The wife lay in the churchyard, and the sons in the deep sea.
Anders was an old man, bent by age.

His curly white hair covered his head like a mop, and stood out under his flat cap, which looked more like the clot of pitch it really almost was, than anything else.

In his youth Anders had made one voyage to the Mediterranean, in the _Family Hope_, but he had then been discharged; for he had a failing, and that was--he stammered.

Sometimes he could talk away without any hesitation, but if the stammering once began, there was nothing for it but to give up the attempt for that time.

There he would stand, gasping and gasping, till he got so enraged that he nearly had a fit.