A Hardy Norseman by Edna Lyall

The event to which we have long eagerly looked forward is seldom all that we have expected, and Frithiof, who for the last two months had been almost hourly rehearsing his arrival in England, felt somewhat depressed and disillusioned when, one chilly Monday morning, he first set foot on English soil. The Southerner, arriving at Folkestone or Dover, with their white cliffs and sunny aspect, gains a cheerful impression as he steps ashore; but the Norwegian leaving behind him his mountains and fjords, and coming straight to that most dingy and unattractive town, Hull, is at great disadvantage.

A fine, drizzling rain was falling; in the early morning the shabby, dirty houses looked their very worst. Swarms of grimy little children had been turned out of their homes, and were making their way to morning school, and hundreds of busy men and women were hurrying through the streets, all with worn, anxious-looking faces. As he walked to the railway station Frithiof felt almost overpowered by the desolateness of the place. To be a mere unit in this unthinking, unheeding crowd, to be pushed and jostled by the hurrying passengers, who all walked as if their very lives depended on their speed, to hear around him the rapidly spoken foreign language, with its strange north-country accent, all made him feel very keenly that he was indeed a foreigner in a strange land.