Skipper Worse Part 22

Upon this they lit their pipes, and put on their coats--at Randulf's they always sat in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves, which was a treat to Worse.

At home it was never allowed.

Afterwards the two old skippers sauntered about the wharves, peeped into the warehouses and the rope-walk, discussed the vessels in the harbour, and, with highly disparaging comments, examined a s.h.i.+p which was building by the wharf.

At every point they fell in with acquaintances, with whom they gossiped. Randulf was in excellent spirits, and Worse also roused himself, although he was not as he had been in old days.

Such a tour as this through the town was something new and unusual to him, for of late he had never been much beyond his own warehouse.

There was something strange about him, which he himself was unable to comprehend; but from the moment when he gave up the _Hope_ to others, he had nearly lost all interest in his old calling.

Indeed, it was almost painful to him now to see a vessel in the fjord under full sail; formerly such a sight was the finest he knew.

To-day, however, Randulf had quite thawed him; he became lively, and even swore twice without being aware of it. This greatly comforted his friend.

Like Consul Garman, Randulf grieved that Jacob Worse had, as he termed it, stranded himself.

He teased him no longer; it would be of no use. At the club, over a tumbler of warm toddy, Randulf would confide to his friends how sad it was to see so splendid a seaman as Jacob Worse spoilt by a pack of women.

He used to wind up his lamentations with "that confounded tub of a s.h.i.+p from Rostock," alluding to the Rostock trader, with which he had been in collision at Bolderaa.

It was his firm belief that if he, Randulf, had been at home, they should never have trapped Jacob Worse.

At seven o'clock they turned back to Randulf's little house, in high spirits, and ravenously hungry.

When they had again eaten--and Worse had not had such an appet.i.te for many a day--they took their steaming tumblers of toddy to the open window, and the blue smoke of their pipes came puffing out like cannon shots, first from the one and then from the other, like two frigates saluting.

After they had smoked on awhile in silence, Worse said: "The sea can be very fine on such a summer evening. Your health."

"The sea is always fine, Jacob. Your health."

"Well, as long as one is young."

"Young! why, you are not more than three years my senior; and that Thomas Randulf has no idea of sneaking to the sh.o.r.e for the next ten years, you may be certain."

"It is otherwise with me. There is something wrong in my inside, you must know."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Randulf. "I don't know much about liver and lungs, and all the trash they say we have in our insides, but what I do know is, that a seafaring man is never well on sh.o.r.e, just as a landsman is as sick as a cat when he comes on board. That is a fact, and it is not to be gainsaid."

Jacob Worse had nothing to say in answer to this speech, he only grumbled, and rubbed his hands across his stomach.

"Have you tried Riga balsam?" inquired Randulf.

"Are you out of your senses? It is my inside that is bad."

"Don't you suppose that Riga balsam is good for the inside, too? If you only get the right sort, it is good for everything, inboard and outboard. I ought to know that. However, it is not your stomach that is wrong," added Randulf, profoundly, "it is rather your heart. It is these women who play the mischief with you, when they get you in tow; I have noticed it both in the Mediterranean and the Baltic. This last affair, however, has been the worst. These pious ones, you see----"

"Mind what you say about Sarah. She has been a real blessing to me.

What should I, an ailing old man, have been without her?"

"You would not have become an old man but for her," Randulf blurted out. But at this Worse looked so ferocious, that his friend took a long sip, and followed it by a fit of coughing.

"No, no," said Worse, when he, too, had refreshed himself. "She has been a good wife to me, both as regards body and soul. I have learnt much from her of which I was ignorant before."

"Yes, that's true, Jacob. You have learnt to sit behind the stove like an old crone, and to dangle at the ap.r.o.nstrings of the women.

You have been dragged to meeting as tamely as a Spanish monk's mule; that is what you have learnt."

"Gently, Thomas," said Worse, nodding significantly. "You are proving the truth of my words. Such as you are, I was; but now I have learnt to feel differently, as you will, too, when the time comes. You will then understand what sinners we are."

"Sinners! Oh yes! But I am not so bad as many others, nor are you, Jacob. I have known you, known you well, for forty years, and a better man by land or sea is not to be found in all Norway. Now, you know it," he said, bringing his fist down on the window-ledge.

Worse was not entirely impervious to this flattery, but he muttered, as he shook the ashes of his pipe into the stove: "Yes, but much more than this is required, very much more."

"Listen to me seriously, Jacob Worse. You know Sivert Jespersen, also called Gesvint?"

"Yes, I should think I did."

"Perhaps you remember a certain two hundred barrels of salt which you bought of him?"

"Yes. I shan't forget them in a hurry."

"Answer me one thing, just one little thing; did he, or did he not, cheat you?"

"Horribly!" answered Worse, without hesitation.

"Now, then, answer me another thing. Which do you suppose the Almighty likes best, an honest seaman who holds his tongue and looks after his s.h.i.+p, or a hypocrite who cheats his fellow-creatures, and then sings hymns? Hey! Which do you think He prefers?"

"Neither you nor I can say, Randulf. Judgment is of the Lord, who searches the hearts and reins."

"Reins!" cried Randulf, scornfully. "Sivert Jespersen's reins--a pretty thing to search. The Lord is not one to be cheated."

Jacob Worse smiled. Theology was now put aside, and they mixed a fresh tumbler.

"But there is one thing you cannot get over, Jacob. It was a sin and shame that you gave up the sea so early. Everybody who inquires about you says so."

"Does any one inquire about me?"

"Inquire about you! why, they talk about you from Copenhagen to Kronstadt. Do you remember the stout damsel at the 'Drei Norweger' in Pillau?"

"Was that where we danced?"

"No; that was at Konigsberg. Good gracious!" said Randulf, compa.s.sionately, "have you forgotten it already? No; the stout individual at Pillau wept salt tears when she heard you were married.

_'Ach du lieber,'_ said she. _'Was soll now the arme Minchen machen when the l.u.s.tige Jacob Worse has gegiftet sich.'_"

"Did she really say that?" cried Worse, touched. "However, it is not correct as you repeat it. I wonder, Thomas, you never learnt to speak German."

"I tell you what: I can get on well enough. I soon find out when they are trying to cheat me; then they come smirking and smiling with _'Guten Abis.'_ But when they say _'Das gloobis,'_ look out for yourself, for then they are most deceitful."

"Just let them try me. I know how to manage them," said Worse, boastingly. "Old Bencke in Dantzic learnt the truth of that. At first they cheated me in herrings, as they always do."