At two o’clock he crossed over to the boards that were sloped against the vessel’s side, slid down them in the dark to the slip, and from there made his way ashore.  Elizabeth’s aunt lived in one of the small houses above; and he had determined to wake her and have a talk with her.

Widow Kirstine was a portly, somewhat worn perhaps, but otherwise strong-looking, old woman, with a good broad face, and thin grey hair drawn down behind her ears.  She was not unused to being disturbed at night, one of her occupations being to nurse sick people; but she always grumbled whenever she was.  When she held up the candle she had lit, and recognised Salve Kristiansen, she thought, from his paleness and general appearance, that he was drunk.

“Is that you, Salve?—­and a pretty state to be in at this time of night!” she began, severely, in the doorway, not caring to let him in at first.  “Is that the way you spend your wages?”

“No, mother, it’s not.  I’ve come off my watch; I wanted to have a word with you about Elizabeth.”

His tone was so strangely low and sorrowful, that the old woman saw that there must be something unusual the matter; and she opened the door.

“About Elizabeth, you say?”

“Yes—­where is she stopping now?”

“Where is she stopping?—­why, with the Becks, of course.  Is there anything the matter?”

“You ought to know that best, mother Kirstine,” he said, earnestly.

She held up the light to his face, and looked at him in vague anxiety, but could make nothing out of it.

“If I ought to know it, tell me,” she said, almost in a tone of entreaty.

“Young Beck, I hear, has been out about Torungen the whole year—­shooting sea-birds—­or—­do you really think he means to marry her?” he broke out wildly, and raising his voice.

It was only now that she caught his full meaning; and setting down the candlestick hard upon the table, she dropped into the chair by the side herself.

“So—­that is what they are saying, is it?” she cried at last.  Her first fear was over; but anger had succeeded to it, and she rose now from her seat with arms akimbo and flashing eyes.  She was not a woman to offend lightly.

“So they have fastened that lie upon Elizabeth, have they!—­it’s a shame for them, so it is!  And you, Salve, can soil your lips with it?  Let me just tell you, then, for your pains, that the Becks’ house is as respectable a one as any in Arendal; and it isn’t you, and such as you, that can take its character away.  Never fear but Elizabeth shall hear every word of your precious story—­ay, and the captain, and the lieutenant, and Madam Beck, too; and you’ll be hunted from the Juno like a dripping cur.  So you thought that Elizabeth was to be beholden to the lieutenant for a character—?”

“Dear mother Kirstine!” Salve cried, interrupting her in the full torrent of her indignation, “I didn’t think about it—­I couldn’t think.  Only, I heard Anders of the Crag down on the slip this morning say it all so confidently.