IX
ON BOARD THE SEVEN STARS
I love the sea. I know nothing else I delight in so much. Just to get the smell of seaweed, or to see the white spray dashing over a bare island, makes me happy. Poor naked hills and rocks, the salty sea air, old wharves, rocking boats, ships that have been on long voyages and are now laid up in the harbor,—all such things are the pleasantest to be found anywhere in the world. If you don’t think so, you can’t ever have known them, I am sure.
Sometimes I think that the sea is most beautiful in summer, when it lies like a polished mirror and the yellow seaweed sways lazily and silently against the steep gray shore; when the sun glitters out over Skagerak so that it hurts your eyes; when the sloops lie becalmed with loose sails and stay in one spot while the big steamers hurry past, bound for some foreign land, and their smoke makes a straight black streak in the sunshine.
But when the southwest wind rushes in and puts white-caps everywhere on the sea, and the sky is so clear and so blue; and the pilot-boat with the broad red stripe in its sail seems to hop over the waves, while the boat we are rowing in rocks and bobs up and down, and our hair blows all over our faces,—oh, then I think that is the very jolliest time on the sea, after all!
In the autumn when the sea moans and roars, and the water looks black while the spray rises like great white ghosts out on the islands, the sea often seems grim and terrible; for there is always some one on the water we are afraid will not come back,—there are so many wrecks in the autumn.
One summer I was on the sea almost every day, although we had no boat of our own. Father says that if he bought us a boat we would certainly get drowned, all of us. However, I could always manage to get a boat some way. If there were no other to be had, it was usually easy to get hold of Sorensen’s old skiff; just climb over two fences, creep around behind a little mound, and then jump right down the steep bank on to Sorensen’s wharf, where the boat is tied.
Once, however, it happened that I jumped almost on old Sorensen’s head as he stood looking out over the sea and talking to himself. Then I was in a bad fix, for he is not a person to joke with.
Another time I had just untied the boat and rowed a few strokes, when an old cracked voice called out:
“Let that skiff alone, drat you!” It was Sorensen’s, so of course I had to row back to land and tie the boat fast again, and he came down to the wharf and nearly scolded my head off,—he was so angry.
But I happened to get acquainted with his granddaughter Louisa, and then everything was as smooth as butter. It was that summer I was on the water almost every day.
The equal of Sorensen’s good old rowboat I’ve never seen in all my days, and I’ve seen plenty of rowboats, I can tell you. It was pretty old and water-soaked, but for all that, it was a remarkably comfortable boat, and easy to row.
Louisa wasn’t so bad, either. Bright red hair, freckled to the tips of her ears, and with white eyelashes—that’s the way she looked; but search Norway over and you wouldn’t find any one to match her at rowing and paddling and such things. She was lively and jolly, too, and full of all kinds of marvelous stories about mermaids and ghosts and many other queer things that had been seen on the sea. Louisa believed in these stories as if they were gospel truth.
Well, I attached myself to her that summer and fun enough we had every single day. I would take luncheon for both of us and Louisa would take the rowboat.
If her grandfather objected, we had only to promise to whittle some pitch-pine firelighters for him and he would let us have the boat at once.
We would stay on the water the whole afternoon rowing out to the islands or away off in Dams bay, fishing, catching crabs and mussels, talking, laughing, and having the jolliest kind of times.
But once something frightful happened to us, and that is what I shall tell you of now.
We seldom rowed out as far as Bird Island, for the open sea was right outside of that, and there was always a heavy swell there, even when the weather was not rough.
But one afternoon we were tired of splashing around near the land and we decided that we would row out to Bird Island and just make a flying visit. Louisa knew a woman who lived in the only house on the island and it would be great fun to see how everything was out there.
A light breeze blew from the southeast, the sun was shining gaily, the skiff was as dry as a floor, for we had just emptied it; and I had four pieces of rye cake, spread with extra good Danish butter, in my pocket.
Oh, everything was splendid! Louisa told sea stories and we bent to our oars with a will.
“Grandfather says,” announced Louisa, “that you may be all by yourself on the sea on board a schooner or a yacht or whatever, and you think that you are alone, and you are not, for the sea-spirits are with you.”
“Ugh, Louisa! that would be horrid.”
“And Grandfather says,” continued Louisa, “that they can take different forms. It may happen that one shows itself as a big flapping bird or a gray maiden. Grandfather himself has seen a spirit in the form of a cloud of fire.”
“Oh, come now, Louisa! You’re talking nonsense.”
“If it isn’t true, you may chop my head off,” said Louisa. “Grandfather was just outside of Dröbak in his yacht; it was in the middle of the night in late autumn, and all at once as he sat there, a queer shape of fire glided close to him.”
“Don’t talk of spirits, Louisa—don’t. I won’t listen any more.”
“Well, there are sea-spirits and they are ugly, too,” insisted Louisa.
It was farther to Bird Island than we had counted on, and we rowed and rowed till our arms were tired and weak with rowing so far; but at last our boat scraped against the little wharf.
Andrea’s house stood lonely and forlorn on the rocky island. It was a two-story house painted red, with big vacant windows, up-stairs and down.
“Andrea’s husband is a sailor, and I saw her and her son in town to-day with fish to sell,” said Louisa.
We went everywhere around the locked-up, forlorn house. In front was the open sea, gulls and other sea-birds flapped their wings over our heads, bare rocks and stones were everywhere.
“Really, it must be jolly to live here,—like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island,” said I. “To do everything for yourself, live on fish and go in a boat whenever you like.”
“Oh, no!” said Louisa. “No, I should be afraid to live here. Hush, keep still! Hear what a sighing comes from the sea.”
A green yacht was moored down in front of the house. There was no one on board and it lay dipping slowly up and down in the swell of the sea. On the stern was painted the name of the yacht in yellow letters on a black ground,—Seven Stars.
“Oh, let’s row out to the yacht and go on board and look it over,” said I. Louisa made no objection though she said stoutly:
“But you can say what you will, there are spirits here on the island in the afternoons.”
This was not particularly comfortable to hear just then, but I pretended not to notice it. Twenty or thirty strokes would take us to the Seven Stars,—not many more, at any rate.
It was difficult to climb on board, but Louisa, whose arms were very strong, pulled herself up first and drew me up after her.
Then we discovered that a frightful thing had happened. We had let go the rope to the skiff! Whether Louisa had had hold of it or I, or neither of us, I don’t know. I only know that as Louisa drew me up after her, I chanced to kick the rowboat; it glided away and in the same moment was several feet from the Seven Stars.
I can’t say that I was awfully afraid just then. We must be able to get hold of the boat one way or another, I thought; but it drifted farther and farther out and there we stood.
Then we began to quarrel.
“It was your fault, Louisa; you pulled me so hard.”
“Why, the idea! It was you who kicked it away.”
“But you should have held on to the rope.”
“No, you should have held it.”
The boat drifted, drifted, farther and farther away. Neither of us could swim. What in the world should we do?
Not a person on Bird Island. Not a person on the other islands. Far, far back in the bay lay the town. Not a boat was to be seen—nothing, in fact, but gulls and sea-swallows flapping their white wings and whirling swiftly about in the air.
Louisa, with her freckled face and her white eyelashes, looked at me.
“Suppose Andrea stays in town over night at her married daughter’s,—she does that sometimes,—then no one would come here until morning.”
“But her son August will come, you know,” I said.
“Well, I’m afraid, I am,” said Louisa.
“Oh, no, Louisa, dear. We are perfectly safe here, you know.”
“But there are so many sounds, and it’s so lonely and strange, it’s uncomfortable to be here; and if there are spirits anywhere, they will be here, you may depend upon it.”
Louisa whispered the last, although we stood absolutely alone on the Seven Stars, alone on the wide sea.
The skiff, bobbing and rocking, had now drifted quite a distance beyond Bird Island.
“It’s drifting out to sea!” shouted Louisa, despairingly. “Oh, deliver me from Grandfather! He’ll be so angry about his boat.”
O dear! O dear! How worrisome it was! And now the sun had gone and it would soon begin to grow dark. We had not had time to look about on the yacht yet, and it seemed as if we must prepare ourselves to stay there for a while. But the doors were locked and nothing did we find on the deck but a man’s old weather-worn hat.
What should we do? Stay on the open deck all night? There was no use in shouting for help out in this solitude.
Louisa had gone to the stern, but came running back, with her eyes starting out of her head.
“Oh, Inger Johanne! Some one is groaning in the cabin!”
“What nonsense!”
“No, no, it’s true, it’s true.” Louisa was almost beside herself. “Some one is groaning and sighing, I tell you.”
We listened and yes,—think of it! A queer, heavy sound did come from the locked cabin, a strange sound, as if from the bottom of the sea, it seemed to us.
I thought Louisa had gone out of her senses, she was so afraid; for imagine! she wanted to jump overboard.
“It is the spirits,” she whispered. “I’d rather jump into the sea—I will jump, I will.”
I was afraid enough, but it was all very exciting, too. I kept hold of Louisa’s dress.
“Don’t be so stupid as to jump overboard,” I said.
But at that instant fear overwhelmed me, too. Everything was so still, so unspeakably quiet, only the sound of the waves washing against the island, spurting up a little, then falling back; the wide silent sky over us, the town far, far away.
From beneath the deck, however, the strange sound came louder and louder. There really must be something queer down there. Louisa was right—it must be sea-spirits. Fear clutched at my heart.
If only the gray maiden does not come—for she is the worst of all. Suppose a gray figure glided noiselessly up from the cabin——
We were both ready to jump overboard now. I did not know what I was doing, I was so possessed by fear. Not a boat to be seen, only the gray, boundless sea!
Oh, that horrible Seven Stars!
Louisa sat with both legs outside of the railing; it would not take an instant for her to jump down.
The sound from below grew louder, and it was as if some one were walking there with a slow, dragging step. We caught hold of each other’s hands and stared horror-stricken at the cabin door. Some one tried to open it from the inside, turned the key—and a big tousled, carroty head peeped out.
I drew a deep sigh of relief. The head was Singdahlsen’s, crazy Singdahlsen who imagined that his legs had grown together down to his knees. He was somewhat ill-tempered and particularly ugly when he was teased. Often and often he would be on the chase after boys who had plagued him. His pursuit was not swift, however, as you can understand, since he thought he could only move his legs from the knees down.
Oh, what a relief that it was Singdahlsen and not a ghostly gray maiden! Louisa and I let go of each other’s hands and went over to him.
“Was it you who sang the Columbia Song?” he asked with a threatening look.
No, indeed. We could certainly declare ourselves innocent on that score. Nothing could have been farther from our thoughts than singing.
“Well, if it had been you, I’d have hurled you into the sea, both of you.”
Singdahlsen had once been to America and ever since then the worst thing any one could do was to sing an American song to him. He took it as a personal insult, though nobody knew why.
Pooh! We could get along with him perfectly well.
“How did you come here, Singdahlsen?” asked Louisa. Evidently she should not have asked that, for he looked angry at once.
“How did you come here on my boat?” he retorted quickly.
“It is an awfully pretty yacht, this Seven Stars,” I said.
“Yes, when I once get it gilded over, and set a diamond as big as that (measuring with his hands) upon the mast, then it will be as it should be.”
“Oh, yes! Then it will be charming,” we both said.
“Really, I ought to be king of the seas,” said Singdahlsen.
“Yes, you ought; and have a crown upon your head.”
“No, indeed! I’ll have no crown upon my head.” And there he was, as mad as a hornet again.
We kept on talking with him, though. One time he was so angry that he tramped after us around the whole deck with his legs squeezed tight together. But we were not a bit afraid of him even then, for we were so mightily glad he was not a ghost.
Our rowboat showed now only like a thin black streak far away from Bird Island. What if Louisa and I should have to stay out here on the Seven Stars all night with crazy Singdahlsen? It would be horrible.
Suddenly he shouted: “Up the mast with you! Both of you!”
We tried to turn his mind from that, but no, indeed; we must climb the mast, he said, or he would throw us into the sea.
“I’m sick and tired of you now, so up the mast with you, I say.”
I can’t deny that I began to be a little afraid of him. We tried our best to be agreeable and talked of diamonds and gold-pieces,—things which he usually liked to talk of; but it was of no use.
“Now I shall count twelve,” said crazy Singdahlsen. “And if you are not at the top of the mast when I say twelve, out you go into the sea.”
Oh! Oh! What should we do? I cast a terrified glance over the lonely sea.—Just think! A boat was at that instant rounding the point and in it was Andrea! We knew her by the plaid kerchief on her head.
Oh, how glad, how glad we were! All fear left us at the sight of her.
“Andrea! Andrea!” we shouted. We were almost crying, the relief was so great.
Five minutes after, we were in her boat and then we did cry, cried as if we had been whipped. Andrea knew nothing one way or another, but it was plain that she believed Singdahlsen was wholly to blame.
While rowing us home, she told us that he was in her care for board and lodging; and that when she went to town with fish, she put him on the yacht so that he should not do any mischief while she was gone.
You may well believe that Louisa’s grandfather wasn’t at all pleasant to meet when we went back without his rowboat. However, a pilot from Krabbesund found it and brought it home the next day; so Grandfather didn’t have to worry long.