A couple of hours after he was on the way down to the sea to look at the brig. The general aspect of the world about him was in harmony with his mood. The wind whistled over the dreary sand-hills, whirling the sand in clouds in among the downs that stretched away like a storm-tossed sea into the distance, in every variety of desolate and jagged outline. Upon the melancholy shore a sea-gull or two were circling round some old black stumps of wreck that protruded from the sand; while beyond lay the dismal expanse of the western sea, without a sail upon its leaden waste of waters, so shunned by all. Dreariness, wreck, and desolation were on every side; and it seemed to Salvé that it was only a reflection of his own life. He had got to be the owner of a brig, and there it lay, what remained of it, buried in the sand. He had succeeded in making Elizabeth his own, but had he thereby added anything to the happiness of his life?
He stood gazing at the remains of his brig, over which the yellow waves were breaking, in a state of gloomy abstraction, from which he was only aroused by the approach of Ib Mathisen and a party of his own crew, who had followed him to the shore to see if possibly they might retrieve some of their property. He joined them in the search, and with but small result; three ship chests and the compass being all the reward of an hour's labour among the timber-ends and bolts and pieces of rigging that strewed the beach, or made ripples in the sand for a long distance in either direction.
They remained that day in the fishing hamlet; and when Salvé had made his declaration before the authorities, and had paid the crew what he owed them with the greater part of the money he had saved, he and Elizabeth took passage for Christiansand in a corn ship from Harboere.
He was very silent on the way, thinking about his future; and the prospect was not a bright one: he knew that there prevailed but one opinion among the crew about the loss of the brig, that he had his own folly only to thank for it; and as this, of course, would get about, his chance of being employed as a skipper by any shipowner would be very small. Elizabeth's popularity in Tonsberg might probably be of service to him, but he would sooner starve than help himself to a situation by means of it; and in her present circumstances she should not even return to Tonsberg.
One only course remained open to him if he was not to begin again from the very beginning—he would become an uncertificated pilot for the Arendal district. No one knew the coast there better than he did; he had always had the idea in his mind, ever since the night when he brought the Juno into Merdö; and out there, or in some other spot along the coast, he reflected gloomily that he could have Elizabeth all to himself.
When he announced his decision to Elizabeth, she entered with animation into the project; and when he went on to add, that she would have to be content now with being only a common man's wife, she replied, intrepidly—
"If he is only called Salvé Kristiansen, I require nothing more."
CHAPTER XXIV.
It was so arranged then; and though Elizabeth was rather disappointed to hear that she was not to see her tidy house at Tonsberg again, she allowed no indication of the feeling to escape her, and Salvé went by himself to arrange their affairs there.
When he had sold what property they had, and bought his pilot-boat, they had still a small sum left with which to begin housekeeping afresh, and Merdö was chosen for their future residence.