with now and then a quiet-voiced hail from above or below. But when the boat took water at last, the man on board would shout to his fellows: "Avast heaving now, she'll do." No more than that he said, though it seemed no little thing to have got her safely down.
The biggest hut on the island belongs to honest old Joachim, the boat-builder. There the Christmas dance was held, year after year; the place would hold four to six couples easily at a time. For the music, there was a fiddler, and beside him sat a man by name Didrik, whose office it was to make a sort of vocal harmony to the tune, and beat time heavily with both feet. The young men danced in their shirt-sleeves.
There was one young lad who went about playing host, as it were, while the others danced, and that was Joachim's youngest son, a boat-builder himself. He was looked up to by all for his skill and his clever head: Marcelius, one maiden would think to herself, and Marcelius, the next; his name was known even among the girls of Kirkeoen itself. But Marcelius thought all the while only of Frederikke, the schoolmaster's daughter, though she, to be sure, was a lady, and talked like the people in books, and so proud a creature altogether, he could never hope to win her. The schoolmaster's house was a big place too, and being no fisherman, but a man of position, he had curtains to his windows, and it was customary to knock at his door instead of walking straight in. But Marcelius held faithfully and blindly to his love. He had been to the schoolmaster's house the year before, and he came again this, going in the back way, by the kitchen.
"Godkvaeld," he would say. "I've a word for you, Frederikke."
"What's it you want with me?" says Frederikke, and goes outside with him, knowing well enough what it is.
"Only to ask if you couldn't—you know."
"Nay," says Frederikke, "that I can't. And you'd be better advised to think no more of me, Marcelius, nor put yourself in my way."
"Ay, I know the new schoolmaster man he's wanting you himself," answered Marcelius. "But it's all to be seen what'll come of your fine-lady ways."
And it was true enough, that the new schoolmaster was after Frederikke. He came from Kirkeoen, and had been to a seminary. His father was only a fisherman like the rest, but a rich man, better
