Skipper Worse Part 9

"Yes; but--but--all the rest is practicable; but the name--your father's name!"

"Possibly my father would not have done it, but I will have it so.

This arrangement is--h'm--the saving of the firm; I am bound to acknowledge it, and I therefore urge you to agree to my proposal."

"But my good Herr Consul," resumed Worse, who had suddenly come down again to his former position, and could not reconcile himself to the notion of entering into partners.h.i.+p with Morten W. Garman, the Consul himself.

The other, however, held firmly to his purpose; and as he made a request, there was nothing for it but to accept the offer.

They remained in conversation a long time, discussing future arrangements. The Consul said plainly that he did not expect Jacob Worse to mix himself up with the business, an idea which made him laugh outright, as it would never occur to him to interfere.

As he rowed back to the town, it seemed to him that he was quite a different Jacob Worse to the one who had rowed from it. Certain ambitious views of his new dignity began to a.s.sert themselves, and he sat repeating: "Garman and Worse," wondering what sort of impression it would make on Randulf.

Nevertheless, he was not entirely happy; it was too much--it had come upon him too suddenly--and he did not care to talk about it.

Consul Garman, however, made no secret of the change in the firm, and the next day the news was announced in the two local papers, each about the size of an ordinary cabbage leaf.

It is easy to conceive what a welcome opportunity this event afforded for festive meetings, and for extra libations and singing at the club.

Jacob Worse was feted at the club, speeches were made in his honour, and, as the drinking went on, was chaffed unmercifully. Envy is always very witty, and his elevation became by no means a source of unmixed pleasure to him.

And from Randulf, that old rascal who had written from Riga that he was on the point of sailing, came tidings that he had been in collision with a Rostock trader, and that he had put back to Bolderaa, where he must discharge and repair. It only required that he should be frozen up there for the winter to make the disappointment complete.

When Romarino heard of the arrangements that had been made, he wrote to his father, as if acknowledging him for the first time in his life.

Worse, however, was hurt when addressed in the following terms: "For a mere sailor, I must admit that on this occasion you have managed pretty well for yourself."

Madame Torvestad redoubled her attentions; and when the autumn came, with its rain and bad weather, Jacob Worse found it pleasant enough to drink tea with madame and her daughters, when there was no meeting.

They bantered him so terribly at the club.

CHAPTER V

Late in the autumn, when the sun set in lurid clouds full of storm and rain, the little town was shrouded in a darkness which was only relieved by a small lantern, which glimmered on the wall at the door of the town hall.

Otherwise it was dark, pitch dark, in the narrow, crooked streets, and down by the wharves, where one might fall headlong into the sea if tipsy, or a stranger.

In the small shops train-oil lamps or tallow candles were burning, in the larger ones suspended "moderator" lamps were beginning to be used.

A faint light was thus thrown upon the puddles, and those who were well acquainted with the street could pick their way dryshod.

Most people, however, wore long boots, and came tramping along, so that they could be heard splas.h.i.+ng through the mud.

Here and there a small lantern might be observed swinging along, at one moment lowered carefully in order to seek a path in the worst places, at others casting its inquisitive light in the faces of the pa.s.sers-by, or against the sides of the low wooden buildings.

Ladies with cap baskets, from which knitting needles were sticking out, might be seen going to evening parties; or servant maids carrying lanterns, and followed by little girls with thin white legs and big goloshes on their feet, on their way to the dancing-school.

After seven o'clock there was scarcely any light in the shops, and the streets seemed deserted. Now and then a ray of light was cast upon the mud and puddles when the door of a tavern, where sailors and topers quarrelled and rioted, was thrown open.

About this time the night watch would sally out of the town hall, in order to take up its beat. It was composed generally of old seamen or s.h.i.+p carpenters, who were past their work, men with hoa.r.s.e, thick voices, bent with age and hard of hearing.

They crept along very slowly, clad in long, thick, frieze coats, bearing lanterns in their left hands, and thumping along the pavement with their ponderous staves.

At certain appointed corners they cried out the hour and the state of the weather, each in his own peculiar fas.h.i.+on, so that he could be understood in his own beat, but nowhere else in the whole world.

When those who had been at parties came home at the usual respectable hour of about ten o'clock, the lanterns reappeared in the streets.

When they fell in with a watchman, they wished him good night, the young people asking the hour in order to tease him, the older ones inquiring seriously about the direction of the wind.

After that the town became dark and silent. A drunken man would reel from one side to the other until he fell down a cellar trap-door, into the gutter, or into the sea. If by chance he stumbled upon the watch, he soon found himself in the lock-up.

But it was not so easy to stumble upon the watch; for they had their secret sleeping-corners, from which they only issued in case of emergency, when they thought the time was come for crying out something, or when the shuffling sound of leather boots was heard approaching.

This was the watch which went the rounds, the fire watch of the town consisting of four or five ancient watchmen, who had no voices left.

They wore their coat collars turned up, and their fur caps drawn down, so that they could hardly notice a fire until it singed their very beards. Nevertheless the town reposed in perfect security.

Perchance, however, some one would wake up and begin to think of the quant.i.ty of rye which lay in the warehouses, or there came a series of visions, clear and definite, such as appear to us in the darkness of the night; first, an ember somewhere smouldering, spreading, and then setting fire to the walls, seizing and enveloping the house, and consuming the rye, salt, barrels, the store, and everything.

Then a shuffling noise of stiff leather boots and staves along the pavement, all coming nearer every moment, and then pa.s.sing out of hearing.

Ah! the fire-watch going the rounds. All right, one can sleep now in peace and comfort.

Or perhaps a child would wake up in a troubled dream, and would lay and listen, terrified by hideous imaginations of thieves and robbers climbing in at the kitchen window to kill father and mother with long knives. But outside the watchman cries: "Two o'clock, and a still night."

Ah! the watch; yes, of course, that was the watch; so no thieves or robbers can come in at the kitchen window. All bad people must stay at home, or the watch will take them to the lock-up. Yes, it was not bad people, only good and kind folks and watchmen.

So it sleeps on again in peace and dreams no more.

But when they _did_ come, those three terrible cannon shots which announced a fire, shaking and even bursting in the windows, unbounded terror prevailed. High above the dark streets the hazy sky was glowing like a sea of fire.

The drummer, Long Jorgen, beat furiously with the thicker ends of his drumsticks; men with hoa.r.s.e voices, and boys with shrill notes like those of sea-gulls, rushed through the streets shouting: "Fire!

fire!"

Outside the engine-house, people carrying lanterns were a.s.sembling, swearing, and shouting for the keys.

They hang behind the fire inspector's bed.

Off, then, to the fire inspector's.

In the pitchy darkness, the messenger encounters him, and running full tilt against him, knocks the bunch of keys into the mud. Whilst search is made for them with three lanterns, some sailors break open the doors, and the engine is run out with a dismal rumbling sound.

Old women in their nightcaps run into the streets, with a washhand basin or a flatiron. In the houses all flock to the parents'

bed-chamber. The smaller children sit up in bed and cry, whilst the elder girls, half dressed, their hair hanging down their backs, and white and trembling with fear, strive to comfort them.

But the mother sets to work to make coffee--hot coffee is good for everything, and under all circ.u.mstances.