Erling the Bold, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Erling the Bold

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21730]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERLING THE BOLD ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

ERLING THE BOLD, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

IN WHICH THE TALE BEGINS SOMEWHAT FURIOUSLY.

By the early light of a bright summer morning, long, long ago, two small boats were seen to issue from one of the fiords or firths on the west coast of Norway, and row towards the skerries or low rocky islets that lay about a mile distant from the mainland.

Although the morning was young, the sun was already high in the heavens, and brought out in glowing colours the varied characteristics of a mountain scene of unrivalled grandeur.

The two shallops moved swiftly towards the islands, their oars shivering the liquid mirror of the sea, and producing almost the only sound that disturbed the universal stillness, for at that early hour Nature herself seemed buried in deep repose. A silvery mist hung over the water, through which the innumerable rocks and islands assumed fantastic shapes, and the more distant among them appeared as though they floated in air

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