Dirrik felt himself now master of the situation, and ran on gaily, as
one thoroughly at ease.
"It was blinding snow on the Banks that time. The skipper was down
with inflammation of the lungs, and lay in his bunk delirious; we'd
shipped some heavy seas, and got four stanchions broken, and the mate
with four of his ribs bashed in, so he couldn't move. And as for the
crew, the less said about them the better. We'd three niggers aboard
and an Irishman, and a couple of drunken gentlemen that'd never been
to sea before.
"Well, I had to sail and navigate and all. It was a gale that went on
day after day, till you'd think the devil himself was hard at it with
a bellows. But, luckily, I'd this old watch of mine, and she's better
than any of your chronometers, for it's a sixteen-ruby watch----"
"Sixteen ruby--what's that?" asked the examiner with interest.
Dirrik was proud as a peacock at the question; fancy the examiner
having to ask _him_!
"Why, it's this way. If you look inside an ordinary watch, you'll
find it's either five rubies or ten, but it's very rarely you come
across one with sixteen, and the more rubies you've got in a watch,
the better she goes. Well, anyway, when the watch came round to noon
midday, I'd take the run and check off our course, and that way I got
to windward of her deviations and magnetic variations and all the
tricks there are to a compass mostly. Then, of course, I'd to look to
the log, and mark off each day's run on the chart."
"Not so bad, not so bad," said the examiner, nodding to the skippers.
"No, we did none so badly, and that's the truth. For we got into
Barrow at high water twelve days' sail from the Banks. The Insurance
Company wanted to give me a gold watch, but I said, 'No, thank you,
if t'was all the same, I'd rather have it in cash,' so they sent me
what they call a testimonial, and L15. And that was doing the
handsome thing, for it was no more than my duty after all. As for the
crowd of rapscallions we'd aboard, I gave them a pound a-piece for
themselves--the poor devils had done what they could, though it was
little enough."
"Have you ever taken the sun's altitude with a sextant?"
"Surely," said Dirrik. "Meridian and latitude and all the rest of
it."
"Well..." the examiner turned to the censors. "I think that ought to
be enough...?" And the pair of them nodded approval.
"Right! That will do." Dirrik was dismissed with a gesture, and,
making his bow to each in turn, he hurried out as fast as he could.
Next day one of the censors, Skipper Wleugel, came down to the school
and informed us that Dirrik had passed, albeit with lowest possible
marks.
Followed cheers for Dirrik, and cheers for the examiner, and cheers
for Knap--the last-named happening to come out just at that moment,
to see what all the noise was about. That evening Dirrik invited
Rudolf and myself to the feast he had promised--great slabs of steak
and heaps of onions, with beer and snaps _ad lib._, and toddy and
black cigars to top off with.
And going home that night we knocked the stuffing out of five young
students from the Academy, on the grounds that they lacked the higher
education Dirrik now possessed. Altogether, it was a most successful
evening.
Dirrik went back home after that and married his Margine. Three
months later he was the father of a bouncing boy, who was christened
Sinus Knap Didriksen, in pious memory of his father's studies in the
art of navigation and his teacher in the same.
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The Record of
THE CONCERTS AT THE FRONT
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The sub-title, "Concerts at the Front," is known to almost every
soldier who fought in the Great War.
The book is a record of the experiences of the actors and musicians
who during the years from 1915 to the end of 1919 went to the War
Zones. The record is written by Lena Ashwell, known as an actress,
who was the Honorary Organiser of this effort through which plays and
music were taken to the armies by over six hundred artists.
It is the first time since the very early days of civilisation that
Drama and Music have received official recognition, with the result
that the teaching and use of plays and music was placed in Army
Orders. In the Final Report of the Adult Education Committee the
importance of the Drama is for the first time insisted upon as a
means of education.
The book is of interest, therefore, not only in giving a somewhat new
impression of the Great War, but as a record of a new departure which
in time may lead to the position of the great arts in relation to the
National life being greatly changed.
The human interest of the book is great and the evidence of the power
of well-directed emotion is remarkable.
THE GARLAND
By SIGRID UNDSET
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A masterly historical novel of fourteenth-century Norway.
Kristin, the heroine, is the daughter of a lord of the manor in
Gudbrandsdal, she is singled out as a child for a dangerous and
romantic destiny. The story of her early betrothal and of the wild
love romance that breaks it is told in "The Garland" in scenes of
intense dramatic effect, and the characters of the heroine, her
lovers, and her parents are developed with extraordinary power. The
mediaeval setting is marked by a picturesque realism, and the
atmosphere of the time, with its strong passions and superstitious
terrors, is reproduced in a most convincing way.
THE LONG JOURNEY
FIRE AND ICE
By JOHANNES V. JENSEN
Translated by A. G. CHATER
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Johannes V. Jensen, whose work is new to English readers, was born in
1873 in Himmerland, the district of North Jutland which is richest in
memories of the past. He has been recognised for the last thirty
years as an independent force in Danish literature, where his
production marks a revolt against the French influences prevalent at
the close of the nineteenth century and a return to old Scandinavian
motives, with a strong leaning towards the English school of
imaginative writing. His work is full of a primitive force, which is
combined with a power of lyrical description probably unsurpassed at
the present day.
In "The Long Journey" Johannes V. Jensen tells the story of the white
man, in a series of romances or "myths," of which the first are now
presented in English.
"Fire and Ice" is a story of adventure--the greatest adventure in the
history of mankind--telling with vivid realism and much underlying
humour how the white man became white and acquired the powers of
self-reliance which made him master of the world.
The story opens in the lost Paradise, where man steals fire from
Heaven. Armed with it he challenges Nature and goes through the Ice
Age, which sets the boundary between the white man and the savage.
When the thaw comes there are two races on earth, and their first
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DOWNSTREAM
By SIGFRID SIWERTZ
Translated by E. CLASSEN
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This is the story of a family of brothers and sisters, the Selambs,
neglected in childhood and left to grow up under chance influences.
"Selambshof," the decayed family home, is in the neighbourhood of
Stockholm, and the growth of the capital gives it an enhanced value
which is not without its influence on the destinies of the family.
The author has traced the adventures and development of these highly
individualised Selambs in a way that makes this one of the most
absorbing novels produced in recent years.
Sigfrid Siwertz has rapidly come to the front among Swedish
novelists, and this, his most important work to date, has firmly
established him in the first rank.