"Then it would be all over with me, and with Morten at the same time."
This thought came across Jörgen's mind out at sea, where his
foster-father had been taken suddenly ill: he was in a high fever.
This was just a little way from the outer reef. Jörgen sprang up.
"Father, allow me," he cried, and his eye glanced over Morten and over
the waves; but just then every oar was raised for the great struggle,
and as the first enormous billow came, he observed his father's pale
suffering countenance, and he could not carry out the wicked design
that had suggested itself to his mind. The boat got safely over the
reefs, and in to the land; but Jörgen's evil thoughts remained, and
his blood boiled at every little disagreeable act that started up in
his recollection from the time that he and Morten had been comrades,
and his anger increased as he remembered each offence. Morten had
supplanted him, he felt assured of that; and that was enough to make
him hateful to him. A few of the fishermen remarked his scowling looks
at Morten, but Morten himself did not; he was, just as usual, ready to
give every assistance, and very talkative—a little too much of the
latter, perhaps.
Jörgen's foster-father was obliged to keep his bed; he became worse,
and died within a week; and Jörgen inherited[25] the house behind the
sand-hills—a humble habitation to be sure, but it was always
something. Morten had not so much.
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