He groped his way to the bed, and gave Mr. Robson a good shaking. The landlady, a slatternly sailor's wife, now entered with a light. Only a few minutes before, she had managed to get Tom undressed, somehow or another.
"Oh no! can that be Mr. Gabriel?" said she, drawing her night-dress closer to her. "Is it a fire? Mr. Robson!" she cried, and helped Gabriel to shake him.
"What's the matter?" muttered he in English, turning round his face, all bruised and bloody as he was.
"Oh no, no!" whined the woman, "how beastly drunk he is! Isn't it a shame for such a fine fellow to make himself just like a pig? Tom! Tom! Oh dear me, how tipsy he is!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Gabriel dashed the contents of the basin in his face. Mr. Robson sputtered and blew, and raising himself on his left arm, swung the right feebly over his head, and shouted, "Three cheers for Morten Garman! Hip—hip" But before he got to "Hurrah," he fell back on his side and was snoring again. Gabriel left the room; there was nothing to be done with Tom.
The wind was sweeping down over the meadow, and driving the thick smoke from the pitch-house out over the fjord. All round the house it was as light as day. Long tongues of flame were flying far away over the fields, shedding their glare here and there on the front of a whitewashed house, while up above on the level ground it was still dark, under the shadow of the
