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THE PILOT AND HIS WIFE
_TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN OF_
JONAS LIE
BY
G.L. TOTTENHAM
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXVII
THE PILOT AND HIS WIFE.
CHAPTER I.
On the stern, pine-clad southern coast of Norway, off the
picturesquely-situated town of Arendal, stand planted far out into the
sea the white walls of the Great and Little Torungen Lighthouses, each
on its bare rock-island of corresponding name, the lesser of which
seems, as you sail past, to have only just room for the lighthouse and
the attendant's residence by the side. It is a wild and lonely
situation,--the spray, in stormy weather, driving in sheets against the
walls, and eagles and sea-birds not unfrequently dashing themselves to
death against the thick glass panes at night; while in winter all
communication with the land is very often cut off, either by drift or
patchy ice, which is impassable either on foot or by boat.
These, however, and others of the now numerous lights along that
dangerous coast, are of comparatively recent erection. Many persons now
living can remember the time when for long reaches the only lighting was
the gleam of the white breakers themselves. And the captain who had
passed the Oxö light off Christiansand might think himself lucky if he
sighted the distant Jomfruland up by Kragerö.
About a score of years before the lighthouse was placed on Little
Torungen there was, however, already a house there, if it could be
dignified by that name, with its back and one side almost up to the eave
of the roof stuck into a heap of stones, so that it had the appearance
of bending forward to let the storm sweep over it. The low entrance-door
opened to the land, and two small windows looked out upon the sea, and
upon the boat, which was usually drawn up in a cleft above the sea-weed
outside.
When you entered, or, more properly speaking, descended into it, there
was more room than might have been expected; and it contained sundry
articles of furniture, such as a handsome press and sideboard, which no
one would have dreamt of finding under such a roof. In one corner there
stood an old spinning-wheel covered with dust, and with a smoke-blackened
tuft of wool still hanging from its reel; from which, and from other
small indications, it might be surmised that there had once been a woman
in the house, and that tuft of wool had probably been her last spin.
There sat now on the bench by the hearth a lonely old man, of a
flint-hard and somewhat gloomy countenance, with a mass of white hair
falling over his ears and neck, who was generally occupied with some
cobbling work, and who from time to time, as he drew out the thread,
would make some remark aloud, as if he thought he still had the partner
of his life for audience. The look askance over his brass spectacles
with which he greeted any casual stranger who might come into the house
had very little welcome in it, and an expression about his sunken mouth
and sharp chin said plainly enough that the other might state his
business at once and be gone. He sought no company; and the only time he
had ever been seen at church was when he came rowing over to Tromö with
his wife's body in her coffin. When the pastor sprinkled earth upon it,
it was observed that the tears streamed down his cheeks, and it was long
after dark before he quitted the churchyard to return. He had become a
proverb for obstinacy for miles beyond his own residence; and people who
dealt with him for fish in the harbour, if they once began to bargain,
were as likely as not to see him without a word just quietly row away.
All that was known further about "Old Jacob," as he was called, was that
he had once been a pilot, and that he had had a son who had taken to
drinking, through whose fault it had been eventually that the father had
lost his certificate; and it was thought that on the occasion in
question the father had taken the son's blame upon himself. Since then
he had shunned society, and had retired with his wife to his present
habitation, whither, after their son was drowned, they had brought their
little orphan granddaughter, who now was his sole companion. His only
ostensible means of living were by shoemaking, and by fishing, the
produce of which he generally disposed of to passing ships, and, during
the earlier period of his sojourn there, by shooting occasionally. But
it was understood that he received a small regular contribution from
several of the pilots, certificated or otherwise, of the district, for
keeping a fire alight on his hearth during the dark autumn nights, and
so giving them, by the light from his two windows, something to steer by
when they arrived off the coast after nightfall. Whether the light was
shown for their benefit particularly, or whether it was not rather
intended for the guidance of smuggling vessels standing in under cover
of the night to land their cargoes, it was not their business to
inquire. Its friendly assistance was, at all events, not unacknowledged
by these latter, and very acceptable presents, in the shape of kegs of
spirits, bags of coffee, tobacco, meal, and so forth, would, from time
to time, come rolling into the old man's room, so that upon the whole,
he was well-to-do enough out there upon his rock.
Of late years he had fallen into feeble health, and found it not so easy
to row the long distance over to land. Even in his best days he had,
owing to an old injury to one of his legs, found some difficulty in
getting down to the boat; and now, therefore, he sat during the greater
part of the day over the hearth, in his woolen jacket and leather
breeches, with his indoor work. Now and then, when his granddaughter--a
child with a thick crop of hair falling about her ears, and a rough dog
constantly at her heels--would burst into the house with all the
freshness of the outside air blowing round her, as it were, and deliver
herself of her intelligence, he might be drawn, perhaps, to the window
to look out over the sea, and afterwards, like a growling bear disturbed
from its lair, even follow her with some difficulty out of the door with
the spyglass. There he would station himself, so as to use her shoulder
as a rest for his shaking hand, and with his never-ceasing directions
and growling going on behind her neck, she would do her best to fix the
glass on the desired object. His crossness would then disappear, little
by little, in their joint speculation as to what ship it could be, or in
whatever remarks it might suggest; and after giving his decision, the
old man would generally hobble in again.
He was really very proud of his granddaughter's cleverness. She could
distinguish with her naked eye as clearly as he could through the glass.
She never made a mistake about the craft, large or small, that belonged
to that part of the coast, and could, besides, say to a nicety, what
sort of master each had. Her superiority of sight she asserted, too,
with a tyranny to which he made no resistance, although it might have
tried a temper many degrees more patient than his was.
One day, however, she was at a loss. They made out a crescent on the
flag, and this caused even the old man a moment's astonishment. But he
declared then, for her information, shortly and decisively, that it was
a "barbarian."
This satisfied her for a moment. But then she asked--
"What is a barbarian, grandfather?"
"It is a Turk."
"Yes, but a Turk?"
"Oh! it's--it's--a Mohammedan--"
"A what!--a Moham--"
"A Mohammedan--a robber on board ship."
"On board ship!"
He was not going to give up his ascendancy in the matter, hard as she
pushed him; so he bethought him of a pack of old tales there-anent, and
went on to explain drily--
"They go to the Baltic--to Russia--to salt human flesh."
"Human flesh!"
"Yes, and sometimes, too, they seize vessels in the open sea and do
their salting there."
She fixed a pair of large, terrified eyes on him, which made the old man
continue--
"And it is especially for little girls they look. That meat is the
finest, and goes by tons down to the Grand Turk."
Having played this last trump, he was going in again, but was stopped by
her eager question--
"Do they use a glass there on board?" And when he said they did, she
slipped quickly by him through the door, and kept cautiously within as
long as the vessel 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.