The steamer was bright with brass work and new paint; the great gilt letters of her name at the stern shone over the water. On the bridge stood Skipper Abrahamsen, with three gold bands on his cap, and all the crew were in uniform—blue jerseys, with the name worked in red.
Bernt Jorgensen looked round his own cabin; the worn, yellow-painted walls, the square of ragged canvas that did duty as a tablecloth, the sofa with its old cracked covering of American cloth—it was all poor enough, but would he change with the dandified newcomer over yonder?
He struck his fist on the table. "Let's see if he's as smart at earning money as you've been, Eva Maria. It'll take him all his time, I fancy."
The cheering sounded across the water, as he sat bowed over the table with his head in his arms, thinking of old times, from the day he first went to sea with Uncle Gjermundsen, on board the Stjerna. Three shirts, a pair of canvas breeches, a straw-stuffed mattress and a rug were all his kit. But what a clipper she was in those days, with her twelve knots close hauled. And Uncle Gjermundsen was the man to get the best out of her too. No gold-braided cap for him, and not much of a man to look at, little, dry and crooked-backed as he was; but when he went overboard with a line that black November night to save the crew of an English brig on the reef and sinking, there was many an upstanding man might have been proud to know him. But he and his ship were gone now, and both the same way. He stood by his ship too long, last man on his own deck he would be, and so the rest were saved and he went down. But it was all in the papers about it, the speech that was made in his honour at the Seamen's Union, and the verse:
"He stood alone on the sinking wreck,
A sailor fearless and bold,
For he knew that the last to leave the deck,
Comes first when all is told."
And what lads they were on board the Stjerna, tarry and weather-stained, but the harder it blew the smarter they went about it. There was Nils Sturika, that Christmas Eve off Jomfruland, when the pilot was to come aboard. The whole ship was like a lump of ice, and the fore-rigging ready to go by the board, with the lee shrouds and backstays torn away. They had to make the signal, but the foretop halliards were gone. And then it was Nils Sturika went up the topgallant shrouds by his hands, with the flag in his teeth, and lashed it fast to the pole.
But they got the pilot, and made in to Risorbank just in time.
Nobody shouted hurrah for Nils, and a stiff nip of grog was what he got when he came down; instead of a medal with ribbon and all that he'd maybe get nowadays.
Bernt Jorgensen was roused from his meditation by the sound of the salute on board the Henrik Ibsen. He rose and went up on deck to see what was going on. The shareholders, with wives and children, nephews and nieces and relatives generally, were making a tour of the vessel.
Cilia was down in the saloon, seated in state on a red plush sofa. She did not feel altogether comfortable, to tell the truth, having acquired a horror of showy furniture since her own escapade in that direction. But she was proud to feel that "we" had achieved the distinction of giving Strandvik its first steamer.