Boyhood in Norway | Page 4

"flashed"
properly, was girded to a brass- mounted belt about his waist; an
ancient, gold-braided, military cap, which was much too large, covered
his curly head; and four tarnished brass buttons, displaying the Golden
Lion of Norway, gave a martial air to his blue jacket, although the rest
were plain horn.
But quite independently of his poor trappings Viggo was to his
comrades an august personage. I doubt if the Grand Vizier feels more
flattered and gratified by the favor of the Sultan than little Marcus
Henning did, when Viggo condescended to be civil to him.
Marcus was small, round-shouldered, spindle-shanked, and
freckle-faced. His hair was coarse, straight, and the color of maple
sirup; his nose was broad and a little flattened at the point, and his
clothes had a knack of never fitting him. They were made to grow in
and somehow he never caught up with them, he once said, with no
intention of being funny. His father, who was Colonel Hook's nearest
neighbor, kept a modest country shop, in which you could buy anything,
from dry goods and groceries to shoes and medicines. You would have
to be very ingenious to ask for a thing which Henning could not supply.
The smell in the store carried out the same idea; for it was a mixture of
all imaginable smells under the sun.
Now, it was the chief misery of Marcus that, sleeping, as he did, in the
room behind the store, he had become so impregnated with this curious
composite smell that it followed him like an odoriferous halo, and
procured him a number of unpleasant nicknames. The principal
ingredient was salted herring; but there was also a suspicion of tarred
ropes, plug tobacco, prunes, dried codfish, and oiled tarpaulin.
It was not so much kindness of heart as respect for his own dignity
which made Viggo refrain from calling Marcus a "Muskrat" or a

"Smelling-Bottle." And yet Marcus regarded this gracious forbearance
on his part as the mark of a noble soul. He had been compelled to
accept these offensive nicknames, and, finding rebellion vain, he had
finally acquiesced in them.
He never loved to be called a "Muskrat," though he answered to the
name mechanically. But when Viggo addressed him as "base minion,"
in his wrath, or as "Sergeant Henning," in his sunnier moods, Marcus
felt equally complimented by both terms, and vowed in his grateful
soul eternal allegiance and loyalty to his chief.
He bore kicks and cuffs with the same admirable equanimity; never
complained when he was thrown into a dungeon in a deserted pigsty for
breaches of discipline of which he was entirely guiltless, and trudged
uncomplainingly through rain and sleet and snow, as scout or spy, or
what-not, at the behest of his exacting commander.
It was all so very real to him that he never would have thought of
doubting the importance of his mission. He was rather honored by the
trust reposed in him, and was only intent upon earning a look or word
of scant approval from the superb personage whom he worshipped.
Halvor Reitan, the chief of the East-Siders, was a big, burly peasant lad,
with a pimpled face, fierce blue eyes, and a shock of towy hair. But he
had muscles as hard as twisted ropes, and sinews like steel.
He had the reputation, of which he was very proud, of being the
strongest boy in the valley, and though he was scarcely sixteen years
old, he boasted that he could whip many a one of twice his years. He
had, in fact, been so praised for his strength that he never neglected to
accept, or even to create, opportunities for displaying it.
His manner was that of a bully; but it was vanity and not malice which
made him always spoil for a fight. He and Viggo Hook had attended
the parson's "Confirmation Class," together, and it was there their
hostility had commenced.
Halvor, who conceived a dislike of the tall, rather dainty, and disdainful
Viggo, with his aquiline nose and clear, aristocratic features,
determined, as he expressed it, to take him down a peg or two; and the
more his challenges were ignored the more persistent he grew in his
insults.
He dubbed Viggo "Missy." He ran against him with such violence in
the hall that he knocked his head against the wainscoting; he tripped

him up on the stairs by means of canes and sticks; and he hired his
partisans who sat behind Viggo to stick pins into him, while he recited
his lessons. And when all these provocations proved unavailing he
determined to dispense with any pretext, but simply thrash his enemy
within an inch of his life at the first opportunity which presented itself.
He grew to hate Viggo and was always aching