As for Salvé, during the first few days after coming home he was a happy
man. He was in love: he had received from his captain a hundred-daler
note, accompanied by a promise that as soon as he had learnt navigation
he should be third mate on board the Juno; and he heard himself admired
on all sides by his equals and associates. There was so much work to be
done, though, in discharging the cargo and getting the vessel into dock
for repairs--they had managed to get her up as far as Arendal--that it
would be Saturday evening before he could get his so longed-for
home-leave.
On the day before, as he was sitting on watch in the early morning under
the lee of the bulwark, he accidentally overheard a conversation going
on upon the slip below that set his blood on fire.
The carpenters had just come to their work, and one of them was telling
the story of old Jacob's death, and of the heroism which his
granddaughter had displayed.
"They say," he went on, "that Captain Beck is to have him buried on
Monday next, and that he is to provide for the granddaughter--the navy
lieutenant has seen to that."
The noise and the clinking of the hammers that were now at work made
Salvé lose a good deal of the conversation here.
"There is good reason for that, mind you," was the next observation he
caught, made in a somewhat lower tone, and accompanied by a doubtful
laugh. "It is not for nothing that he has been out so constantly
shooting sea-fowl about Torungen."
"Would she be a--sea-bird of that feather? Old Jacob, I should have
thought, was not the kind of man--"
"Well, perhaps not that altogether; but the first thing she did was to
come straight over here; and he has had her already taken into his own
house. I have that from the aunt. The old woman had no suspicion of
anything, but told me quite innocently that now she was to be a sort of
housekeeper with the Becks."
A slight noise above him here caused the speaker to look up. A deadly
pale young sailor was staring down at him over the ship's side with a
pair of eyes that struck him as resembling those he had once seen in the
head of a mad dog. Their owner turned away at once and crossed the deck.
"That must have been the lover!" he whispered over to the other, as he
set to work with his adze upon the pencilled plank. Shortly after he
muttered in a tone of compunction--
"If I saw that physiognomy aright, some one had better take care of
himself when he gets leave ashore."
Salvé had sprung to his feet in a fury when he heard about young Beck,
but the desire to hear more had kept him spellbound. What further had
been hinted of his relations with Elizabeth, and that the latter had
even taken refuge in his house, seemed all only too probable. He knew
both the men who had been speaking; they were respectable folks, and the
one besides had had the news from the aunt herself.
There was hard work that day on board, but his hands were as if they had
been benumbed. It was impossible for him to give any assistance, except
in appearance, when any hauling was to be done;--he did everything
mechanically.
"Are you sick, lad, or longing after your sweetheart?" said the mate to
him in the course of the afternoon. He saw that there was something
wrong with him.
That last, "after your sweetheart," had a wonderfully rousing influence.
He felt himself all at once relieved of his heavy feeling of exhaustion,
and worked now so hard that the perspiration poured down his face,
joining in the hauling song from time to time with a wild, unnatural
energy: he was afraid to leave himself a moment for thought. When the
day was over, however, he took the anchor watch for a comrade, who was
overjoyed at the unexpected prospect of getting a quiet night in his
hammock, and at escaping from his turn of "ship's dog"--that watch
consisting of one man only, whose business it is to keep the ship from
harbour-thieves.
He paced up and down the deck alone in the pitchy darkness, that was
only relieved by a lantern or two out in the harbour, and a light here
and there up in the town--sometimes standing for long minutes together,
with his cheek on his hand, leaning on the railing. He could, without
the slightest scruple, murder young Beck--that he felt.
At two o'clock he crossed over to the boards that were sloped against
the vessel's side, slid down them in the dark to the slip, and from
there made his way ashore. Elizabeth's aunt lived in one of the small
houses above; and he had determined to wake her and have a talk with
her.
Widow Kirstine was a portly, somewhat worn perhaps, but otherwise
strong-looking, old woman, with a good broad face, and thin grey hair
drawn down behind her ears. She was not unused to being disturbed at
night, one of her occupations being to nurse sick people; but she always
grumbled whenever she was. When she held up the candle she had lit, and
recognised Salvé Kristiansen, she thought, from his paleness and general
appearance, that he was drunk.
"Is that you, Salvé?--and a pretty state to be in at this time of
night!" she began, severely, in the doorway, not caring to let him in at
first. "Is that the way you spend your wages?"
"No, mother, it's not. I've come off my watch; I wanted to have a word
with you about Elizabeth."
His tone was so strangely low and sorrowful, that the old woman saw that
there must be something unusual the matter; and she opened the door.
"About Elizabeth, you say?"
"Yes--where is she stopping now?"
"Where is she stopping?--why, with the Becks, of course. Is there
anything the matter?"
"You ought to know that best, mother Kirstine," he said, earnestly.
She held up the light to his face, and looked at him in vague anxiety,
but could make nothing out of it.
"If I ought to know it, tell me," she said, almost in a tone of
entreaty.
"Young Beck, I hear, has been out about Torungen the whole
year--shooting sea-birds--or--do you really think he means to marry
her?" he broke out wildly, and raising his voice.
It was only now that she caught his full meaning; and setting down the
candlestick hard upon the table, she dropped into the chair by the side
herself.
"So--that is what they are saying, is it?" she cried at last. Her first
fear was over; but anger had succeeded to it, and she rose now from her
seat with arms akimbo and flashing eyes. She was not a woman to offend
lightly.
"So they have fastened that lie upon Elizabeth, have they!--it's a shame
for them, so it is! And you, Salvé, can soil your lips with it? Let me
just tell you, then, for your pains, that the Becks' house is as
respectable a one as any in Arendal; and it isn't you, and such as you,
that can take its character away. Never fear but Elizabeth shall hear
every word of your precious story--ay, and the captain, and the
lieutenant, and Madam Beck, too; and you'll be hunted from the Juno like
a dripping cur. So you thought that Elizabeth was to be beholden to the
lieutenant for a character--?"
"Dear mother Kirstine!" Salvé cried, interrupting her in the full
torrent of her indignation, "I didn't think about it--I couldn't think.
Only, I heard Anders of the Crag down on the slip this morning say it
all so confidently.
"Anders of the Crag? So it was from him you heard it?--the pitiful,
wheedling rascal! That is his gratitude, I suppose, for my being with
his wife last week!--I shall know where to find him. But the receiver in
the like is no better than the stealer," she resumed, indignantly; "and
I'd have you know, it was just Beck's own daughter who came here and
offered Elizabeth a respectable place in a respectable house, and it was
to me she talked, my lad," pointing self-consciously with quivering
forefinger at her own bosom; "so Elizabeth has not begged herself in
there at all. You didn't need to desert your watch to bring such tales
here; and Elizabeth shall hear of it--that she shall," she repeated,
excitedly, striking one hand into the other with a loud smack--"she
shall hear what fine faith you have in her."
"Dear mother Kirstine! I didn't mean any harm," he said, entreatingly,
feeling as if a weight had been taken off his heart--"only please don't
tell Elizabeth."
"You may depend upon it I will."
"Mother Kirstine!" he said, in a low voice, and looking down, "I brought
a dress with me for her that I had bought in Boston. And then I heard
all this, and I couldn't contain myself." He said nothing about the
rings.
"So!" rejoined the old woman after a pause, during which she had
examined him through her half-closed eyes, and in a somewhat milder
tone; "so you brought a dress for her! and at the same time you come
running up here in the middle of the night to tell me that she has
become a common baggage for the lieutenant,"--and her anger rose again.
"But, Mother Kirstine, I don't believe a word of it."
"It wasn't to tell me that, I suppose, you came up here in such haste,
my lad."
"I was only mad to think such a thing could be said of her."
"Well, be off with you now! Anders of the Crag shall go farther with his
lie--if I go with him before the Foged and the Maritime Court."
For the matter of that, she might as well have threatened to go with him
to the moon; but Salvé understood her to mean by the Maritime Court the
bloodiest course she knew.
As she opened the door to let him out, she said with a certain
confidential seriousness--"Tell me, Salvé! has anything passed between
you and Elizabeth?"
He seemed uncertain for a moment what reply he should make to this
unexpected invitation of confidence. At length he said--
"I don't know, Mother Kirstine, for certain; two years ago, I made her a
present of a pair of shoes."
"You did!--well, see now and get on board again without any one noticing
you--that's my advice," she replied, without allowing herself to be
brought any further into the matter, and pushed him then rather
unceremoniously out of the door.
After he had gone she sat for a while with the light in her lap, staring
at it and nodding her head reflectively.
"He's a good and a handsome lad that Salvé," she said at last, aloud.
"But on the whole it will be better to tell Elizabeth, and then she can
be on her guard there in the house;" and having come to this decision
she rose from her seat and prepared to go to bed again.
Salvé, notwithstanding this interview, was far from being at ease next
day, and he felt the courage he had mustered up, to go straight to
Elizabeth with the dress and ring, altogether gone.
In the evening, when all the crew were given leave from the ship for
three weeks, he went off to his father instead, to see if he could learn
more of the situation through inquiries from him; and on the following
Monday both were present at old Jacob's interment in Tromö churchyard.