The Pilot and his Wife | Page 5

time he was out there he told her about the dances on shore at
Sandvigen, and took care to give her to understand that the girls made
much of him there--but he was tired now of dancing with them.
She was very curious on this subject, and extracted from him that he
had had two tremendous fights that winter. She looked at him in terror,
and asked rather hesitatingly--
"But had they done anything to you?"
"Oh, no! all dancing entertainments have a little extra dance like that to
wind up with. They merely wanted to dance with the girl I had asked
first."
"Is it so dangerous, then? What sort of a girl was she?--I mean, what
was her name?"
"Oh, one was called Marie, and the other was Anne--Herluf Andersen's
daughter. They were pretty girls, I can tell you. Anne had a white
brooch and earrings, and danced more smoothly than ever you saw a
cutter sail. Mate George said the same."
The upshot of this conversation was, that she found out that the girls in
Arendal, and in the ports generally where he had touched, were all well
dressed; and the next time he returned from Holland, he promised he
would bring with him a pair of morocco-leather shoes with silver
buckles for her.
With this promise they parted, after she had allowed him--and that
there might be no mistake, twice over--to take the accurate measure of
her foot; and there were roses of joy in her cheeks, as she called after
him to be sure and not forget them.
The year after Salvé came with the shoes. There were silver buckles in
them, and they were very smart; but if they were, they had cost him
more than half a month's pay.
Elizabeth was more carefully dressed now, and might almost be called

grown up. She hesitated about accepting the shoes, and didn't ask
questions about everything as she used to do. Nor was she so willing to
stand and talk with him alone by the boat--she liked to have him up
within hearing of the others.
"Don't you see how high the sea is running?" he said, and tried to
persuade her that the boat would be dashed to pieces on the rocks. But
she saw that it wasn't true, and went up with a little toss of her head
alone. He followed her.
She must have learned all this in Arendal, where in the course of the
autumn she had been confirmed, and where she had lived with her aunt.
But she had grown marvellously handsome in that time--so much so,
indeed, that Salvé was almost taken aback when he saw her; and when
they said good-bye, it was no longer in the old laughing tones, but with
some slight embarrassment on his side--he didn't seem to know exactly
how matters lay between them.
After that she filled his head so completely that he had not a thought for
anything else.
CHAPTER IV.
The old Juno, to which Salvé 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