‘Yes, I’m sorry to be leaving Norway, for, you know, there’s something delightful to me about the simplicity of the people’ (Esau’s mind reverted to Ivar Tofte and his plate cupboard); ‘they seem to place a childlike confidence in a stranger, which is quite incomprehensible to me. Then there is an unwordable calm, an indescribable tranquillity, which seems to cling both to the country and its inhabitants; even the houses seem to possess an imperturbable serenity of demeanour which you will not find on any other island in Europe. In fact, y’know, Esau, it’s a country where one might live quietly and die in peace, where “moths do not corrupt, neither do worms break through and steal,” don’t you know, Esau? And I’m deuced sorry to have to count among past memories the time we have spent here, where the unbroken harmony of existence is that repose for which my soul has longed these many years; but never until now, no, by George! never, has it been able to discover the most uncertain tracings of its ideal.’
Here Esau, who had his deck shoes on, seeing what sort of a mood John was in, stole away quietly towards the cabin, and left him prosing on to the German Ocean. He paused, however, a moment before descending the companion stairs, and caught a few more words which, as the moon had now set, John was confiding to the darkness.
‘A couple more days, and we shall be back in England, where, y’know, I think civilisation is overdone. My existence there is a perpetual state of toadying and being toadied: you see, it’s a place where the serpent of social emulation creeps into our very beds, and hangs suspended over our heads by a mere thread when we least expect him; and, y’know, Esau——’ But Esau had slunk down the stairs, and the rest of this impassioned outburst is, we fear, lost to humanity.
September 25.—
We woke up to find ourselves just leaving Christiansand, and soon reached the lighthouse at what the Skipper calls ‘the bottom left-hand corner of Norway,’ but remained in bed while we glared at it through the port.
We were taking out a great number of emigrants for America, fine, sturdy-looking young fellows, probably as hard as nails, and quite equal to coping with the difficulties of a new country. They all looked so cheery and full of hope and expectation, that we could not help thinking rather sadly of the day when they will wake up to some of the unpleasant realities of Yankee life, and wish themselves back again in their native hills among their own simple-minded friends.
The day passed in the manner usual at sea when the water is smooth and the ship goes merrily homeward bound. Hardly any one missed a meal—rather a difference from the ordinary state of affairs in the wild North Sea; and at evening the sun went down in a blaze of scarlet and gold, which was reflected from the perfectly calm surface; and we turned in with tranquil minds, even Esau being now reasonably hopeful of seeing the Humber without suffering the pangs of starvation.
Esau is not a good sailor. On the last occasion of our return from Norway he crossed by the ‘Angelo’ a fortnight before the Skipper; and the latter, on arriving on board prepared for the voyage, saw the steward, and asked him, ‘What sort of a passage did you have last trip, George?’
‘Beautiful, sir. I never see a smoother sea.’
Then the Skipper went on, ‘Did you see anything of Mr. Esau on the voyage?’