Hero Tales of the Far North | Page 2

history, and Frederik of Denmark had fallen out. Like their people, they
were first cousins, and therefore all the more bent on settling the old
question which was the better man. After the fashion of the lion and the
unicorn, they fought "all about the town," and, indeed, about every
town that came in their way, now this and now that side having the best
of it. On the sea, which was the more important because neither Swedes
nor Danes could reach their fighting ground or keep up their armaments
without command of the waterways, the victory rested finally with the
Danes. And this was due almost wholly to one extraordinary figure, the
like of which is scarce to be found in the annals of warfare, Peder
Tordenskjold. Rising in ten brief years from the humblest place before
the mast, a half-grown lad, to the rank of admiral, ennobled by his King
and the idol of two nations, only to be assassinated on the "field of
honor" at thirty, he seems the very incarnation of the stormy times of
the Eleven Years' War, with which his sun rose and set; for the year in
which peace was made also saw his death.
Peder Jansen Wessel was born on October 28, 1690, in the city of
Trondhjem, Norway, which country in those days was united with
Denmark under one king. His father was an alderman with eighteen
children. Peder was the tenth of twelve wild boys. It is related that the
father in sheer desperation once let make for him a pair of leathern
breeches which he would not be able to tear. But the lad, not to be

beaten so easily, sat on a grind-stone and had one of his school-fellows
turn it till the seat was worn thin, a piece of bravado that probably cost
him dear, for doubtless the exasperated father's stick found the
attenuated spot.
Since he would have none of the school, his father had him apprenticed
out to a tailor with the injunction not to spare the rod. But sitting
cross-legged on a tailor's stool did not suit the lad, and he took it out of
his master by snowballing him thoroughly one winter's day. Next a
barber undertook to teach him his trade; but Peder ran away and was
drifting about the streets when the King came to Norway. The boy saw
the splendid uniforms and heard the story of the beautiful capital by the
Öresund, with its palaces and great fighting ships. When the King
departed, he was missing, and for a while there was peace in
Trondhjem.
Down in Copenhagen the homeless lad was found wandering about by
the King's chaplain, who, being himself a Norwegian, took him home
and made him a household page. But the boy's wanderings had led him
to the navy-yard, where he saw mid-shipmen of his own size at drill,
and he could think of nothing else. When he should have been waiting
at table he was down among the ships. For him there was ever but one
way to any goal, the straight cut, and at fifteen he wrote to the King
asking to be appointed a midshipman. "I am wearing away my life as a
servant," he wrote. "I want to give it, and my blood, to the service of
your Majesty, and I will serve you with all my might while I live!"
The navy had need of that kind of recruits, and the King saw to it that
he was apprenticed at once. And that was the beginning of his strangely
romantic career.
Three years he sailed before the mast and learned seamanship, while
Charles was baiting the Muscovite and the North was resting on its
arms. Then came Pultava and the Swedish King's crushing defeat. The
storm-centre was transferred to the North again, and the war on the sea
opened with a splendid deed, fit to appeal to any ardent young heart. At
the battle in the Bay of Kjöge, the Dannebrog, commanded by Ivar
Hvitfeldt, caught fire, and by its position exposed the Danish fleet to

great danger. Hvitfeldt could do one of two things: save his own life
and his men's by letting his ship drift before the wind and by his escape
risking the rest of the fleet and losing the battle, or stay where he was to
meet certain death. He chose the latter, anchored his vessel securely,
and fought on until the ship was burned down to the water's edge and
blew up with him and his five hundred men. Ivar Hvitfeldt's name is
forever immortal in the history of his country. A few years ago they
raised the wreck of the Dannebrog, fitly called after the Danish flag,
and made of its guns a monument that stands on