_HOME_ My father was a country merchant, and owned the trading-place, -- --ven in West Lofoten.

He was really from Trondhjem, whence he had come north, as a destitute boy, in one of those small vessels which are sent from that city to Lofoten, to trade during the fishing season.

In his youth he had gone through a great deal, and had even worked for a time in a boat's crew, as a simple fisherman, until he at last got a place as shop-boy with Erlandsen the merchant, whose son-in-law he became.
My father, in middle age, was a handsome man, black-haired and dark-skinned, with sharp, energetic features, and in height rather short than tall.

He always wore a brown duffel, seaman's jacket, and glazed hat.

In manner he was stern, and not very accessible; it was said, too, that he was rather a hard man--for which the severe school of life through which he had passed was perhaps to blame.