My Danish Sweetheart Volume I Part 8

The smile that lighted up his face as he spoke made me see a resemblance in him to his daughter. It was like throwing a light upon a picture. He was now looking at her with an expression full of tenderness and concern.

'Mr.--Mr.----' he began.

'Tregarthen,' said his daughter.

'Ay, Mr. Tregarthen,' he continued, 'will wonder that a girl should be clad as you are, Helga. Were you ever in Denmark, sir?'

'Never,' I replied.

'You will not suppose, I hope,' said he, with another soft, engaging smile that was pathetic also with the meaning it took from his white face, 'that Helga's attire is the costume of Danish ladies?'

'Oh no,' said I. 'I see how it is. Indeed, Miss Nielsen explained. The dress is a whim. And then it is a very convenient s.h.i.+pboard dress. But she should not be suffered to do the rough work of a sailor. Will you believe, Captain Nielsen, that she went out upon the bowsprit, and cut adrift or loosed the staysail there when your barque was on her beam-ends in the trough of the sea?'

He nodded with emphasis, and said, 'That is nothing. Helga has been to sea with me now for six years running. It is her delight to dress herself in boy's clothes--ay, and to go aloft and do the work of a seaman. It has hardened and spoilt her hands, but it has left her face fair to see. She is a good girl; she loves her poor father; she is motherless, Mr. Tregarthen. Were my dear wife alive, Helga would not be here. She is my only child;' and he made as if to extend his arms to her, but immediately crossed his hands, again addressing her in Danish as though he blessed her.

I could perceive the spirit in her struggling with the weakness that this talk induced. She conquered her emotions with a glance at me that was one almost of pride, as though she would bid me observe that she was mistress of herself, and said, changing the subject, but not abruptly, 'Father, do you think the vessel can struggle on without being watched or helped from the deck?'

'What can be done?' he cried. 'The helm is securely lashed hard a-lee?'

She nodded. 'What can be done?' he repeated. 'Your standing at the wheel would be of no use. What is the trim of the yards?'

'They lie as they were braced up in the bay,' she responded.

'I have been in s.h.i.+ps,' said he, 'that always managed best when left alone in hard weather of this kind. There was the old _Dannebrog_,' he went on, with his eyes seeming to glisten to some sudden stir of happy memory in him. 'Twice when I was in her--once in the Baltic, once in the South Atlantic--we met with gales: well, perhaps not such a gale as this; but it blew very fiercely, Mr. Tregarthen. The captain, my old friend Sorensen, knew her as he knew his wife. He pointed the yards, lashed the helm, sent the crew below and waited, smoking his pipe in the cabin, till the weather broke. She climbed the seas dryly, and no whale could have made better weather of it. A s.h.i.+p has an intelligence of her own. It is the spirit of the sea that comes into her, as into the birds or fish of the ocean. Observe how long a vessel will wash about after her crew have abandoned her. They might have sunk her had they stayed, not understanding her. Much must be left to chance at sea, Helga. No; there is nothing to be done. Damm reported the hatch-covers on and everything secure while in the bay. It is so still, of course. Yet it will ease my mind to know she is a little freed of the water in her.'

'I am ready!' cried I. 'Is the pump too heavy for my arms alone? I cannot bear to think of your daughter toiling upon that wet and howling deck.'

'She will not spare herself, though you should wish it,' said her father. 'What is the hour, my dear?'

She looked at her watch. 'Twenty minutes after two.'

'A weary long time yet to wait for the dawn!' said he. 'And it is Sunday morning--a day of rest for all the world save for the mariner. But it is G.o.d's own day, and when next Sabbath comes round we may be wors.h.i.+pping Him ash.o.r.e, and thanking Him for our preservation.'

As he p.r.o.nounced these words, Helga, as I will henceforth call her, giving me a glance of invitation, quitted the berth, and I followed her into the cabin, as I may term the interior of the deck-house. She picked up the bull's-eye lamp and trimmed the mesh of it, and, arming herself with the sounding-rod, stepped on to the deck. I watched her movements with astonishment and admiration. I should have believed that I possessed fairly good sea-legs, even for a wilder play of plank than this which was now tossing us; nevertheless, I never dared let go with my hands, and there were moments when the upheaval was so swift, the fall so sickening, that my brain reeled again, and to have saved my life I could not have stirred the distance of a pace until the sensation had pa.s.sed. But excepting an occasional pause, an infrequent grasp at what was next to her during some unusually heavy roll, Helga moved with almost the same sort of ease that must have been visible in her on a level floor. Her figure, indeed, seemed to float; it swayed to the rolling of the deck as a flame hovers upright upon the candle you sharply sway under it.

After the comparative calm of the shelter I stepped from, the uproar of the gale sounded as though it were blowing as hard again as at the time of our quitting the deck. The noise of the rus.h.i.+ng and roaring waters was deafening; as the vessel brought her masts to windward, the screaming and whistling aloft are not to be imagined. The wind was clouded with spray, the decks sobbed furiously with wet, and it was still as pitch black as ever it had been at any hour of the night. Helga threw the light of the bull's-eye upon the pump-brake or handle, and we then fell to work. At intervals we could contrive to hear each other speak--that is to say, in some momentary lull, when the barque was in the heart of a valley ere she rose to the next thunderous acclivity, yelling in her rigging with the voice of a wounded giantess. For how long we stuck to that dismal clanking job I cannot remember. The water gushed copiously as we plied the handle, and the foam was all about our feet as though we stood in a half-fathom's depth of surf. I was amazed by the endurance and pluck of the girl, and, indeed, I found half my strength in her courage. Had I been alone I am persuaded I should have given up. The blow of the wheel that had dashed me into unconsciousness, coming on top of my previous labours, not to speak of that exhaustion of mind which follows upon such distress of heart as my situation and the memory of my foundered boat and the possible loss of all her people had occasioned in me, must have proved too much but for the example and influence, the inspiriting presence of this little Danish lioness, Helga.

In one of those intervals I have spoken of she cried out, 'We have done enough--for the present;' and so saying she let go of the pump-handle and asked me to hold the lamp while she dropped the rod. I had supposed our efforts insignificant, and was surprised to learn that we had sunk the water by some inches. We returned to the deck-house, but scarcely had I entered it when I was seized with exhaustion so prostrating that I fell, rather than seated myself, upon the locker and hid my face in my arms upon the table till the sudden darkness should have pa.s.sed from my eyes. When, presently, I looked up, I found Helga at my side with a gla.s.s of spirits in her hand. There was a wonderful anxiety and compa.s.sion in her gaze.

'Drink this!' said she. 'The work has been too hard for you. It is my fault--I am sorry--I am sorry.'

I swallowed the draught, and was the better for it.

'This weakness,' said I, 'must come from the blow I got on deck. I have kept you from your father. He will want your report,' and I stood up.

She gave me her arm, and but for that support I believe I should not have been able to make my way to the captain's berth, so weak did I feel in the limbs, so paralyzing to my condition of prostration was the violent motion of the deck.

Captain Nielsen looked eagerly at us over the edge of his cot. Helga would not release me until I was seated on the locker.

'Mr. Tregarthen's strength has been overtaxed, father,' said she.

'Poor man! poor man!' he cried. 'G.o.d will bless him. He has suffered much for us.'

'It must be a weakness, following my having been stunned,' said I, ashamed of myself that I should be in need of a girl's pity at such a time--the pity of a girl, too, who was sharing my labours and danger.

'What have you to tell me, Helga?' exclaimed the captain.

She answered him in Danish, and they exchanged some sentences in that tongue.

'She is a tight s.h.i.+p,' cried the captain, addressing me: 'it is good news,' he went on, his white countenance lighted up with an expression of exultation, 'to hear that you two should be able to control the water in the hold. Does the weather seem to moderate?'

'No,' said I; 'it blows as hard as ever it did.'

'Does the sea break aboard?'

'There is plenty of water was.h.i.+ng about,' said I, 'but the vessel seems to be making a brave fight.'

'When daylight comes, Helga,' said he, 'you will hoist a distress colour at the mizzen-peak. If the peak be wrecked or the halliards gone, the flag must be seized to the mizzen shrouds.'

'I will see to all that, father,' she answered; 'and now, Mr.

Tregarthen, you will take some rest.'

I could not bear the idea of sleeping while she remained up; yet though neither of us could be of the least use on deck, our both resting at once was not to be thought of, if it was only for the sake of the comfort that was to be got out of knowing that there was somebody awake and on watch.

'I will gladly rest,' said I, 'on condition that you now lie down and sleep for two or three hours.'

She answered no; she was less tired than I; she had not undergone what I had suffered in the lifeboat. She begged me to take some repose.

'It is my selfishness that entreats you,' said she: 'if you break down, what are my father and I to do?'

'True,' I exclaimed, 'but the three of us would be worse off still if _you_ were to break down.'

However, as I saw that she was very much in earnest, while her father also joined her in entreating me to rest, I consented on her agreeing first to remove her soaking clothes, for it was miserable to see her s.h.i.+vering from time to time and looking as though she had just been dragged over the side, and yet bravely disregarding the discomfort, smiling as often as she addressed me and conversing with her father with a face of serenity, plainly striving to soothe and rea.s.sure him by an air of cheerful confidence.

She left the cabin, and Captain Nielsen talked of her at once: told me that her mother was an Englishwoman; that he was married in London, in which city he had lived from time to time; that Helga had received a part of her education at New-castle-on-Tyne, where his wife's family then lived, though they were now scattered, or perhaps dead, only one member to his knowledge still residing at Newcastle. He took Helga to sea with him, he said, after his wife died, that he might have her under his eye, and such was her love for the sea, such her intelligent interest in everything which concerned a s.h.i.+p, that she could do as much with a vessel as he himself, and had often, at her own request, taken charge for a watch, during which she had shortened canvas and put the craft about as though, in short, she had been skipper. The poor man seemed to forget his miserable situation while he spoke of Helga. His heart was full of her; his eyes swam with tears while he cried, 'It is not that I fear death for myself, nor for myself do I dread the loss of my s.h.i.+p, which would signify beggary for me and my child. It is for her--for my little Helga. We have friends at Kolding, where I was born, and at Bjert, Vonsild, Skandrup, and at other places. But who will help the orphan? My friends are not rich--they could do little, no matter how generous their will. I pray G.o.d, for my child's sake, that we may be preserved--ay, and for your sake--I should have said that,' he added, feebly smiling, though his face was one of distress.

He was beginning to question me about my home, and I was telling him that my mother was living, and that she and I were alone in the world, and that I feared she would think me drowned, and grieve till her heart broke, for she was an old lady, and I was her only son, as Helga was his only daughter, when the girl entered, and I broke off. She had changed her attire, but her clothes were still those of a lad. I had thought to see her come in dressed as a woman, and she so interpreted the look I fastened upon her, for she at once said, without the least air of confusion, as though, indeed, she were sensible of nothing in her apparel that demanded an excuse from her: 'I must preserve my sailor's garb until the fine weather comes. How should I be able to move about the decks in a gown?'

'Helga,' cried her father, 'Mr. Tregarthen is the only son of his mother, and she awaits his return.'

Instantly entered an expression of beautiful compa.s.sion into her soft eyes. Her gaze fell, and she remained for a few moments silent; the lamplight shone upon her tumbled hair, and I am without words to make you see the sweet sorrowful expression of her pale face as she stood close against the door, silent, and looking down.

'I have kept my word, Mr. Tregarthen,' said she presently. 'Now you will keep yours and rest yourself. There is my father's cabin below.'

I interrupted her: 'No; if you please, I will lie down upon one of the lockers in the deck-house.'

'It will make a hard bed,' said she.

'Not too hard for me,' said I.