The Pilot and his Wife

Chapter 4

The old Juno, to which Salv belonged, was lying at that time at

Sandvigen, and was only waiting for a north-east wind to come out. She

was a square-rigged vessel, with a crew of nineteen hands all told,

which had plied for many years in American waters, and off and on in the

North Sea, and was reckoned at the time one of Arendal's largest craft.

Her arrival or departure was quite an event for the town and

neighbourhood; and to have a berth in her was considered among the

sailors of the district a very high honour indeed--the more so that her

master and principal owner, Captain Beck, was a particularly good chief

to serve under, and a lucky one to boot.

When at last, between ten and eleven o'clock one morning, she weighed

anchor, and before a light north-westerly breeze, with her small sails

set, glided out to sea, the quays were crowded with spectators, the

majority of the crew belonging to the place, and it being generally

known that they were bound on a longer voyage than usual. On board she

had with her still the captain's son, Carl Beck, a smart young naval

officer, with his sister and a small party of their friends, who meant

to land out on the Torungens in the sailing-boat they had in tow. They

wished to remain with her as long as possible, and for the purpose had

made up a party to the islands, where the gentlemen proposed to shoot

some of the sea-fowl, which are to be found out there on the rocks in

swarms at the spring season of the year on their passage north along the

coast.

It was about four o'clock when they passed Little Torungen; and as there

were swells then bursting in white jets upon the reefs, and a line of

dark fire-fringed clouds about the sunset, which looked like heavy

weather coming up, the pleasure party determined to leave the vessel

here, instead of going on, as they had intended, to the larger of the

two islands.

As they went over the side Salv Kristiansen was standing out on the

forecastle gazing eagerly over to where the barren mass of rock lay like

a dipping hull in the distance, bathed in the evening sun, and with a

fringe of foam round its base; and he could see old Jacob's

granddaughter standing by the wall of the house with the glass. He had

chosen on purpose a conspicuous place, and stood with his back against

the stay, so heavy of heart and sad at having to go away, that it would

have taken very little to make him burst into tears. It seemed to have

dawned upon him all of a sudden that he was in love.

To try whether it was upon him that she was directing the glass, or at

the unusual discharging of freight into the sail-boat, he waved his hat,

and his whole face lighted up with joy as he saw her return his signal.

He took off his hat again, and received another wave of the glass in

reply.

He stood there then straining his eyes abstractedly in the direction of

the rock until it disappeared behind them in the gathering twilight. He

had been inspirited for the whole voyage; and the first thing he should

do when they arrived at Boston would be to buy a dress and a ring; and

when he came home he determined that his first business should be to

make an expedition to the island, and put a certain question to a

certain person whom he knew out there.

He was roused from his abstraction by the boatswain bawling out his

name, and asking if he was going to sleep there, and whether he wanted

something to wake him up. The order had been given to make all snug for

the night, as the breeze was freshening.

The watches had been set at noon, and the starboard and larboard watch

told off, as customary on the first day a vessel goes to sea. Salv had

the middle watch; and by that time the sea was running high, and they

were plunging through the darkness under a double-reefed mainsail, the

moon every now and then clearing an open space in the storm--clouds that

were driving like smoke before it, so that he could fitfully distinguish

objects over the deck, even to the look-out man's looming figure out

upon the forecastle.

Upon the capstan bar sat a sailor in oilskin clothes, who had probably

been on shore the previous night and not closed his eyes, and who was

making great efforts to keep awake. His head, however, would still keep

nodding; and from time to time he stood up and tried to keep himself

warm by exercising his arms. He sang, or more often took up afresh upon

each recovery of consciousness a verse of a half-Swedish ballad about a

"girl so true," that he wished he then had by his side, for the time

without her seemed so long. Now and then the spray of a sea would bring

him more sharply to himself, but it did not last long; and so the ditty,

which was melancholy to the last degree, would begin afresh.

Salv was far too restless to have any desire to sleep, and as he paced

to and fro by the fore-hatch, lost in his dreams, and listened to the

song, it seemed to him a most touching one.

The nodding sailor little thought that he was performing before a

deeply-moved audience.