Worse now became very eager to talk of all that he would do at the fishing. Randulf thought to himself, "He has got leave."
The fishing that year was bad; the fish were unevenly dispersed, and much on the move. The weather, also, was stormy and bad. Things did not go well with Skipper Worse, his former luck deserted him, and, as some thought his former daring. It was the universal opinion that Worse was growing old.
"Ah!" said Randulf, at the club, "when so old a man gets so young a wife, it is all up with him"; and saying this he made a movement, as if wringing a clout and casting it from him.
Jacob Worse returned from the fishing with rheumatism, and took to the chimney corner. It was best for him to remain at home; and in the spring, when the Hope was going on a long voyage, he himself proposed that one of the other captains in the employ of the firm should take command of her.
Lauritz Seehus was promoted to be mate; in the winter he had been up to Bergen, and had passed in navigation. Before he went, he obtained a promise for life or death from Henrietta.
Neither did Worse go to sea the next spring. He complained of rheumatism and of pains in his stomach. The doctor could not make out what it was, but fancied there was something wrong with his liver.
In the mean time, he became more than ever infatuated about his wife. When his infirmities began with rheumatism and bad digestion, she nursed him as if she had been his daughter. Her tenderness made him doubly grateful and happy. Besides this, all the singing and reading which went on around him produced, in the course of time and without his observing it, a considerable effect upon him.
Jacob Worse had always thought of the Almighty as he might of Consul Garman, as an exacting master, who was, however, forgiving and placable, if one only kept clear of deceit and downright wickedness.
But now he learnt something very different. It was of no avail that he had been an excellent seaman, that he had never deceived a fellow countryman—Germans and Swedes he did not take into reckoning—and that he was upright and just in his dealings. Much, much more than this was required of him.
Often when they talked and read of the obstacles to conversion, and of the perils of the hour of temptation, he thought to himself: "Can this, can all this be true?"