"Well, so much the better; you can tie me up at once."
"But suppose I don't want to?"
"Then I'll die, Baby. Go off and shoot myself, or drown myself."
"Drown yourself? Oh, do it now. I'll bet anything you wouldn't dare."
"I assure you I mean it," he said, placing one hand on his heart.
"Well, now, let me see what sort of a man you are, Endresen. Walk round the edge of the pond here five times——"
"And what then?"
"Then—oh, then you shall have——"
"Yes?"
"—My sincere admiration, let us say. That'll do to go on with." And she smiled mischievously.
He jumped up on to the narrow stone edging of the pond and began balancing his way carefully along, the Princess walking by his side, counting the rounds.One—two—three—four times round. "One more, and you've done it," she said encouragingly.
"And then I've won your hand, haven't I?" he cried.
"Once more round, and—we'll think about it. Now, last lap!"
He stepped cautiously along, and was nearing the end of the fifth round, when all of a sudden she jumped up and gave him a push that sent him into the water up to his waist.
"No, that's not fair, Baby. I won."
She danced up and down, clapping her hands and laughing delightedly.
"Adieu, Endresen! my sincere admiration. It was splendid! But I don't think I'll walk home with you now, or people might think you'd been drowning yourself for my sake." And she ran off. Coming through the town she encountered old Consul Endresen, who stopped, as usual, to talk to her.
"You're looking younger than ever, Consul," said the Princess.
"Am I, though? Oh, you know how to get at an old man's heart, little sunbeam that you are! Looking younger than ever, eh—and I'm sixty-seven to-day," which, by the way, was three years less than the truth.
"To-day? Oh, then I must wish you many happy returns—and here, let me give you these flowers."
He stopped in surprise.
"But, my dearest child, you don't mean it, surely? These flowers, these charming roses, they were for somebody else now, I'm sure."
"Not a bit of it—they're for you."
"Why, then, since you are pleased to command, Ibow—and many thanks." And, bowing deeply, he took her hand and kissed it.
The Princess hurried homeward, laughing at the face of young Endresen when his father appeared with the flowers.
While all this was going on, Karsten junior was sitting deep in thought as to whether he ought not to propose to the Princess himself. He had sounded his father on the subject, and the latter had made no positive objection to the match. True, it was not altogethercomme il faut, but still, it might be passed over—though he certainly considered the old man intolerable.
Karsten junior was not much of a speaker, and determined, therefore, to write instead. But he found this, too, a ticklish business. He had never "operated in that market" before, and was altogether unacquainted with the article known as love. The opening phrase of the contemplated letter was a stumbling-block to begin with. Should he write "Miss," or "Miss Baby," or "Dear Miss Baby"—or even straight out, "Dear Baby"—but no, he must do the thing correctly in due form. The house of Karsten was an old-established firm, and he must make this evident.
He decided at last for "Miss" simply.
"Referring to our conversation of 7th inst., I hereby beg to inform you ..." etc.
He wrote on his sister's ivory paper, put the letter neatly in an envelope, and sent it off.
The Princess laughed when she got the letter. She read it aloud to herself, and exclaimed with conviction: "What a fool!"
Altogether it had been a day of amusing experiences for the Princess, but there was more to come. Yetanother 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."
"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, £1000."
"By cash advanced to Miss Baby on account, as per receipt number 325, £1000."
And the Princess on her part solemnly signed for the money:
"Received cash in advance on account of expected inheritance, £1000—one thousand pounds."
"Received cash in advance on account of expected inheritance, £1000—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 thinkthat 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 £1000 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."
"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 £1000 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 ofthem 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."
The first time I met him was in 1867, on board the schoonerJennyof 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 theJennylay 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 feltmyself 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 upinto 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 theJennyas 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 theJennywas loaded almost to the waterline with smalls. We were just about to batten down the hatches, when the skipper came along and toldus 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 roundthe 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 wemustget 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 intoDirrik'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—wasthe 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, "whydoes 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'sjust 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 thatlittle 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 barqueHimalaya, of Holmestrand."
"When was that?" asked the examiner.
"Seven years ago come Christmas it was."
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 askhim!
"Why, it's this way. If you look inside an ordinary watch, you'll find it's either five rubies or ten, but it'svery 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 £15. 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 snapsad 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.
PRINTED BYMORRISON AND GIBB LTD.EDINBURGH
The Record ofTHE CONCERTS AT THE FRONT
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.
By SIGRID UNDSET
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 mediæval 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.
By JOHANNES V. JENSENTranslated by A. G. CHATER
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 encounter brings the clash of drama.
By SIGFRID SIWERTZTranslated by E. CLASSEN
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.
Transcriber's correctionsp. 74: what the critics say. If[It] it's good, why, I give in; ifp. 90: like that; no, we must get our[out] old friend Bianca top. 122: better. Now, where's your[you] bill?"p. 136: "Mrs. Emilie Rantzau and daughter[daugher]: Knut G. Holmp. 156: on at the dance. Thor Smith nudged his friend surreptitiously[surreptitously]p. 191: From early morning the committee was[were] abroad,p. 199: Lacked neither meat nor[not] mirth,p. 260: this respect, counting as yet[get] not a single steamer. It