The Pilot and his Wife | Page 7

appeared, they could not have occasioned her more terror and curiosity.
It was getting near bedtime, and she had been sitting half-asleep over
the fire, and perhaps her suddenly awakened excitement lent a more
than usual animation and attraction to a pair of eyes and a face that
would nowhere have passed unnoticed; for Carl Beck, who was at the
head of the party, seemed positively fascinated, and could not take his
eyes off her, until, reddening with confusion, she instinctively stretched
out her hand for her bodice, that lay beside her on the bench.
"Good evening, Jacob, old boy," cried Carl, in the frank, off-hand
manner that became him so well, going up to the old fellow, and laying
his hand cordially on his shoulder. "I'm afraid we shall be very
troublesome to you, such a large party; but we want you to let us stay
here till morning, till we see if the weather moderates a bit. We daren't
go driving out in the dark to Great Torungen, on account of these
women folk that we have on board,"--and he pointed, jokingly, to his
sister and her friend.
"I see you have to deal with womankind too, so you know what it is."
The old man was apparently not insensible to this genial way of dealing
with him. He rose from his seat and made room at the fire, begging that
they would put up with what accommodation he had to offer, and

telling Elizabeth at the same time to go out for more wood.
While the party gathered round the fire, and made themselves as
comfortable as they could, Carl Beck was outside with the boatmen,
seeing about having the provisions brought up. He came in again with
Elizabeth, also with an armful of wood. Throwing it down, laughing, he
cried--
"Now for a 'bowl,' as our friends the Swedes have it. But first, out with
the food."
There was no scarcity of eatables, which were discussed amid a
running fire of conversation upon every kind of topic; and then came
the "bowl," a composition of various strong and spicy ingredients, of
which Carl had the secret, and which finally was lighted, and ladled
into the glasses whilst the blue flame was burning.
Carl Beck was the life of the party; and very well he looked as he sat
there astride over the bench, with his glass in his hand, and his officer's
jacket with its anchor-buttons thrown open, and sang first one and then
another of the rollicking drinking-songs that were then in vogue, the
others joining in the chorus. He gave them, then, a cheery sailor-song,
which brought in its train a series of anecdotes from the recent war.
Old Jacob, under the influence of the prevailing good-fellowship and
the good cheer, had become uncommonly lively for him, and would
even put in a word now and then. But every attempt to make him tell a
story himself failed. Only when the action at the Heather Islands came
up for discussion for a while did he come out with a bit of a yarn, as he
called it.
"Yes," he said, putting carefully down the glass that was handed to him,
"it was a great battle, was that. The country lost a fine ship there, and
many a brave lad to boot. But God's curse hangs over the man that
piloted the Englishman in to the Sand Islands--although none here,
while he was alive, knew his name. It was said he soon after made an
end of himself through remorse, like Judas Iscariot. However that may
be, at the mouth of the channel there is a flat sunk rock that a man in

his sea-boots can stand on at low water, and there they see him on
moonlight nights making piteous signs for help, until the water at last
comes over his head, and he disappears. God help the man that'll row
out to him--it's always foul weather when he is to be seen."
"Have you ever seen him yourself, Jacob?" asked Carl Beck.
"I'll not say that I have, and I'll not say that I haven't. But I know that
the last time I was off those islands, we had such tremendous weather
that we thought ourselves lucky in making any port at all."
For a while every one was busied with the thoughts which Jacob's
recital had suggested, and there was a solemn pause, which was broken
by Carl Beck's striking up another song to keep off sleep:--
"Before the wind and a flowing sail, Vessels for every port! In letters of
gold a dear girl's name On every stern inwrought! The vessel may sail
the world around, But with her the girls will still be found! Hurrah!
then, boys, for the one of your