumps of bleeding flesh. Peer lived
through it all, thinking now and then, when he could think at all, how
the grand gentlefolk had driven him out to this life because he was
impertinent enough to exist. And when the fourteen weeks were past, and
the Lofoten boats stood into the fjord again on a mild spring day, it
was easy for Peer to reckon out his earnings, which were just nothing at
all. He had had to borrow money for his outfit and food, and he would be