The Visionary Part 5

Their shopping done, they set out to sail the new boat home. It had no other ballast than himself, his wife and children, and the Christmas fare. His son Bernt sat in the fore-part, his wife, with the help of the second son, held the halliard, and Elias sat at the helm, while the two younger boys, twelve and fourteen years of age, were to take turns at baling.

They had eight miles [About thirty-eight English miles = eight Norwegian sea miles.] to sail, and when they got out to sea, it was pretty evident that they would come to prove the boat the first time she was used. A storm was gradually rising, and the foam-crests began to break on the great waves.

Now Elias saw what sort of a boat he had; she cleared the waves like a sea-bird, without so much as a drop coming in, and he therefore judged that he did not need to take in a reef, which in an ordinary ten-oared boat he would be obliged to do in such weather.

Later in the day he noticed, not far off on the sea, another ten-oared boat fully manned and with four reefs in the sail, exactly as he had.

Her course was the same as his, and he thought it rather strange that he had not seen her before. She seemed desirous of racing with him, and when Elias saw this he could not refrain from letting out another reef.

The boat now flew with the speed of an arrow past naze, island and rock, till Elias thought he had never been for such a splendid sail before, and the boat now showed herself to be, as she really was, the first boat in Ranen.

In the meantime the sea had grown rougher, and two considerable waves had already broken over them. They broke in at the bow where Bernt sat, and flowed out to leeward near the stern.

Since it had become darker, the other boat had kept quite close, and they were now so near to one another that a scoop could have been thrown across from one boat to the other.

And thus they sailed, side by side, in the growing storm, throughout the evening. The fourth reef of the sail ought properly to have been taken in, but Elias was loth to give up the race, and he thought he would wait until they took a reef in over in the other boat, where it must be needed quite as much as in his. The brandy keg went round from time to time, for there was now both cold and wet to be kept out.

The phosph.o.r.escence that played in the black waves near Elias's boat shone weirdly in the foam round the other boat, which seemed to plough up and roll waves of fire about her sides. By their bright light he could even distinguish the spars and ropes in her. He could also distinctly see the men on board, with sou'westers on their heads; but as their windward side was nearest, they all had their backs turned to him, and were nearly hidden by the gunwale.

Suddenly there broke over the bows, where Bernt sat, a tremendous wave whose white crest Elias had long seen through the darkness. It seemed to stop the whole boat for an instant, the timbers quivered and shook under its weight, and when the boat, which for a few seconds lay half-capsized, righted herself and went on her way again, it streamed out astern. While this was happening, he fancied there were ghastly cries in the other boat. But when it was over, his wife, who sat at the halliard, said in a voice that cut him to the heart: "Good G.o.d! Elias, that wave took Martha and Nils with it!"--these were their youngest children, the former nine, the latter seven years old, who had been sitting in the bow, near Bernt. To this Elias only answered: "Don't let go the rope, Karen, or you will lose more!"

It was now necessary to take in the fourth reef, and, when that was done, Elias found that the fifth ought to be taken in too, for the storm was increasing; yet in order to sail the boat free of the ever-increasing seas he dared not, on the other hand, take in more sail than was absolutely necessary. But the little sail they could carry became gradually less and less. The spray dashed in their faces, and Bernt and his next youngest brother Anton, who till now had helped his mother with the halliard, were at last obliged to hold the yard, an expedient resorted to when the boat cannot even bear to go with the last reef--in this case the fifth.

The companion boat, which had in the meantime vanished, now suddenly appeared again beside them with exactly the same amount of sail as Elias's boat; and he began rather to dislike the look of the crew on board of her. The two men who stood there holding the yard, whose pale faces he could distinguish under the sou'westers, seemed to him, in the curious light from the breaking foam, more like corpses than living beings, and apparently they did not speak a word.

A little to windward he saw once more the high white crest of another huge wave coming through the dark, and he prepared for it in time. The boat was laid with her stem in a slanting direction to it, and with as much sail as she could carry, in order to give her sufficient speed to cleave it and sail right through it. In it rushed with the roar of a waterfall; again the boat half heeled over, and when the wave was past his wife no longer sat at the halliard, and Anton no longer stood holding the yard--they had both gone overboard.

This time, too, Elias thought he heard the same horrible cries in the air; but in the midst of them he distinctly heard his wife calling his name in terror. When he comprehended that she was washed overboard, he only said: "In Jesus' name!" and then was silent. His inclination was to follow her, but he felt, too, that he must do what he could to save the rest of the freight he had on board--namely, Bernt and his two other sons, the one twelve, the other fourteen, who had baled the boat for a time, but had now found a place in the stern behind their father.

Bernt now had to mind the sail alone; and he and his father, as far as was possible, helped one another. Elias dared not let go the tiller, and he held it firmly with a hand of iron that had long lost feeling from the strain.

After a while the companion boat appeared again; as before, it had been absent for a time. Now, too, Elias saw more of the big man who sat in the stern in the same place as himself. Out of his back, below the sou'wester, when he turned, stuck a six-inch-long iron spike which Elias thought he ought to know. And now, in his own mind, he had come to a clear understanding upon two points: one was that it was no other than the sea-goblin himself who was steering his half-boat by his side and was leading him to destruction, and the other, that it was so ordained that he was sailing his last voyage that night. For he who sees the goblin on the sea is a lost man. He said nothing to the others for fear of making them lose courage; but he silently committed his soul to G.o.d.

For the last few hours he had been obliged to go out of his course for the storm; the air too became thick with snow, and he saw that he would have to wait for dawn before he could find out his whereabouts. In the meantime they sailed on. Now and then the boys in the stern complained of the cold, but there was nothing to be done in the wet, and moreover Elias's thoughts were of very different things. He had such an intense desire for revenge, that, if he had not had the lives of his three remaining children to defend, he would have attempted by a sudden turn of his own boat to run into and sink the other, which still, as if in mockery, kept by his side, and whose evil object he understood only too well. If the halibut pike could wound the goblin before, then surely a knife or a landing-hook might now, and he felt that he would gladly give his life for a good blow at the monster who had so unmercifully taken his dearest from him, and still wanted more victims.

Between three and four in the morning Elias saw, advancing through the dark, another foam-crest, so high that at first he thought they must be near breakers, close to land. But he soon saw that it really was an enormous wave. Then he fancied he distinctly heard laughter over in the other boat, and the words, "Now your boat will capsize, Elias!" Elias, who foresaw the disaster, said aloud: "In Jesus' name!" and told his sons to hold on, with all their might, to the willow bands on the rowlocks when the boat went under, and not to leave go until she rose again. He made the elder boy go forward to Bernt; he himself held the younger close to him, quietly stroking his cheek, and a.s.sured himself that he had a good hold. The boat was literally buried under the foam-drift, then gradually lifted at the bow, and went under. When she rose again, keel uppermost, Elias, Bernt, and the twelve-year-old Martin still held on to the willow bands. But the third brother was gone.

The first thing to be done now was to cut the shrouds on one side, so that the mast could float beside them, instead of greatly adding to the unsteadiness of the boat underneath; and the next to get up on to the rolling keel and knock the plug in, which would let out the air underneath, so that the boat could lie still. After great exertion they succeeded in this, and then Elias, who was the first to get on to the keel, helped the others up too.

And there they sat through the long winter night, clinging convulsively with hands and knees to the keel over which the waves washed again and again.

After two or three hours had pa.s.sed, Martin whom his father had supported as well as he could the whole time, died of exhaustion, and slipped down into the sea. They had already tried calling out for help several times, but gave it up, because they saw it was of no use.

While Elias and Bernt sat alone upon the overturned boat, Elias said to his son that he was quite sure he himself would go to "be with mother,"

but he had strong hopes that Bernt might yet be saved, if he only held out like a man. Then he told him of the goblin he had wounded in the back with the halibut pike, and how it had revenged itself upon him, and would not give up "until they were quits."

It was about nine in the morning, when the dawn began to show grey. Then Elias handed to Bernt, who sat by his side, his silver watch with the bra.s.s chain, which he had broken in two in drawing it out from under his b.u.t.toned-up waistcoat. He still sat for a while, but, as it grew lighter, Bernt saw that his father's face was deadly pale, his hair had parted in several places as it often does when death is near, and the skin was torn from his hands by holding on to the keel. The son knew that his father could not last long, and wanted, as well as the pitching would allow, to move along and support him; but when Elias noticed this he said: "Only hold fast, Bernt! In Jesus' name, I am going to mother"

and thereupon threw himself backwards off the boat.

When the sea had got its due, it became, as every one knows who has sat long upon an upturned boat, a good deal quieter. It became easier for Bernt to hold on; and with the growing day there came more hope. The storm lulled, and when it became quite light, it seemed to him he ought to know where he was, and that he lay drifting outside his own native place, Kvalholmen.

He began once more to call for help, but hoped most in a current which he knew set in to land at a place where a naze on the island broke the force of the waves, so that there was smooth water within. He did drift nearer and nearer, and at last came so near to one rock that the mast, which was floating by the side of the boat, was lifted up and down the slope of the rock by the waves. Stiff as all his joints were with sitting and holding on, he yet succeeded by great exertion in climbing up on to the rock, where he hauled up the mast and moored the boat.

The Fin servant-maid who was alone in the house, had thought for a few hours that she heard cries of distress, and as they continued she climbed the hill to look out. There she saw Bernt upon the rock, and the boat, bottom upwards, rocking up and down against it. She immediately ran down to the boat-house, launched the old four-oared boat, and rowed it along the sh.o.r.e, round the island, out to him.

Bernt lay ill under her care the whole winter, and did not go fishing that year. People thought, too, after this that he was now and then a little strange.

He had a horror of the sea, and would never go on it again. He married the Fin girl and moved up to Malangen, where he bought a clearing, and is now doing well.

CHAPTER IV

_AMONG THE VaeTTE ROCKS_

It was summer. Susanna and I were now in our seventeenth year, and it was settled that we should be confirmed in the autumn.

It was this year that my father was involved in his unequal struggle with the authorities--among whom were the sheriff and the minister--as to whether our trading-place should be a permanent stopping-place for the Nordland steamer. This was a matter of vital importance to my father, and the dispute about it, which also interested the whole district, had already begun to be rather warm.

This was, in fact, not the least important object that the sheriff had in view when he came that summer on a visit to the minister, who was a very influential man.

Outwardly there was as yet no rupture between my father and the minister, and it must have been for the purpose of manifesting this publicly that during the sheriff's visit my father was invited over to the minister's two or three times.

It was thus that my father and I were one day asked to go on a sailing-trip out to the Vaette Rocks, which lay half a mile away. We were first to fish, and then to eat milk-rings [The thick sour cream off the pans in which milk has been set up.] on land at Gunnar's Place, a house rented from the parsonage.

There was always a certain solemnity about the occasion when the minister's white house-boat with four men at the oars glided out of the bay, and a considerable number of spectators generally stood on sh.o.r.e to watch it. That day, father, too, stood out on the steps, with a telescope. He had excused himself from going, but with good tact had let me go.

In the cabin, which was open on account of the heat, sat the minister's wife and the sheriff's two ladies, and outside, one on each side, the minister and the sheriff, smoking their silver-mounted meerschaum pipes, and chatting comfortably: they were college-friends. Susanna and I, together with the housemaid from Trondhjem, who was adorned for the occasion, had a place in the roomy bow. The minister's wife wanted to keep that part of the boat in which she had an immense provision basket--a regular portable larder--under her own eye. The big basket and the little lady entirely occupied one bench, while the two other ladies, with their starched dresses, quite filled up the rest of the narrow cabin.

There was not a breath stirring, and the West Fjord heaved in long, smooth swells. The fjord lay like a giant at rest, sunning itself. The wonderfully clear air allowed the eye to see over the mountain ranges, almost into eternity, while an aerial reflection--an inverted mountain, with a house under it and a couple of spouting whales--built up a fairytale for us over the blue stretch of sea. Now and then we met a sea-fowl, floating on the smooth water; and in our wake gambolled a porpoise or two.

A little before midday we got in among the Vaette Rocks, and set about fishing; for first, without considering the provision basket, we had to procure our own dinner.

On the outer side of the rocks the surf broke noisily in the still day, and sent up great white jets, or retreated with a long sucking sound, as if the ocean drew deep, regular, breaths. Restless as Susanna was, she bent over the gunwale, until her hair almost dipped in her own image in the water, to look through the transparent sea at the fish, which, at a depth of fifteen or twenty fathoms, glided in and out among the seaweed over the greenish-white bottom, and crowded round the lines with which the grown-up people with their double tackle often drew up two fish at once. In her eagerness she called me stone-blind, whenever I could not see just the fish she meant. And short-sighted I was, too, but Susanna's slightest movement interested me more than any fish.

The scene was indeed enchanting. The white boat rocked over its image, as if it hung in s.p.a.ce. Gunnar's Place, too, lay reflected in the water, with field-patches below it, and birch-clad slopes above and around it.

The air, which had, later in the day, become misty with the heat, was filled with the strong scent of foliage, such as is only known in the south when it has been raining.

In less than an hour the pail was full of fish, enough for a "boiling,"

and we landed.

The minister's wife meantime had a table brought out on to the gra.s.s in front of the house, and on the fine damask cloth she had placed several milk-rings. She had also made _romme grod_, [Thick cream, either sweet or sour, boiled.] and, as far as s.p.a.ce would permit, had loaded the table with courses from the provision basket.

But at last the wine and good things began to confuse the sheriff's brain a little. To the intense horror of the minister's wife, he related how her husband, grey-haired and strict as he now was, had been an unusually gay fellow in his youth, and how they had played many a mad prank together.

When the sheriff found that he had made a mistake, he tried to mend matters by a serious toast, in which he expressed a hope that, for the sake of the district, the minister would be able to defeat all the machinations of his intriguing neighbour--here he was stopped in his speech by a meaning look from the minister over at me, as I sat at the end of the table--and ended with some wandering remarks, which were meant to turn off the whole thing.

I turned cold, and the perspiration stood on my forehead, and I must have been as white as a sheet. For my father's sake, I thought I must keep up appearances, but the food stuck in my throat, and I could not swallow another mouthful. I looked across at Susanna; she was crimson.