Dry Fish and Wet Part 34

Peter, then, had taken his degree accordingly, and endeavoured conscientiously to suit himself as far as possible to the clerical role for which he was cast in life; how he succeeded we shall presently see.

His quiet and sober dignity of manner gained him the entry to the Sukkestads' house, where he was soon a frequent guest; not that he found himself particularly attracted by Sukkestad and his wife, or their severely earnest circle of friends. The attraction, in fact, was Andrea, the daughter of the house and only child, for whom he entertained the tenderest feeling. Andrea was a buxom, pink-and-white beauty of eighteen summers. Her light blue eyes and little stumpy nose were quite charming in their way, while the plait of long, fair hair over the shoulders gave her an air of childish innocence.

In a word, Peter Oiland was desperately in love, while Andrea, who had never before been the object of such attentions, began to lie awake at nights wondering whether he "really meant it." The solution, however, came quite naturally.

Andrea played the piano, and sang touching little songs of the sentimental type, such as "When my eyes are closing," "The Last Rose of Summer," or "The Deserted Cottage"--which transported Peter Oiland to the eighth heaven at least. One evening, when she had finished one of her usual turns, he took her hand and thanked her warmly, pressing it also quite perceptibly--and Andrea, well, she somehow managed to press his quite perceptibly in return--by accident, of course. And then these hand-clasps were repeated, nay, became a regular thing, to such an extent that the pair would press each other's hands when seated on the sofa with Mamma Sukkestad between them. That good lady, however, did not notice, or affected not to notice, these evidences of tender pa.s.sion taking place behind her back.

Thanks to his intimacy with Sukkestad, and also to his own reputation as a sober and earnest man, Peter Oiland was chosen, after only a couple of months' residence in the place, as one of the two representatives of the town to attend the mission meeting at Stavanger. Sukkestad himself was the other.

On the evening before their departure, he was invited to a party at the Sukkestads', together with the members of the Women's Union.

Peter Oiland had already succeeded in making himself a special favourite with Mrs. Sukkestad, and was on very confidential terms with her; relations, indeed, became quite intimate, when Andrea confided the secret of their mutual feelings to her mother.

After supper, preserved fruit and pastry were handed round, which Peter Oiland inwardly considered a somewhat insipid form of entertainment. He had often felt the lack of a gla.s.s of grog on his visits to the house, and this evening he deftly turned the conversation with Mrs. Sukkestad to the subject of "colds," from which he declared himself to be suffering considerably just lately.

Mrs. Sukkestad recommended hot turpentine bandages on the chest and barley water internally. Oiland, however, hinted that the only thing he had ever known to do him any good was egg punch. Mrs. Sukkestad, who was one of those stout little homely persons always anxious to help, and with a fine store of household recipes ever available, set to work at once to find some means of getting him his favourite medicine, while Peter coughed distressingly, and screwed up his eyes behind his gla.s.ses.

"I tell you what," whispered Mrs. Sukkestad at last. "Sukkestad is an abstainer, you know, so we've never anything in the way of spirits in the house as a rule. But I've half a bottle of brandy out in the pantry that I got last spring when I was troubled with the toothache; I was going to use it for cleaning the windows, really, but if you think it would do your cold any good, I'd be only too pleased."

"Thanks ever so much, it's awfully good of you," said Peter Oiland hoa.r.s.ely.

"Well, then, be sure you don't let anyone know what it is. I'll put it in one of the decanters, and say it's gooseberry wine."

"Yes, yes, of course; I understand."

And, shortly after, Peter Oiland was comfortably seated in a corner with a lovely big gla.s.s of grog, enjoying himself thoroughly, and, to complete his satisfaction, Andrea sang:

"Thou art my one and only thought, My one and only love...."

Peter drank deep of the joy of life, and eke of grog, and Andrea seemed more charming than ever.

Later in the evening he held forth to the ladies--among whom, as above mentioned, were all the members of the Women's Union--about the blacks of the South Sea Islands, and gave so lurid a description of the state of things there prevailing as to make his audience fairly shudder.

"And would you believe it, on one of the islands in the Pacific, a place called Kolamukka, belonging to Queen Rabagadale, they eat roast baby just as we do sucking pig, the only difference being that they don't serve them up with lemons in their mouths."

Sukkestad thought this was going rather too far, and broke in, "Oh, come now, Oiland; you're exaggerating, I'm sure. Thank goodness, all the poor heathens are not cannibals."

"Have to quote the worst examples, to make it properly interesting,"

said Oiland, which dictum was supported by Mrs. Writher, who declared that one could not paint these things too darkly; it was hard enough as it was to make people realise the dreadful state of those benighted creatures.

When the guests had left, Mrs. Sukkestad felt some qualms of conscience at the thought of having "served intoxicating liquors" in her house. She lay awake for hours, debating with herself whether she ought to confess at once to her husband. The excuse about having a cold was--well, rather poor after all. Suppose Oiland had a weakness, a leaning towards drink, and she had led him astray! His cough, too, had vanished so quickly, it was suspicious. However, she decided to say nothing for the present.

It was a fine, bright, sunny day when Sukkestad and Peter Oiland, as delegates from Strandvik to the meeting at Stavanger, stepped on board the coasting steamer, which was already half full of delegates with white neckerchiefs and broad-brimmed felt hats.

The smoke-room was thick with the fumes of cheap tobacco and a hum of quiet talk from decent folk in black Sunday coats and well-polished leg boots. A swarthy little commercial traveller, with a bright red tie and waxed moustache, sat squeezed up in a corner puffing at a "special" cigar with a coloured waistband.

Peter Oiland gave a formal greeting to the company a.s.sembled as he entered; those nearest politely made way for him.

"It's a hard life, teaching," observed a stout little man with a florid, clean-shaven face and glistening black hair brushed forward over his ears. "Tells on the nerves."

"You find it so?" put in Peter Oiland. "Well, now, it all depends on how you take it--as the young man said when he took a kiss in the dark."

There was a somewhat awkward silence; the company seemed rather in doubt as to the speaker's sympathy with their ideas.

Presently the sea began to make itself felt, and Peter Oiland found occasion to relate the anecdote of the old lady who had been in to Christiania for a new set of false teeth, and, being sea-sick on the way back, dropped them overboard; next day the local papers had an account of a big cod just caught, with false teeth in its mouth!

A smile--a very faint one--greeted the story, and the pa.s.sengers relapsed into their customary seriousness, not without occasional glances between one and another: what sort of a fellow was this they had got on board?

"H'm!" thought Peter Oiland. "Have another try; wake them up a bit.

Must be a queer sort of party if I can't."

Just then Sukkestad appeared in the doorway.

"This way, this way, if you please," shouted Peter gaily. "Gentlemen, my friend and colleague, Bukkestad--beg pardon, Sukkestad; slip of the tongue, you understand. Come along in, old man! Jolly evening we had at your place last night--first-rate fun."

Sukkestad did not know whether to laugh or cry, or take himself off and have done with it. The fellow must be mad!

The commercial, who had been hiding his face behind an old newspaper, burst out laughing, and hurried out on deck.

Peter Oiland settled his gla.s.ses on his nose, and went on:

"Smart lot of ladies you'd got hold of, too, Sukkestad; quite the up-to-date sort--eh, what? Ah, you're the man for the girls, no doubt about that."

"Really, Mr. Oiland, I don't know what you mean. Party--girls--I never heard of such a thing."

Peter then fell to telling stories, in the course of which one after another of the delegates disappeared. When he came to the story of the clerk who handed the parson his ca.s.sock with the words: "Tch!

steady, old hoss, till I get your harness on," the last one left the room; no one was left now but the little commercial, who had found his way back again, and was thoroughly enjoying it all. The sea was calm now, and the moon was up, so the pair seated themselves on deck.

And in the course of the evening the delegates below, endeavouring to get to sleep in their respective berths, were entertained by a series of drinking-songs much favoured by the wilder youth of the universities, Peter Oiland singing one part and the commercial traveller the other.

The pair were so pleased with each other's company that the commercial, whose name was Klingenstein--"Goloshes and rubber goods,"

decided not to land at Arendal as he had intended, but to go on to Stavanger instead. Peter Oiland recommended this course, as offering, perhaps--who could say--an opportunity for getting into touch with the South Sea Islands, and selling goloshes to the heathen.

"As a matter of fact," Peter added, "I know a man in Stavanger who lived some years on one of the South Sea Islands, personal friend of Queen Nabagadale; useful man to know." There was then every reason to believe that Klingenstein might open up a new market in elastic stockings and such like.

The moon went down about midnight, and Peter Oiland thought he might as well do likewise. Thoroughly pleased with himself and all the world, he went below and found his way to his cabin. The upper berth was occupied by a man in a big woollen nightcap. "Evening!" said Peter in the friendliest tone, as he sat down to take off his boot.

"Sir," said the gentleman in the nightcap, "permit me to observe that you might have a little consideration for people who wish to rest."

"Delighted, I'm sure," said Peter. "But what's the matter? Can't you get to sleep? Awful nuisance, insomnia, I know."

"Well, when people are so tactless as to sit up on deck just over one's head, stamping and shouting out ribald songs...."

But before his indignant fellow-pa.s.senger could finish his sentence, Peter Oiland was in his berth and snoring--snoring so emphatically, indeed, that he of the nightcap, after having listened to this new melody for three solid hours, got up in despair and went off to lie down on a sofa in the saloon.

Peter Oiland slept like a mummy till ten o'clock next morning, not even waking when the steamer touched at her two ports of call.

Coming on deck, he could not fail to perceive that the other delegates were somewhat cold and reserved in their manner towards him, while as for Sukkestad, he had retired to an obscure corner of the second-cla.s.s quarters.

"Poor fellow, he's not used to travelling," thought Peter Oiland. "I must go and cheer him up a bit." And he went across to Sukkestad and asked if he didn't feel like something to eat.