Fiddle-John's Family by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen

Down in the valley the Easter bells were chiming; the bell-strokes trembled through the clear, sun-steeped air. There was commotion in the valley, too, in spite of the fact that it was Easter Sunday. Out in the middle of the fiord lay a huge black steamer, which panted and shrieked, as if it were in distress, and sent volumes of gray smoke out of its chimneys. Around about little black fragments of coal-dust were drizzling through the air and swimming on the water; and the gulls which kept whirling about the smoke-stacks were quite shocked when they caught the reflections of themselves in the tide; with wild screams they plunged into the fiord. They probably mistook themselves for crows.

The pier, which broke the line of the beach at the point of the headland, was thronged with men, women, and children. The men were talking earnestly together; most of the women were weeping, and the children were gazing impatiently toward the steamboat and tugging at their mother's skirts. Some twenty or thirty boats, heavily laden with chests and boxes, lay at the end of the pier; and one after another, as it was filled with people, put off and was rowed out to the steamer. Only the old folk remained behind; with heavy hearts and tottering steps they walked up the sloping beach and stood at the roadside, straining their eyes to catch a last glimpse of the son or daughter, whom they were never to see again. Some flung themselves down in the sand and sobbed aloud; others stooped over the weeping ones and tried to console them.