“I look to you, Frithiof,” the father said eagerly, “I look to you to carry out the aims in which I myself have failed—to live the life I could wish to have lived. May God grant you the wife who will best help you in the struggle! I sometimes think, Frithiof, that things might have gone very differently with me had your mother been spared.” “Do you not let this depression influence you too much, father?” said Frithiof. “Why take such a dark view of your own life? I shall only be too happy if I make as much of the world as you have done. I wish you could have come to England too. I think you want change and rest.” “Ah!” said Herr Falck, laughing, “once over there you will not echo that wish. No, no, you are best by yourself when you go a-wooing, my son. Besides, I could not possibly leave home just now; we shall have the herring-fleet back from Iceland before many days.” Then, as the signal was given that all friends of the passengers must leave the steamer, he took Frithiof’s hand and held it fast in his. “God bless you, my boy—I think you will bring honor to our name, sooner or later. Now, Sigrid, wish him well, and let us be off.” He called little Swanhild to him, and walked briskly down the gangway, then stood on the quay, talking very cheerfully, his momentary depression quite past. Before long the steamer began to glide off, and Frithiof, even in the midst of his bright expectations, felt a pang as he waved a farewell to those he left behind him. “A happy return to _Gamle Norge_!” shouted Herr Falck. And Sigrid and Swanhild stood waving their handkerchiefs till the steamer could no longer be seen. “I am a fool to mind going away!” reflected Frithiof. “In three weeks’ time I shall be at home again. And the next time I leave Bergen, why, who knows, perhaps it will be to attend my own wedding!” And with that he began to pace the deck, whistling, as he walked, “The Bridal Song of the Hardanger.” CHAPTER V. The event to which we have long eagerly looked forward is seldom all that we have expected, and Frithiof, who for the last two months had been almost hourly rehearsing his arrival in England, felt somewhat depressed and disillusioned when, one chilly Monday morning, he first set foot on English soil. The Southerner, arriving at Folkestone or Dover, with their white cliffs and sunny aspect, gains a cheerful impression as he steps ashore; but the Norwegian leaving behind him his mountains and fjords, and coming straight to that most dingy and unattractive town, Hull, is at great disadvantage.