The Pilot and his Wife

Chapter 8

As for Salv, during the first few days after coming home he was a happy

man. He was in love: he had received from his captain a hundred-daler

note, accompanied by a promise that as soon as he had learnt navigation

he should be third mate on board the Juno; and he heard himself admired

on all sides by his equals and associates. There was so much work to be

done, though, in discharging the cargo and getting the vessel into dock

for repairs--they had managed to get her up as far as Arendal--that it

would be Saturday evening before he could get his so longed-for

home-leave.

On the day before, as he was sitting on watch in the early morning under

the lee of the bulwark, he accidentally overheard a conversation going

on upon the slip below that set his blood on fire.

The carpenters had just come to their work, and one of them was telling

the story of old Jacob's death, and of the heroism which his

granddaughter had displayed.

"They say," he went on, "that Captain Beck is to have him buried on

Monday next, and that he is to provide for the granddaughter--the navy

lieutenant has seen to that."

The noise and the clinking of the hammers that were now at work made

Salv lose a good deal of the conversation here.

"There is good reason for that, mind you," was the next observation he

caught, made in a somewhat lower tone, and accompanied by a doubtful

laugh. "It is not for nothing that he has been out so constantly

shooting sea-fowl about Torungen."

"Would she be a--sea-bird of that feather? Old Jacob, I should have

thought, was not the kind of man--"

"Well, perhaps not that altogether; but the first thing she did was to

come straight over here; and he has had her already taken into his own

house. I have that from the aunt. The old woman had no suspicion of

anything, but told me quite innocently that now she was to be a sort of

housekeeper with the Becks."

A slight noise above him here caused the speaker to look up. A deadly

pale young sailor was staring down at him over the ship's side with a

pair of eyes that struck him as resembling those he had once seen in the

head of a mad dog. Their owner turned away at once and crossed the deck.

"That must have been the lover!" he whispered over to the other, as he

set to work with his adze upon the pencilled plank. Shortly after he

muttered in a tone of compunction--

"If I saw that physiognomy aright, some one had better take care of

himself when he gets leave ashore."

Salv had sprung to his feet in a fury when he heard about young Beck,

but the desire to hear more had kept him spellbound. What further had

been hinted of his relations with Elizabeth, and that the latter had

even taken refuge in his house, seemed all only too probable. He knew

both the men who had been speaking; they were respectable folks, and the

one besides had had the news from the aunt herself.

There was hard work that day on board, but his hands were as if they had

been benumbed. It was impossible for him to give any assistance, except

in appearance, when any hauling was to be done;--he did everything

mechanically.

"Are you sick, lad, or longing after your sweetheart?" said the mate to

him in the course of the afternoon. He saw that there was something

wrong with him.

That last, "after your sweetheart," had a wonderfully rousing influence.

He felt himself all at once relieved of his heavy feeling of exhaustion,

and worked now so hard that the perspiration poured down his face,

joining in the hauling song from time to time with a wild, unnatural

energy: he was afraid to leave himself a moment for thought. When the

day was over, however, he took the anchor watch for a comrade, who was

overjoyed at the unexpected prospect of getting a quiet night in his

hammock, and at escaping from his turn of "ship's dog"--that watch

consisting of one man only, whose business it is to keep the ship from

harbour-thieves.

He paced up and down the deck alone in the pitchy darkness, that was

only relieved by a lantern or two out in the harbour, and a light here

and there up in the town--sometimes standing for long minutes together,

with his cheek on his hand, leaning on the railing. He could, without

the slightest scruple, murder young Beck--that he felt.

At two o'clock he crossed over to the boards that were sloped against

the vessel's side, slid down them in the dark to the slip, and from

there made his way ashore. Elizabeth's aunt lived in one of the small

houses above; and he had determined to wake her and have a talk with

her.

Widow Kirstine was a portly, somewhat worn perhaps, but otherwise

strong-looking, old woman, with a good broad face, and thin grey hair

drawn down behind her ears. She was not unused to being disturbed at

night, one of her occupations being to nurse sick people; but she always

grumbled whenever she was. When she held up the candle she had lit, and

recognised Salv Kristiansen, she thought, from his paleness and general

appearance, that he was drunk.

"Is that you, Salv?--and a pretty state to be in at this time of

night!" she began, severely, in the doorway, not caring to let him in at

first. "Is that the way you spend your wages?"

"No, mother, it's not. I've come off my watch; I wanted to have a word

with you about Elizabeth."

His tone was so strangely low and sorrowful, that the old woman saw that

there must be something unusual the matter; and she opened the door.

"About Elizabeth, you say?"

"Yes--where is she stopping now?"

"Where is she stopping?--why, with the Becks, of course. Is there

anything the matter?"

"You ought to know that best, mother Kirstine," he said, earnestly.

She held up the light to his face, and looked at him in vague anxiety,

but could make nothing out of it.

"If I ought to know it, tell me," she said, almost in a tone of

entreaty.

"Young Beck, I hear, has been out about Torungen the whole

year--shooting sea-birds--or--do you really think he means to marry

her?" he broke out wildly, and raising his voice.

It was only now that she caught his full meaning; and setting down the

candlestick hard upon the table, she dropped into the chair by the side

herself.

"So--that is what they are saying, is it?" she cried at last. Her first

fear was over; but anger had succeeded to it, and she rose now from her

seat with arms akimbo and flashing eyes. She was not a woman to offend

lightly.

"So they have fastened that lie upon Elizabeth, have they!--it's a shame

for them, so it is! And you, Salv, can soil your lips with it? Let me

just tell you, then, for your pains, that the Becks' house is as

respectable a one as any in Arendal; and it isn't you, and such as you,

that can take its character away. Never fear but Elizabeth shall hear

every word of your precious story--ay, and the captain, and the

lieutenant, and Madam Beck, too; and you'll be hunted from the Juno like

a dripping cur. So you thought that Elizabeth was to be beholden to the

lieutenant for a character--?"

"Dear mother Kirstine!" Salv cried, interrupting her in the full

torrent of her indignation, "I didn't think about it--I couldn't think.

Only, I heard Anders of the Crag down on the slip this morning say it

all so confidently.

"Anders of the Crag? So it was from him you heard it?--the pitiful,

wheedling rascal! That is his gratitude, I suppose, for my being with

his wife last week!--I shall know where to find him. But the receiver in

the like is no better than the stealer," she resumed, indignantly; "and

I'd have you know, it was just Beck's own daughter who came here and

offered Elizabeth a respectable place in a respectable house, and it was

to me she talked, my lad," pointing self-consciously with quivering

forefinger at her own bosom; "so Elizabeth has not begged herself in

there at all. You didn't need to desert your watch to bring such tales

here; and Elizabeth shall hear of it--that she shall," she repeated,

excitedly, striking one hand into the other with a loud smack--"she

shall hear what fine faith you have in her."

"Dear mother Kirstine! I didn't mean any harm," he said, entreatingly,

feeling as if a weight had been taken off his heart--"only please don't

tell Elizabeth."

"You may depend upon it I will."

"Mother Kirstine!" he said, in a low voice, and looking down, "I brought

a dress with me for her that I had bought in Boston. And then I heard

all this, and I couldn't contain myself." He said nothing about the

rings.

"So!" rejoined the old woman after a pause, during which she had

examined him through her half-closed eyes, and in a somewhat milder

tone; "so you brought a dress for her! and at the same time you come

running up here in the middle of the night to tell me that she has

become a common baggage for the lieutenant,"--and her anger rose again.

"But, Mother Kirstine, I don't believe a word of it."

"It wasn't to tell me that, I suppose, you came up here in such haste,

my lad."

"I was only mad to think such a thing could be said of her."

"Well, be off with you now! Anders of the Crag shall go farther with his

lie--if I go with him before the Foged and the Maritime Court."

For the matter of that, she might as well have threatened to go with him

to the moon; but Salv understood her to mean by the Maritime Court the

bloodiest course she knew.

As she opened the door to let him out, she said with a certain

confidential seriousness--"Tell me, Salv! has anything passed between

you and Elizabeth?"

He seemed uncertain for a moment what reply he should make to this

unexpected invitation of confidence. At length he said--

"I don't know, Mother Kirstine, for certain; two years ago, I made her a

present of a pair of shoes."

"You did!--well, see now and get on board again without any one noticing

you--that's my advice," she replied, without allowing herself to be

brought any further into the matter, and pushed him then rather

unceremoniously out of the door.

After he had gone she sat for a while with the light in her lap, staring

at it and nodding her head reflectively.

"He's a good and a handsome lad that Salv," she said at last, aloud.

"But on the whole it will be better to tell Elizabeth, and then she can

be on her guard there in the house;" and having come to this decision

she rose from her seat and prepared to go to bed again.

Salv, notwithstanding this interview, was far from being at ease next

day, and he felt the courage he had mustered up, to go straight to

Elizabeth with the dress and ring, altogether gone.

In the evening, when all the crew were given leave from the ship for

three weeks, he went off to his father instead, to see if he could learn

more of the situation through inquiries from him; and on the following

Monday both were present at old Jacob's interment in Trom churchyard.