Deep in his soul there lurks a silent suspicion, unknown even to
himself, he is always like a watchful sea-fowl that dives at the flash
of the gun, and before the bullet has had time to strike the spot where
it just now lay on the water. He has been used from childhood to think
of the unexpected, the possibility of all possible things in Nature, as
a sword hanging over every peaceful, quiet hour, and he generally
carries this instinct with him in his intercourse with his
fellow-creatures. While you are talking to him, he may dive into his
mind like the sea-fowl, but you do not suspect it, and are not therefore
disconcerted. This introspection may occur while he has tears in his
eyes, and in moments when he is most deeply affected--it is his nature,
and he will always retain a dash of it, even when he has moved, with all
his belongings, from natural into civilised surroundings. He eludes you,
steals, with his imagination and his watchful suspicion, in, among, and
around your thoughts; indeed, if he is a really talented Nordlander--I
am too dull and disinterested to be able to do it--I believe that,
without your suspecting it, he can go, with his hands in his pockets,
right through your mind, in at your forehead, and out at the back of
your head. He would be invaluable as a detective or a diplomatist, if
only he had more strength of character, and succumbed with less childish
weakness to the influence of the moment; but these are unfortunately
his weak points. I am speaking now of the strong trait in the national
character as it shows itself in the more conspicuous natures, and would
not be misunderstood to mean that men of character are not to be found
in Nordland too--many a time, perhaps oftener than elsewhere, they are
hardened into something grand.

In a native Nordland family there will generally be found--such, at
least, is my belief--some drops of Fin blood. It has been remarked
elsewhere that in the Sagas, when the greatest peasant races in