The Pilot and his Wife | Page 8

mind, That never, oh, never, you'll leave
behind."
He repeated the last couplet with a gay inclination of his glass to the
ladies, who were sitting now tired and huddled together on the bench,
and over their heads to Elizabeth, who was standing in the background,
awake enough for both of them. The light from the fire fell upon his
handsome brown face, with the raven black curly hair, and the dark
eyes that it was said he had inherited from his recently deceased mother,
who was from Brest; and with his flow of animal spirits, that sufficed
for the whole party almost, he certainly was as manly and handsome a
lad as you would wish to meet.
The wind by this time had gone down considerably; and, as day was
breaking, the whole party were in the boat once more and enjoying a
quiet sleep as they sailed. It was long, though, before Elizabeth could
get out of her thoughts the handsome young officer who had sat there
by the fire. And many a time would she conjure up his form on the
bench again--particularly as he looked when he held up his glass and
glanced over to her while he sang--

"Hurrah! then, boys, for the one of your mind, That never, oh, never,
you'll leave behind."
Subsequently to this, Carl Beck made repeated excursions out to
Torungen to shoot sea-birds, and, by preference, alone in his
sailing-boat. But, whether it was an instinct or not on her side, it
happened somehow that he never had any further conversation with her
without the old man being with them.
CHAPTER VI.
The Juno arrived in due course at Boston, where Salvé invested a
considerable portion of his wages in the material for a dress, a couple
of silk handkerchiefs, and two massive rings with his own and
Elizabeth's initials on them.
From Boston she proceeded to Grimsby with a Canadian cargo; then on
a short trip to Liverpool; then back to Quebec; and some ten or eleven
months after leaving Arendal, they were on a voyage from Memel in
the Baltic to New York, with a cargo of timber, planks, and
pipe-staves--the intention being to call in at the home port, for which
she had some general cargo, to take in provisions.
During these voyages Salvé, as one may say, had completed his
apprenticeship to the sea; and in his blue shirt loosely knotted round the
throat, his leather belt and canvas trousers, he had such a look of
smartness and energy that it required no very great amount of
discernment to perceive in him a sailor from top to toe. He had, sooner
than most, risen superior to the dangers and temptations to which
young sailor lads are exposed during the years of their novitiate, and
with a break-neck recklessness of disposition he combined such a
perfectly cat-like activity, that his superior smartness was recognised
even among his comrades. His bearing, it is true, was rather arrogant,
and his tongue not the most good-natured; but he was generally liked
nevertheless, for he was kind-hearted, if he was only taken on the right
side, and it did not seem to be his sailor-like qualities upon which he
prided himself so much as upon the superior acuteness of his

understanding, which he delighted to display in discussions with the
red-bearded and somewhat consequential sailmaker, who had the
reputation of being a well-read man, and who affected a proportionate
importance.
Up at Memel they had had great difficulties to contend with, owing to
the condition of the ice; and their bad luck seemed to be going to
follow them, for in the Skager Rack they found themselves suddenly
wedged into a field of drift-ice, with the prospect of having to remain
where they were for weeks perhaps. The cold had been unusually
severe that winter in the Baltic, and out over the plain of ice by which
they were surrounded they could see flags of all nations sharing a
similar fate. There was nothing for it but to wait and hope; and if the
ice did not break up soon, short rations would become the order of the
day.
It was wearisome; and to Salvé above all, who was feverishly longing
to get home, and whose temperament was little suited for the endurance
of such agonies of Tantalus. He became the very embodiment of
restlessness. A hundred times a-day he went aloft to look out for some
prospect of a change, and to strain his eyes after the streak of land to
the north which was to be made out on clear days from the
maintop-gallant mast-head, and which of course would be the coast of
Norway. The dress, the silk handkerchiefs, the rings, and what he
should say to Elizabeth--whether he should