The Pilot and his Wife

The Pilot and his Wife, by Jonas
Lie

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Title: The Pilot and his Wife
Author: Jonas Lie
Release Date: April 8, 2005 [EBook #15588]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE PILOT AND HIS WIFE

TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN OF
JONAS LIE
BY
G.L. TOTTENHAM
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND
LONDON MDCCCLXXVII

THE PILOT AND HIS WIFE.
CHAPTER I.
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 expression about his
sunken mouth and sharp chin said plainly enough that the other might
state his business at once and be gone. He sought no company; and the
only time he had ever been seen at church was when he came rowing
over to Tromö with his wife's body in her coffin. When the pastor
sprinkled earth upon it, it was observed that the tears streamed down
his cheeks, and it was long after dark before he quitted the churchyard
to return. He had become a proverb for obstinacy for miles beyond his
own residence; and people who dealt with him for fish in the harbour, if
they once began to bargain, were as likely as not to see him without a
word just quietly row away.
All that was known further about "Old Jacob," as he was called, was
that he had once been a pilot, and that he had had a son who had taken

to drinking, through whose fault it had been eventually that the father
had lost