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Updated: May 16, 2025
At times his inflexible integrity oppressed John Woolfolk. Halvard, he thought, was a difficult man to live up to. He turned and absently surveyed the land. His restlessness increased. He felt a strong desire for a larger freedom of space than that offered by the Gar, and it occurred to him that he might go ashore in the tender. He moved aft with this idea growing to a determination.
Halvard or himself would have to stand forward, clinging precariously to a stay, and repeatedly sound the depth of the shallowing water as they felt their way out to sea. He gazed anxiously at the dark bulk before him, and saw that the sailor had lost his staunchness of outline, his aspect of invincible determination. "Halvard," he demanded again sharply, "this is no time for pretense.
He realized from the action of the ketch that Halvard was steering uncertainly, and that at any moment the Gar might strike and fall off too far for recovery, when she could not live in the pounding surf. "Four and one," he cried hoarsely. And then immediately after: "Four."
A sudden stolidity possessed him. He thrust the pole out deliberately, skillfully: "Three and a quarter." A lower sounding would mean the end. He paused for a moment, his dripping face turned to the far stars; his lips moved in silent, unformulated aspirations Halvard and himself, in the sea that had been their home; but Millie was so fragile!
He found Halvard already at the sand's edge, waiting uneasily with the tender, and they crossed the broken water to where the Gar's cabin flung out a remote, peaceful light. The sailor immediately set about his familiar, homely tasks, while Woolfolk made a minute inspection of the ketch's rigging.
Hedin's wife, Thorgerda, was fair-haired, tall and stout, and it was she who managed the farm, while her husband read his books, and studied politics in the newspapers; but she had a sharp tongue and her neighbors were afraid of her. They had one son, whose name was Halvard. Brita Blakstad, Bjarne's eldest daughter, was a maid whom it was a joy to look upon.
In her slender frame the rebellion took on an accent of the heroic. Woolfolk recalled how utterly he had gone down before mischance. But his case had been extreme, he had suffered an unendurable wrong at the hand of Fate. Halvard diverted his thoughts by placing before them a tray of sugared pineapple and symmetrical cakes.
For a long while he stood gazing at the dead body, then he knelt down at the foot of the coffin, and began to sob violently. At last he arose, took two steps toward the young man, paused again, and departed silently as he had come. It was Halvard. Close under the wall of the little red-painted church, they dug the grave; and a week later her father was laid to rest at his daughter's side.
She saw that she had done him injustice. He evidently possessed more sense, or at least a finer instinct, than she had given him credit for. "Halvard," she faltered, "if I have offended you, I assure you I didn't mean to do it; and a thousand times I beg your pardon." "You haven't offended me, Brita," answered he, blushing like a girl.
"I shall have to go on, Halvard, if anything unfortunate occurs," he said in a different voice. The sailor made no reply; but as Woolfolk urged Millie out over the wharf he saw Halvard throw himself upon a dark bulk that broke from the wood. The tender was made fast fore and aft; and, getting down into the uneasy boat, Woolfolk reached up and lifted Millie bodily to his side.
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