"The one who eats most porridge, gets most meat," said Cilia Braaten, ladling out a large second helping for Abrahamsen, the mate, who innocently accepted.
"No more for me, thanks," said Soren Braaten. He knew his wife's economical trick of getting her guests to eat so much of the first course that they had little cargo space left for the second.
Cilia Braaten was a woman who could hold her own, and was regarded as one of the cleverest shipowners on the fjord, closing charters herself, with or without a broker.
Cecilia was her proper name, but she was invariably called Cilia for short.
Soren Braaten, her husband, was hardly ever referred to at all, his wife having charge of everything that mattered, including the chartering of the two vessels Birkebeineren and Apollo—and Heaven help Soren if he failed to obey orders and sail as instructed by Madam Cilia.
Soren was a kindly and genial soul, who would not hurt a fly as long as he was left to sail his Birkebeineren in peace. True, he would grumble once in a while, when his wife seemed more than usually unreasonable, and throw out hints that he knew what he was about, and could manage things by himself.
"Manage, indeed. A nice sort of managing it would be! What about that time when you fixed Birkebeineren for a cargo of coals to the Limfjord, where there's only ten foot of water, and she draws nineteen? If I hadn't come and got you out of it, you'd have been stranded there now." And Cilia threw a glance of indignant superiority at Soren. The story of that Limfjord charter was her trump card, and never failed to quell Soren's faint attempts at retort.
Altogether, Cilia was unquestionably ruler of the roost, and managed things as she pleased, not only as regards Soren and the two ships, but also Malvina, the only daughter, who, like the rest, obeyed her without demur.
Soren had no reason to regret having given the administration of the household and the business into her care; for their fortunes throve steadily, and Cilia was, as mentioned, one of the smartest shipowners in the fjord. She invariably managed to get hold of the best freights going; the shipbrokers at Drammen seemed by tacit consent to give her the first refusal of anything good.
All, then, seemed well as could be wished with the family as a whole, and one would have thought Cilia herself must be content with things as they were. This, however, was by no means the case; Cilia had troubles enough, though, as so often happens, they were largely of her own making.