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It's really a shame so dainty as she is too, in every way. Ah, it ought to have been in my young days, I can tell you!" "You are still young enough, Uncle Jorgen!" laughed Master Andres. "Well, a man could almost bring himself to it when he considers what a dreadful injustice is going on under his own eyes.
There were to be heard singing and babbling, hammering and banging; for every trade had its workshop either in the doorway or on the pavement. The sun was burning hot, the air was heavy: it was as if one had entered a baker's oven full of beetles, lady-birds, bees, and flies, that hummed and buzzed. Jörgen scarcely knew, as the saying is, whether he was on his head or his heels.
And Baker Jorgen, who for the greater part of his life has been a seaman on the big vessels sailing the northern and southern oceans, talks about capstans and icebergs and beautiful black women from the West Indies. He sets the capstan turning, so that the great three-master makes sail out of the Havana roadstead, and all his hearers feel their hearts grow light.
Beyond these, again, he perceived many ships, and among them he thought he recognised, by aid of the spy-glass, the "Karen Brönne," as his own vessel was called; and he was right. It was approaching the coast, and Clara and Jörgen were on board. The Skagen lighthouse and the spire of its church looked to them like a heron and a swan upon the blue water.
"He was brought into this lamentable condition by his efforts to save our child," said the old man; "he is now our son." Jörgen was called "an idiot;" but that was a term not exactly applicable to him. He was like a musical instrument, the strings of which are loose, and can no longer, therefore, be made to sound.
Jeppe retorted contemptuously, "Who's going to lend a poor mate's widow three hundred kroner? He might as well throw it into the sea right away." But Baker Jorgen gave Bjerregrav a great smack on the back. "You've given her the money, it's you has done it; nobody else would he such a silly sheep!" he said threateningly. "You let me be!" stammered Bjerregrav. "I've done nothing to you!
Old Jeppe was talking about Malaga "when I ran ashore at Malaga!" but Baker Jorgen was still lamenting his want of an heir, and sighing: "Yes, yes; if only one could see into the future!" Then he suddenly began to talk about the Mormons. "It might really be great fun to see, some time, what they have to offer you," he said.
Gammel-Skagen lies on the northern part of Jutland, at the other extremity of the country from Huusby-Klitter, and that was what Jörgen thought most of. He was determined not to stay for Elsé and Morten's wedding, which was to take place in a couple of weeks. "It was foolish to take his departure now," was the opinion of the old fisherman who had spoken to him before.
Twenty times a day the master would go out to the front door, but he always came in again and sat by the window to read, his boot with the wooden heel sticking out behind him. He spat so much that Pelle had to put fresh sand every day under his place. "Is there some sort of beast that sits in your chest and gnaws?" said Uncle Jorgen, when Andres' cough troubled him badly.
When he reached it he heard loud talking within: Morten was not alone. Jörgen was somewhat capricious. Of all persons he would least wish to find Elsé there; and, on second thoughts, he would rather not give Morten an opportunity of renewing his thanks, so he turned back again.
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