but there was more to come. Yet another letter arrived, that filled
her with unbounded astonishment. It ran as follows:
"MY DEAR LITTLE FRIEND,--Do not be startled at receiving these
lines from an old man. George Sand was once asked when a woman
ceased to love, and she answered, Never. But if I were asked now,
when a man ceases to love, I should answer, for my own part, I no
longer love, I only admire and worship. You will, I am sure, have
realised, little friend, that it is you I worship, your talents,
your beauty, your goodness of heart and brilliant spirit. What
can I offer you? A faithful protector, a good home, in peace and
harmony.
"Think this over now, think well and wisely, and keep what I have
said a secret between ourselves. Whatever you may do, whichever
way your life may turn, your happiness will be my greatest
wish.--Affectionately yours,
"C. ENDRESEN, SEN."
This time she did not laugh, but took a match and burned the letter
in the stove.
"This must be the end," she murmured to herself. "I won't stay here
any longer with all these ridiculous men." She thought and pondered
for several days until the Admiral came in one day and said he was
going away for a week or so on business. In a moment her plan was
made. She said nothing to him of what was in her mind; he would never
have understood, and it would have made no end of trouble all round.
But she would take Missa into her confidence. Missa had been a mother
to her from the moment she realised she was living in this world; she
would tell her all.
"Missa," she said, throwing her arms round her neck, "I can't stand
this any longer."
"There, there now; what is it, child?"
"I can't bear to live in this dreadful place. I must get away
somehow."
"Oh dear, dear! it's just what I think. A dreadful place."
"Yes, there you are. And we'll go away, Missa, you and I, out into
the beautiful wide world."
"But for Heaven's sake, what about your father?"
"Father mustn't know about it. We'll just go off by ourselves--run
away, Missa dear."
"Run away! God bless me no, child! The Admiral...."
The Princess begged and prayed, using all her powers of persuasion
and caresses, until Missa was gradually stripped of all arguments to
the contrary, and finally rose to her feet.
"But, Baby dear, how shall we make our living?"
But at that the Princess jumped up and began dancing wildly around.
"Missa, I'll dance--dance for all the world; make them wild with
delight, till they throw themselves at my feet. Missa, don't you
understand, can't you imagine ... oh, Missa, if you only knew.... But
you shall see, you shall see for yourself...."
She sank down on the sofa, sobbing violently.
Next day the Princess went down to the office.
Doffen was now completely himself again after the Admiral's very
effective "refusal."
He beamed like the sun when the Princess came in, made her a deep bow
and said: "At your service, Miss--at your service, he, he!"
"Ah, so you're still alive, Eriksen?"
"Alive! The sight of you would have wakened me from the dead!"
"Eriksen, will you do me a favour?"
"Will I? Anything, Miss, anything a man can do."
"I want a thousand pounds."
Eriksen slid down from his stool.
"_A thousand--pounds!_ Heaven preserve us! A thousand! I haven't more
than seven-and-six on me.
"But father has."
"The Admiral! Yes, of course, he has; and more. But that's not mine.
Da--" he checked himself, recollecting it was not the Admiral to whom
he was speaking--"dear me, you wouldn't have me steal his money?"
"Oh, all you need do is to let me have the key."
"No, no, my dear young lady, no. It would never do.
"But it's only drawing a little in advance--on my inheritance,
Eriksen, you know. That's all it is."
He stood reflecting quite a while.
"But--what on earth do you want all that money for?"
She took his hand, and he trembled with emotion.
"Eriksen, you're my friend, aren't you?"
"Heaven knows I am, Miss."
"Well, I'm going out into the wide world--to dance."
"But, heavens alive--that makes it worse than ever! The Admiral, he
surely isn't going off dancing as well?"
"No; Missa's coming with me. We leave to-morrow, for Paris,
Eriksen--London--New York--oh, ever so far!"
"But--but then, I shall never see you again."
"Indeed you shall, Eriksen; I'll send you tickets, a whole box all to
yourself, for my performance in Paris. Just fancy, a box at the
theatre all to yourself. And you must pay me a thousand pounds for it
now."
"But the Admiral--the Admiral! I might just as well give myself up
and go to jail."
"Don't talk nonsense, Eriksen! Are you my friend or are you not?"
The Princess got her thousand. And Eriksen duly entered in his cash
book:
"By cash advanced to Miss Baby on account, as per receipt number
325, L1000."
And the Princess on her part solemnly signed for the money:
"Received cash in advance on account of expected inheritance,
L1000--one thousand pounds."
Doffen spent the evening helping Missa and the Princess with their
packing.
She promised to write and let him know how she got on, and gave him a
photo of herself at parting, with the inscription: "To my true friend
Doffen, from Baby."
Doffen kept it near his heart.
Missa gave him her photo too, but that he quietly put away in a back
pocket.
Next morning he went down to the quay to see them off. The Princess
stood at the stern of the ship, and waved to him. He was proud to
think that he was the only one she waved to, he was the one to
receive her farewell smile. And so the Princess set out into the wide
world.
* * * * *
When the Admiral returned he found the following letter awaiting him:
"DEAR FATHER,--Missa and I have decided to go for a little trip
to Paris, possibly also London, New York, San Francisco, etc. We
couldn't stand it any longer, living in that old town of yours.
"I have drawn L1000 from Eriksen; I hope you won't mind. I don't
think we could really manage with less.
"And, please, don't be nastier than usual to Eriksen about it. I
made him do it.
"So long, then, for the present, and take care of yourself. You
shall hear from us when we get there.--Your own
"BABY."
The Admiral grunted, got up and walked twice up and down the room;
then, muttering to himself, "All right," he put the letter in the
stove.
When the Admiral came down to the office, Doffen was inclined to be
somewhat shaky about the knees. He pulled himself together, however,
and, bearing in mind the example of Napoleon, took the offensive at
once.
"Your daughter's gone away, Admiral!"
"Oh, go to----"
"Thanks. I don't think I will. I'm very comfortable where I am."
"You're a fool."
"There's bigger fools about."
"Why didn't you give her two thousand?"
"She'd have had five thousand."
"You've no idea what it costs to go travelling about. A miserable
stay-at-home like you."
At this Doffen grew angry in earnest, and slammed down the lid of his
desk, making the ink-stands fairly dance.
"Well, of all the.... First of all I do my very utmost to save you
from being ruined by your illegitimate offspring, then I manage to
get her away in a decent, respectable manner--you ought to be
thoroughly ashamed of yourself, if you ask me."
The Admiral looked round as if in search of something.
"What the devil have you done with that Directory?" he said at last.
"Oho! Perhaps you'd like to be had up for another attempted
manslaughter, what?"
"Not a bit of it. But there's a reward for extermination of rats and
other mischievous beasts."
Here the discussion was interrupted by the entrance of Ferryman Arne,
who just looked in to ask if the Admiral hadn't an old pair of
breeches to give away, as the seat was all out of the ones he was
wearing. The Admiral never refused. He went to a wardrobe, routed out
an old pair and gave them to Arne. The latter examined them
carefully, front and back, but instead of saying thank you, he rudely
declared that if the Admiral wanted to give a poor man something to
wear, he might at least give him something that wasn't falling to
bits already.
This led to a most satisfactory battle-royal between Arne and the
Admiral, each trying to outdo the other in lurid pigeon-English--a
tongue which both of them spoke fluently, Arne having been twelve
years in the China Seas.
And in the end the Admiral presented Arne with two brand-new pairs of
trousers and a pound in cash.
* * * * *
The years passed by. Doffen stayed on in the office, and became
indispensable as time went on. He and the Admiral made a pair. And
whenever the conversation languished towards the milk-and-watery,
Ferryman Arne would come and lend a hand.
The Princess roamed far and wide about the world. She sent home
newspapers, wherein they read that she was performing at this or that
great city, with thousands of admirers at her tiny feet.
The Admiral read it all without the slightest token of surprise, his
only comment being: "All right, that's her business." But when one
day he received a card bearing the inscription, "Countess Montfalca,"
surmounted by a coronet, he spat, and remarked to Doffen:
"Well, after all, there's nothing surprising in that, seeing her
mother was a queen."
XXI
DIRRIK
The first time I met him was in 1867, on board the schooner _Jenny_
of Svelvik. The skipper was an uncle of mine, and had taken me along
as odd boy for a summer cruise. And Ole Didriksen, or Dirrik, as we
called him, was first hand on board.
We had taken in a cargo of pit props at Drammen, and came down the
fjord with a light northerly breeze. A little way out the wind
dropped altogether and the _Jenny_ lay drifting idly under a blazing
sun.
Dirrik sounded the well, and declared that "the old swine was leaking
like a sieve."--"Nonsense!" said the skipper. "Why, it's not more
than three years since her last overhaul."--"Maybe," said Dirrik,
"but she's powerful old."--"Old she may be--built in '32--and I won't
say but she's a trifle groggy about the ribs; still, she's good for
this bit of a run. And summer weather and all."
Dirrik tried again. "Twenty-two inches," he said, and looked
inquiringly at the skipper. "Well, then, you two men get the boat and
go ashore for a few sacks of caulking. There's plenty of ant-heaps up
in the wood there."
I was ready to burst with pride at finding myself thus bracketed with
Dirrik as a "man." I felt myself a sailor already, and would not
have bartered the title for that of a Consul-General or Secretary of
State.
But the ant-heaps puzzled me. I could see no connection between
ant-heaps in a wood on shore and the caulking of a leaky schooner.
However, the first duty of man at sea is to obey the orders of the
supreme power on board, _i.e._ the skipper; I curbed my curiosity,
then, for the time, and waited till we were a few lengths away from
the ship.
"Ant-heaps?" said Dirrik. "Why, 'tis the only way to do with a leaky
old tub like that. We dig 'em up, d'ye see, pine needles and all, and
drag a caseful round her sides and down towards her keel, and she
sucks it all up in her seams, ants and needles and bits of twigs, and
the whole boiling, and that's the finest caulking you can get!"
"Queer sort of caulking," I said.
"There's queerer things than that, lad, when a vessel gets that old.
It's the same like with human beings. Some of them keeps sound and
fit, and others go rotten and mouldy and drink like hogs--but they
often live the longest for all that!"
"Do you think we'll ever get her across to England, Dirrik?"
"Get her across? Why, what are you thinking of? She's never had so
much as a copper nail put in these last thirty years, but she'll sail
for all that. Run all heeled over on one side, she will, and
squirming and screeching like a sea-serpent."
"She looks a bit cranky, anyway," I ventured.
"Warped and gaping. But still she'll do the trip for all that."
We reached the shore, and Dirrik ordered me up into the wood to fill
the sacks, while he just ran up to old Iversen, the pilot, for a
moment.
I managed, not without some difficulty, to get the boat loaded up,
but it was a full half-hour before Dirrik appeared.
At last he came strolling down, in company with a pretty, buxom girl.
"This is my young lady, an' her name's Margine," said Dirrik, and
pointing to me: "Our new hand on board."--"Well, see you make a nice
trip," said Margine, "and come back again soon."
We caulked the _Jenny_ as per instructions, and got her taut as a
bottle. "Ants, they trundles off sharp, all they know, into the holes
for safety," Dirrik explained, "and take along the pine needles with
'em."
A fresh northerly wind took us well out into the North Sea; then, a
few days later, we lay becalmed on the Dogger. An English fishing
vessel sent a boat aboard of us, trading fresh cod for a couple of
bottles of gin. Looking through the skylight I saw the old man
quietly making up the two bottles from one, by the simple process of
adding water to fill up. Rank swindling it seemed to me, but he
explained afterwards that it was "our way of keeping down
drunkenness, my boy."
Eight days out from Drammen we put in to Seaham Harbour. Half our
cargo under deck was sodden through, for we'd three feet of water in
the hold all the voyage, despite the patent caulking.
"Get it worse going home," said Dirrik. "We're taking small coal to
Drobak."
A few hours later we were getting in our cargo, and soon the _Jenny_
was loaded almost to the waterline with smalls. We were just about to
batten down the hatches, when the skipper came along and told us to
wait, there was some Government stuff still to come.
Down the quay trundled a heavy railway waggon with two pieces of
cannon, and before we had properly time to wonder at the sight, the
crane had taken hold, the guns swung high in the air above the quay,
and--one, two, three--down they came into the main hatchway all among
the coals.
The schooner gave a sort of gasp as the crane let go, and I thought
for a moment we had broken her back. She went several inches lower in
the water, till the chain bolts were awash, and the scuppers clear by
no more than a hair's breadth.
"This looks dangerous," I said to the skipper cautiously, as he stood
by the side.
"Why, what are you afraid of?"
"My life," was all I found to answer.
"And a lot to be afraid of in that!" said he, spitting several yards
out into the dock. "The guns are for the fort at Oskarsborg, and it
isn't every voyage I can make fifteen pounds over a couple of fellows
like that."
We set off on our homeward voyage. Fortunately, our protecting ants
still kept to their places in the leaks, or there would have been an
end of us, and the guns as well. The skipper was ill, and stuck to
his berth the whole way home. The night before we left Seaham Harbour
he had been to a crab-supper ashore at the ship-chandler's, and what
with stewed crabs and ginger beer, the feast had "upset all his
innards," as he put it.
We got into trouble rounding the Ness. Dirrik was at the helm, and
hailed the skipper to ask if we hadn't better shorten sail.
"Nonsense!" said the old man. "It's summer weather--keep all standing
till she's clear." The rigging sang, and the water was flung in
showers over the deck.
Dirrik ran her up into the wind as well as he could, but was afraid
of going about. Then: Crack! from aloft, and crack! went the jibboom,
and the flying jib was off and away to leeward like a bat. The
skipper thrust up his head to take in the situation.
"Got her clear?" he asked. "Ay," says Dirrik calmly, "clear enough,
and all we've got to do now is pull in the rags that's left, and
paddle home as best we can."
We were not a pretty sight when we made Drobak, but the guns were
landed safely, and that was the main thing.
* * * * *
After that, I saw no more of Dirrik till I met him at the Seaman's
School in Piperviken in 1872.
There were three of us chums there: Rudolf, a great big giant of
eighteen, with fair curly hair and smiling blue eyes. A good fellow
was Rudolf, but uncommonly powerful and always ready to get to hand
grips with anyone if they contradicted him.
Dirrik was fifteen years our senior at least. He had been twenty
years at sea already, and reckoned the pair of us as "boys."
Dirrik had never got beyond the rank of "first-hand" on board; it was
always this miserable exam that stood in his way. It was his highest
ambition to pass for mate, and then perhaps some day, with luck, get
a skipper's berth on some antiquated hulk along the coast. But Dirrik
was unfortunate. It counted for nothing here that he had been several
times round the Horn, and received a silver knife from the Dutch
Government for going overboard in a gale, with a line round his
waist, to rescue three Dutchmen whose boat was capsizing on the
Dogger.
It was as much as he could do to write. I can still see his rugged
fingers, misshapen after years of rough work at sea, gripping the
penholder convulsively, as if it had been a marlin-spike, and
screwing his mouth up, now to one side, now to the other, as he
painfully scrawled some entry in the "log."
"No need to look as if you were going to have a tooth out," said
Rudolf.
"I'd rather be lying out on Jan Mayen, shooting seal in forty degrees
of frost," said Dirrik, wiping his brow.
"Devil take me, but I've half a mind to ship for the Arctic myself
next spring," said Rudolf.
"Got to get through with this first," I said.
"Ay, that's true," said Dirrik. "I've been up four times now, and if
I don't pass this time, my girl won't wait any longer."
"Girl?" said Rudolf, with sudden interest.
"Margine Iversen's her name. We've been promised now eleven years,
and we _must_ get married this spring."
"Must, eh?" said I.
"He's been drawing in advance, what!" said Rudolf, nudging me in the
ribs.
"No more of that, lads," said Dirrik. "Womenfolk, they've their own
art of navigation, and I know more about it than you've any call to
do at your age."
Just then Captain Wille, the principal of the school, came up.
"Well, boys, how goes it?"
"Nicely, thank ye, Captain," answered Dirrik. "But this 'ere blamed
azimuth's a hard nut to crack." Dirrik wiped the sweat from his brow
with a blue-checked handkerchief, and blew his nose with startling
violence. "You won't need a foghorn next time you get on board," said
Wille slyly.
"I say, though, Captain," said Rudolf, "we must get old Dirrik
through somehow. If he doesn't pass this time, he'll be all adrift."
"Oho!" said the Captain, smiling all over his kindly face. "And how's
that?"
"Why, he's got to get married this spring, whether he wants to or
no."
"But he doesn't need that certificate to get married."
"Ay, but I do, though, Captain," said Dirrik earnestly. "For look
you, navigation's badly needed in these waters, and I'll sure come to
grief without."
"Why, then, we must do what we can to get you through," said Wille.
And, seating himself beside Dirrik, he began to explain the mysteries
of sine, cosine and tangent.
Dirrik sat with all his mental nerves strained taut as the topmast
shrouds in a storm. But the more he listened to Wille's explanations
the more incomprehensible he seemed to find the noble art and science
of navigation.
Presently Lt. Knap, the second master, came up, and relieved Captain
Wille at his task. Knap was quite young in those days, an excitable
fellow with a sharp nose that gave him an air of self-importance. But
a splendid teacher, that he was. I can still hear his voice, after
vain attempts to ram something into Dirrik's thick head: "But,
damnation take it, man, I don't believe you understand a word!"
No, Dirrik didn't understand a word, or, at any rate, very little.
One thing he did know, however, and that was, if a man can take his
meridian and mark out his course on the chart, he can find his way
anywhere on the high seas.
"All this rigmarole about azimuths and amplitudes and zeniths and
moons and influence and tides, it's just invented to plague the life
out of honest, seafaring folk." This heartfelt plaint of Dirrik's was
received with loud applause by the rest of the school. Knap himself
was as delighted as the rest, and sang out over our heads: "Well, you
can be sure I'd be only too glad to leave out half of it, for it is
all a man can do to knock the rest of it into your heads."
Skipper Sartz, the third master, was a very old and very slow, but a
thorough-going old salt, who would rather spin us a yarn at any time
than bother about navigation. We learned very little of that from
him, and he was generally regarded more as a comrade than as a
master. Rudolf supplied him with tobacco, free of charge, to smoke in
lesson-time, so there was no very strict discipline during those
hours. It was a trick of Rudolf's, I remember, when Sartz was going
through lessons with him, to get hold of a ruler in his left hand and
draw it gently up and down the tutor's back. Sartz would think it was
me, and swing round suddenly to let off a volley, ending up as a rule
with a recommendation to us generally to "give over these etcetera
etcetera tricks, and try and behave as young gentlemen should."
At last the great day came when Dirrik was to go up for his exam. K.
G. Smith--he's an admiral now--was the examiner. All of us, teachers
included, were fond of Dirrik, and would have been sorry to see him
fail again.
"Well, if I do get through this time," said Dirrik, smiling all over
his cheery face, "I'll stand treat all round so the mess won't forget
it for a week."
And really I think he would rather have faced a four week's gale of
the winter-north-Atlantic type, or undertaken to assassinate the
Emperor of China, than march up to that examination table.
When the time came for the viva voce, Rudolf and I could stand it no
longer, we had to go in and listen.
Never before or since have I seen such depths of despair on any human
face. Poor Dirrik mopped his brow, and blew his nose, and we sat
there, with serious faces, feeling as if we were watching some dear
departed about to be lowered into the grave. I can safely say I have
never experienced a more solemn or trying ceremony, not even when I,
myself, was launched into the state of holy matrimony before the
altar.
The examiner sat bending over his work, entering something or
other--of particular importance, to judge by the gravity of his
looks.
We heard only the scratching of his pen on the paper.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a curious hissing sound:
"Fssst--fssst!" and then, a moment later, from the direction of the
stove: "Sssss!"
It was Rudolf, who had squirted out a jet of tobacco juice between
his teeth over on to the stove in the corner. Both the censors looked
up, and the examiner laid down his pen, flashing a fiery glance at
Rudolf from under his bushy brows.
"Pig!" said I, loud enough for the examiner to hear, and was rewarded
with a nod of approval.
This saved the situation, for if the old man had lost his temper, it
would have been all up with Dirrik's exam.
Rudolf sat staring before him, entirely unconcerned.
At last they began. I can still see the examiner's close-cropped hair
and bushy eyebrows.
"Well, sir, can you tell me why a compass needle invariably points
towards the north?"
Dirrik had not understood a syllable, but felt he ought in common
decency to make pretence of thinking it out for a bit, then he said:
"Beg pardon, Captain, but would you mind reading out the question
once again?"
A faint, almost imperceptible smile passed over the Captain's face.
The two old skippers, Olsen and Wleugel, sat solemn as owls. Dirrik
looked at the examiner, then at the censor, and finally his glance
rested on us, with an expression of helpless resignation. Rudolf
nodded, and whispered "Cheer up," but Dirrik neither saw nor heard.
"Compass," he murmured--"Compass needle--points--points...."
"Well," said the examiner, "_why_ does it always point to the north?"
And suddenly Dirrik's face lit up with a flash of blessed
inspiration:
"Why," he said cheerfully, "I suppose it's _just a habit it's got_."
This time the examiner could not help laughing, and the censors
themselves seemed to thaw a little.
"H'm," said the examiner. "Yes ... well, and suppose your compass
needle happened to forget that little habit it's got, as may happen,
for instance, when a vessel's loaded with iron--what would you do?"
Evidently he was in a good humour now.
"Sail by the sun and the watch," answered Dirrik promptly. He was
wide awake now, and drew out as he spoke a big silver watch with a
double case.
"I've sailed by this fellow here from the Newfoundland Bank to Barrow
in twelve days--it was with the barque _Himalaya_, of Holmestrand."
"When was that?" asked the examiner.