Chapter 24 - Page 2

black-bearded Salvé Kristiansen soon came to be the best known in
Arendal of them all. The dauntless look in his keen brown eyes, his
sharp features, and his short, sudden manner and way of speaking, gave
the impression of a character of uncommon energy; and it was said that
not the very wildest weather would deter him from going to sea. He was
known to have more than once stayed alone on board a water-logged vessel
while he sent his comrade on shore for help; and in his little room at
home, with its white-painted windows, and geraniums, and Dutch
cuckoo-clock, there stood above the roll of charts and telescope on the
wall a bracket with more than one silver goblet upon it, which, like the
telescope, were presents in acknowledgment of his services in piloting
vessels into port under circumstances of unusual difficulty and danger.
But, notwithstanding the repute in which he was held, he had never yet
received the medal for saving life, nor had he yet been made a
certificated pilot of the district.

He was not a man who gathered comrades round him; and as the years
passed, his unapproachability of demeanour, which seemed intended to
convey to people with a certain bitterness that he could do very well
without them, increased. It was said up in the town that he had taken to
drink. For after selling off his mackerel down on the quay, he would
often now sit the whole day in Mother Andersen's parlour with his
brandy-glass before him; and when evening approached, and his head had
had as much as it could carry, it was just as well to keep out of his
way. He did not talk much; and what attraction he found in Mother
Andersen's parlour it was not easy to say. But they knew, at all events,
how to treat him there; and he felt, from the casual questions that
would be addressed to him after he had returned from sea, or from the
way in which a newcomer would salute him, that he was in a sympathetic
atmosphere, and that his name was in repute. It was even something more
than respect, perhaps, which he inspired, for a sailor would think twice
before sitting down beside him, unless it came natural to him to do so
from the way in which they had greeted or spoken to one other.

It was not, however, any attraction which he found in Mother Andersen's
parlour which made him spend so much of his time there; it was that he
was afraid of his own temper at home.

When he had first set up on his own account, and had had his appointment
as a duly certificated pilot for the object of his ambition, he had
never made it his habit to stay in Arendal when he returned from sea
instead of going home. But some two or three years after he had settled
out at Merdö, a couple of incidents had occurred which made a new