The kitchen was also a dining-room.
At our entrance the host, as if he had never seen us, greeted us with the word "_Saellvertu,_" which means "be happy," and came and kissed us on the cheek.
After him his wife pronounced the same words, accompanied with the same ceremonial; then the two placing their hands upon their hearts, inclined profoundly before us.
I hasten to inform the reader that this Icelandic lady was the mother of nineteen children, all, big and little, swarming in the midst of the dense wreaths of smoke with which the fire on the hearth filled the chamber.

Every moment I noticed a fair-haired and rather melancholy face peeping out of the rolling volumes of smoke--they were a perfect cluster of unwashed angels.
My uncle and I treated this little tribe with kindness; and in a very short time we each had three or four of these brats on our shoulders, as many on our laps, and the rest between our knees.

Those who could speak kept repeating "_Saellvertu,_" in every conceivable tone; those that could not speak made up for that want by shrill cries.
This concert was brought to a close by the announcement of dinner.

At that moment our hunter returned, who had been seeing his horses provided for; that is to say, he had economically let them loose in the fields, where the poor beasts had to content themselves with the scanty moss they could pull off the rocks and a few meagre sea weeds, and the next day they would not fail to come of themselves and resume the labours of the previous day.
"_Saellvertu,_" said Hans.
Then calmly, automatically, and dispassionately he kissed the host, the hostess, and their nineteen children.
This ceremony over, we sat at table, twenty-four in number, and therefore one upon another.

The luckiest had only two urchins upon their knees.
But silence reigned in all this little world at the arrival of the soup, and the national taciturnity resumed its empire even over the children.