Part 19

It was bitterly cold, and it rained--oh, how it rained! But we didn't care, we were going to Thorshavn at last, and there was a good sea. The change of wind, the down-pour, had flattened the broken surges. Only the great ground-swells swept landward, rank on rank, crashing along the coast. We mounted slowly to their summits and glided down the outer slopes with the motion of a bird in flight. Gayly rose the talk in the boat, and there was a lighting of little pipes, one at a time, so that the rowing need not be hindered. Now a faint yellow gleam on the southern horizon beyond the down-dropping veils of mist; then, dimly seen, the snow-crowned heights of Naalsoe rising eighteen hundred feet from the sea. The danger-point on Stromoe passed, and then in the distance twinkling lights, and a breath from shore bearing the fragrance of peat-smoke.--'So he bringeth them to their desired haven.'

Out on the fjord the Danish gun-boat rose and fell, and on the wet shore-rocks was a lonely figure gazing out to sea, like the pictures of Napoleon on Elba. It had a familiar look--it was--yes, it was the Pastor!

They laid hands on the Pastor, as though they expected him to vanish from their sight. The Baby would be baptized then and there. Scant time was given to the godmothers to change their shoes, skirts, and stockings, and to prink.

_Clang, Clang! Clang!_ rang the church-bell in treble staccato notes. There was a clattering of pattens in the stony lanes as children hurried to the Baptism. The Pastor, a dignified priestly figure in his long black robes and Elizabethan ruff, left the Thorshavn parsonage, passed through the side gate to the church-portal, and the bell-ringing died away.

* * * * *

I was down at the landing an hour later to say 'farvel' to the Pastor and the baptismal party. And as the boat left shore I turned away to my little cabin-home with a sigh of relief. The Baby--_Karin Marin Malene Elsebet Jakobina Jakobson_--was baptized.

THE END

Biographical Notes

=Henry C. Merwin= has practiced law in Boston for a generation. A tireless and enthusiastic worker in the cause of kindness to dumb animals, he organized, many years ago, and still largely manages, the Decoration-Day Workhorse Parade--an institution which has been extraordinarily beneficent in its results.

=William Beebe= is Curator of Ornithology at the New York Zoological Park, and has traveled far and wide, especially in tropical countries, in study or search of every bird that flies.

=Jane Addams=, a pioneer among those Americans who have spent their lives in ameliorating the conditions which breed poverty in our great cities, has been for nearly thirty years the head of Hull-House, Chicago, which she founded in 1889.

=Reverend Samuel McChord Crothers= is the minister of the First Church (Unitarian) at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The most individual among our essayists, he is known wherever the essay is read.

=Professor Robert M. Gay= fills the chair of English at Goucher College for Women in Baltimore.

=Jean Kenyon Mackenzie= is an American missionary to Southwest Africa, where she has long lived with the black folk on terms of sympathy and understanding.

=Edgar J. Goodspeed= is a professor of Chicago University, where he teaches biblical and patristic lore.

=William T. Foster= has been, since its establishment, President of Reed College, Oregon, where his policy of opposition to intercollegiate athletics is creating a new tradition of college sport.

=Lida F. Baldwin= is a teacher of Youngstown, Ohio, and a lover and observer of all natural things.

=Fannie Stearns Gifford= is a frequent contributor of both prose and verse to the _Atlantic Monthly_ from her home in Pittsfield, Mass.

=John Jay Chapman= is an essayist of uncompromising vigor and independence of thought. The author of many books, including a memoir of William Lloyd Garrison, he has also published, with a notable introduction, the letters of his son Victor, who was killed in the flying service on the Western Front.

=Lucy M. Donnelly= is a lecturer in English in Bryn Mawr College.

=Sharlot Mabridth Hall= is a writer and traveler, with a very considerable and specialized knowledge of Southwestern America.

=Richard Rowland Kimball=, a resident of Adamsville, R. I., is a pleasant essayist, and a true lover of dogs.

=Laura Spencer Portor=, one of the editors of a well-known woman's paper in New York, is a writer of versatile and temperamental charm.

=Mrs. Anne C. E. Allinson=, wife of a professor at Brown University, is an enthusiastic and informed devotee of Greek history, art, and literature. Before her marriage Mrs. Allinson was Dean of Women in the University of Wisconsin.

=Elizabeth Taylor= still lives in the Faroe Islands, with whose customs and mode of life she has the familiarity of a native, with more than a native's appreciation.