was to be seen through the window-pane on the
horizon.
The moods of the two were for once reversed. The old man looked very
sly over his work, whilst she was quiet and cowed. Once only she
broke out angrily--
"But why doesn't the king get rid of them? If I was captain of a
man-of-war, I'd--"
"Yes, Elizabeth, if you were captain of a man-of-war!--what then?"
The child's conceptions apparently reached no further than such matters
as these as yet. She had seen few human beings as she grew up, and in
recent years, after her grandmother's death, she and her grandfather had
been the only regular inhabitants of the island. Every now and then
there might perhaps come a boat on one errand or another, and a couple
of times she had paid a visit to her maternal aunt on land, at Arendal.
Her grandfather had taught her to read and write, and with what she
found in the Bible and psalm-book, and in 'Exploits of Danish and
Norwegian Naval Heroes,' a book in their possession, she had in a
manner lived pretty much upon the anecdotes which in leisure moments
she could extract from that grandfather, so chary of his speech, about
his sailor life in his youth.
They had besides, in the little inner room, a small print, without a frame,
of the action near the Heather Islands, in which he had taken part. It
represented the frigate Naiad, with the brigs Samso, Kiel, and Lolland,
in furious conflict with the English ship of the line Dictator, which lay
across the narrow harbour with the brig Calypso, and was pounding the
Naiad to pieces. The names of the ships were printed underneath.
On the print there was little to be seen but mast-heads and
cannon-mouths, and a confusion of smoke, but in this had the child
lived whole years of her life; and many a time in fancy had she stood
there and fought the Englishman. Men-of-war and their officers had
become the highest conception of her fancy, and the dearest wish of her
heart was that a man-of-war might some day pass so near to Torungen
that she would be able to see distinctly everything on board.
CHAPTER II.
After old Jacob had fallen into ill health, lighterman Kristiansen used to
come out oftener to Torungen with provisions and other necessaries;
and his visits now became periodical.
He was accompanied one autumn by his son Salvé, a black-haired,
dark-eyed, handsome lad, with a sharp, clever face, who had worked in
the fishing-boats along the coast from his childhood almost, and had, in
fact, been brought up amongst its sunken rocks and reefs and breakers.
He was something small in stature, perhaps; but what he wanted in
robustness he made up in readiness and activity--qualities which stood
him in good stead in the many quarrels into which his too ready tongue
was wont to bring him. He was eighteen years old at this time; had
been already engaged as an able seaman; and was in great request at the
Sandvigen and Vraangen dances,--a fact of which he was perfectly well
aware. Old Jacob's granddaughter, being a little girl of only fourteen
years of age, was of course altogether beneath his notice, and he didn't
condescend to speak to her. He merely delivered himself of the
witticism that she was like a heron; and with her thick, checked
woollen handkerchief tied with the ends behind her waist, the
resemblance was not so very far-fetched. At any rate, he declared on
the way home that such a specimen of womankind he, for his part, had
never come across before, and that he would give anything to see her
dancing in the public room with her thin arms and legs--it would be
like a grasshopper.
The next time he came, she took out her grandfather's watch in its silver
case and showed it to him, and some conversation passed between them.
His first impression of her was that she was stupid. She asked questions
about every sort of thing, and seemed to think that he must know
everything. And finally, she wanted to know what it was like on shore
among the great folk of Arendal, and particularly how the ladies
behaved. It afforded him much amusement at the time to see with what
simple credulity she took in everything he chose to invent on the
subject; but after he had left he was not sure that he wasn't sorry for
what he had done, and at the same time he made the discovery that the
girl, in her way, was anything but silly.
His remorse was to be brought home to him presently, for old Jacob
had had duly recounted to him over again all his cock-and-bull stories,
and was
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the
Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.