Chapter 1

On the stern, pine-clad southern coast of Norway, off the
picturesquely-situated town of Arendal, stand planted far out into the
sea the white walls of the Great and Little Torungen Lighthouses, each
on its bare rock-island of corresponding name, the lesser of which
seems, as you sail past, to have only just room for the lighthouse and
the attendant's residence by the side. It is a wild and lonely
situation,--the spray, in stormy weather, driving in sheets against the
walls, and eagles and sea-birds not unfrequently dashing themselves to
death against the thick glass panes at night; while in winter all
communication with the land is very often cut off, either by drift or
patchy ice, which is impassable either on foot or by boat.

These, however, and others of the now numerous lights along that
dangerous coast, are of comparatively recent erection. Many persons now
living can remember the time when for long reaches the only lighting was
the gleam of the white breakers themselves. And the captain who had
passed the Oxö light off Christiansand might think himself lucky if he
sighted the distant Jomfruland up by Kragerö.

About a score of years before the lighthouse was placed on Little
Torungen there was, however, already a house there, if it could be
dignified by that name, with its back and one side almost up to the eave
of the roof stuck into a heap of stones, so that it had the appearance
of bending forward to let the storm sweep over it. The low entrance-door
opened to the land, and two small windows looked out upon the sea, and
upon the boat, which was usually drawn up in a cleft above the sea-weed
outside.

When you entered, or, more properly speaking, descended into it, there
was more room than might have been expected; and it contained sundry
articles of furniture, such as a handsome press and sideboard, which no
one would have dreamt of finding under such a roof. In one corner there
stood an old spinning-wheel covered with dust, and with a smoke-blackened
tuft of wool still hanging from its reel; from which, and from other
small indications, it might be surmised that there had once been a woman
in the house, and that tuft of wool had probably been her last spin.

There sat now on the bench by the hearth a lonely old man, of a
flint-hard and somewhat gloomy countenance, with a mass of white hair
falling over his ears and neck, who was generally occupied with some
cobbling work, and who from time to time, as he drew out the thread,
would make some remark aloud, as if he thought he still had the partner
of his life for audience. The look askance over his brass spectacles
with which he greeted any casual stranger who might come into the house
had very little welcome in it, and an