The Pilot and his Wife: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Salv� came out to the rock again the next autumn, after a voyage to
Liverpool and Havre.

At first he was rather shy, although his father and old Jacob Torungen
had in the interval, in spite of that little affair of the previous
year, been on the best of terms. The white bear, however, as he called
him, seemed to have altogether forgotten what had passed; and with the
girl he was very easily reconciled--she had learnt now not to tell
everything to her grandfather.

Whilst the lighterman and old Jacob enjoyed a heart-warming glass
together in the house, Salv� carried the things up to the cellar,
Elizabeth following him up and down every time, and the conversation
meanwhile going round all the points of the compass, so to speak. After
she had asked him about Havre de Grace, where he had been, and about
America, where he had not been,--if his captain's wife was as fine as a
man-of-war captain's; and then if he wouldn't like one day to marry a
fine lady,--she wanted at last to know, from the laughing sailor lad, if
the officers' wives were ever allowed to be with them in war.

Her face had of late acquired something wonderfully attractive in its
expression--such a seriousness would come over it sometimes, although
she continued as childlike as ever; and such eyes as hers were, at all
events in Salv�'s experience, not common. At any rate, after this, he
invariably accompanied his father upon these expeditions.

The last 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 Salv� 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 Salv� 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.

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