It was an afternoon in the following winter in the pilot's home. His
wife was expecting him, and kept looking uneasily out of the window. He
was to have been home by noon, and it was now beginning to get dark; and
the weather had been stormy the whole of the previous day.
She gave up sewing, and sat thinking in the twilight, with the light
playing over the floor from the door of the stove, where a little kettle
was boiling, that she might have something warm ready for him at once
when he came. It was too early to light a candle.
Gjert was at school in Arendal, living at his aunt's; and Henrik was
sitting by the light from the stove, cutting up a piece of wood into
shavings.
"It is beginning to blow again, Henrik," she said, and put a
handkerchief round her head to look out.
"It is no use, mother," he pronounced, without stirring, and splitting a
long peg into two against his chest; "it's pitch-dark, isn't it?" So she
gave it up again before she got to the door, but stood and listened; she
thought she had heard a shout outside.
"He is coming!" she cried, suddenly, and darted out; and when Salvé
entered the porch from the sleet squall that had just come up, with his
sou'wester and oilskin coat all dripping, he found himself, all wet as
he was, suddenly encircled in the dark by a pair of loving arms.
"How long you have been!" she cried, taking from him what he had in his
hands, and preceding him into the house, where she lit a candle. "What
has kept you? I heard that you had taken a galliot up to Arendal
yesterday, and thought you would have been here this morning. It was
dreadful weather yesterday, Salvé; so I was a little anxious," she
continued, as she helped him off with his wet oilskin coverings.
"I have done well, Elizabeth," he said, looking pleased.
"On the galliot?"
"Yes, and I had a little matter to arrange in Arendal, which kept me
there till after midday."
"You saw Gjert, then?"
"I did." He looked a little impatiently towards the door.
"And he is well?"
"He can tell you now, himself," was the reply, as the door at the moment
opened and Gjert entered with a loud "Good evening, mother!"
She sprang towards him in astonishment, and threw her arms round him.
"And not a dry stitch on the whole boy!" she cried, with motherly
concern.
"But, Salvé dear, what is the meaning of this? How can the boy come away
from school?"
"When we have changed our clothes and warmed ourselves a little, I'll
tell you, mother," answered the pilot, slily. "He will be at home with
you the whole week."
Gjert was evidently ready to burst with some news or other, but he had
to restrain himself until his father had taken his seat by the fire that
was crackling brightly on the hearth in the kitchen, and had leisurely
filled his pipe, and taken two or three pulls at it.
"Now then, Gjert," he said, "you may tell it. I see you can't keep it in
any longer."
"Well, mother!" he exclaimed, "father says that I shall be an officer in
the navy; and so he has taken me from school and is going with me to
Frederiksvoern next week."
Henrik's mouth opened slowly, while Elizabeth, who was stirring the
porridge, suspended that operation, and looked in something like alarm
at her husband.
"What do you mean, Salvé?"
"Wouldn't it be a fine thing, don't you think, to see the boy come home
to you some day in a smart uniform, Elizabeth? You have always had a
turn for that sort of thing," he added, jokingly. "And since you
couldn't go in for it yourself,--as they don't take womenfolk in the
navy--and it was not much in my line either,--why, I thought we could
make the experiment with Gjert."
"Are you really in earnest, Salvé?" she asked, looking at him still in
suspense.
He nodded in confirmation.
"Well, if it is your father's wish, may--may God prosper you in it, my
boy!" she said, going over to Gjert and stroking his forehead.
"So--now you may take your joiner's bench into the room again, Henrik;
you can talk with Gjert in there--that is to say, if he will condescend
now to answer a common man like you--tell him you will be a merchant
captain, and earn as much as two such fellows in uniform. Mother and I
can then enjoy a little peace from you here in the kitchen."
When they were alone, Elizabeth asked--
"But how has it all happened, Salvé?"
"Well, you see, I had taken the idea into my head about Gjert that he
should become something a little better than his father had been, and so
I went up to the Master, to Beck, and asked what I must do to push the
thing. Yes; and I spoke to young Fru Beck too."
"Salvé! did you go to Beck?"
"Yes, I did--the boy must be pushed; and into the bargain, I half begged
his pardon for the way I used to turn the rough edge of my tongue on
him--and so we were reconciled. He is a fine old fellow in reality, and
I have wronged him. He said he had never forgotten that I had saved the
Juno for him, and that he had intended to put me one day in command of
her. While we were talking, young Fru Beck came in, and when she heard
what we were speaking about, she showed the greatest interest at once.
You were an old friend of hers, she said; and she thought we might get
Gjert into the Institute there free, when he had been up for an
examination in the summer. She knew some of the officials who would be
able to get it done; and if the Master wrote," he continued, a little
consciously, "that I was neither more nor less than a remarkable pilot
who ought to be salaried by the State, the thing would be as good as
done. So the Master wrote the application for me there and then."
"See that!" cried Elizabeth.
"Ay, and he wrote a testimonial from himself underneath. I hadn't an
idea that I was such a fine fellow," he laughed.
"You see," she cried, looking at him proudly, "it comes at last. He
acknowledges it now."
"Well, if we don't manage the thing that way, Salvé Kristiansen will be
able nevertheless to work it out of his own pocket--for worked it shall
be, mind you. It won't be done for nothing; but we have something in the
savings bank, and the rest will come right enough.
"It will be just as well that I should have something to drive me out of
the house occasionally, for otherwise I should get too fond both of it
and of you, Elizabeth," he said, and drew her towards him. "I must have
a little rain and storm now and again--it's my nature, you know. And the
Master must not be made to have written lies about me."
His wife looked at him. A glow of deep feeling overspread her handsome
features.
"How happy we have become, Salvé!" she exclaimed. "If it could only have
been like this from the very beginning!"
"I have thought over that, Elizabeth," he said, seriously. "There has
been One at the helm who is cleverer than I, for there was a deal of bad
stuff to be knocked out of me after I returned from that foreign life.
You, poor woman, were the chief sufferer by it, I am afraid."
"And it was I, Salvé, who was the chief cause of it all," she replied.