CHAPTER X.
_THE STORM_ It was late in the afternoon of the Saturday after Twelfth Night that the terrible two days' storm began, which is still spoken of by many as one of the most violent that has visited Lofoten within the memory of man.
It was fortunate that the fishing had not yet begun--the storm raged with grey sky, sleet, and tremendous seas from the south-west right up the West Fjord--or perhaps as large a number of wrecks might have been heard of as in the famous storm of 1849, when in one day several hundred boats were lost.

This time only a few boats were wrecked on their way to the fishing, and several yachts and a couple of larger vessels were stranded.
The storm increased during the night; we could feel how the house yielded at each burst, groaning at every joist, and we all sat up and watched with lights, as if by silent agreement.
All window-shutters, doors, and openings were carefully closed.

The tiles rattled noisily at each gust, so that we were afraid the roof would be broken in, and the wind in the chimney made a deep, weird, growling noise, which in the fiercest attacks on the house sounded like a loud, horrible monster voice out in the night, sometimes almost like a wild cry of distress.
We sat in the sitting-room in a silence that was only now and then broken by some remark about the weather, or when one or other of the men came in from making the round of the house to see how things were going on.
My father sat in restless anxiety about the store-house, and about his yacht lying down in the bay, which, because of the heavy seas which came in, in spite of the harbour's good position, had been trebly moored in the afternoon.

I saw him several times fold his hands as if in prayer, and then, as if cheered, walk up and down the room for a while, until anxiety again overcame him, and he sat down looking straight before him, gloomy and pale as before.
The storm rather increased than abated.

Once we heard a dull thud, which might well have come from the storehouse.