The Breaking of the Storm by Friedrich Spielhagen

"It is half-past four," said Elsa, "we must go."

"You might remain here."

"I am not sure whether my father will have arrived yet; indeed, supposing he came by the midday train, he could not be at Warnow yet; but that terrible man is certainly there, expecting you, and perhaps may go away again without waiting for you -- "

"I must speak to him," murmured Valerie.

"And you must not speak to him alone; I will not allow it; and so we must go."

"Without taking with us any comfort for you, my poor child!"

"I am comforted, I am quite calm; you can surely perceive that by my voice and manner. " And Elsa bent down and kissed her aunt's pale lips.

They were sitting at the window of Reinhold's study, on the right hand as you entered the one-storied house, which was imposing compared with its neighbours, which were still smaller.

Elsa had entered almost all of them; the houses of the two chief pilots, and some of those amongst which the four and twenty other pilots were distributed; that of the chief revenue officer, who shared his house with his subordinate; and she would have gone into the other pilots' houses and the fishermen's huts, of which there might be perhaps a dozen, only that it was not necessary, as the people were all standing at their doors wherever she passed, and stretching out their hands to her -- the rough, hairy hands of two or three invalided old sailors who crept out from the warm chimney-corners; powerful sunburnt hands from strong, sunburnt women; hard little hands from ruddy, flaxen-haired children, who looked up curiously with their blue eyes to the beautiful strange lady, and could not believe what their mothers told them, that she was no princess, but the Captain's betrothed, who was coming to live here always, and was so pleased with everything! And the Captain would come back, the women all said, though the storm was very high -- the worst that Clas Rickmann remembered, and he was ninety-two years old, and so might be allowed to know something about it! The Captain knew what he was about, and he had got six men with him who knew what they were about; and last time they had been out three times in the new lifeboat without being upset once, and it was not likely to upset now, especially when his own sweetheart had come here to receive him when he returned.

So spoke all the women, in almost identical words, as if they had settled them together beforehand; and then they all had something pleasant to say about the Captain, who was even better than the last Superintendent, though he had been a good man too; and here again they all said pretty nearly the same thing, almost in the same words, with the same hearty expression and the same monotonous voices; but Elsa could have willingly heard it all repeated a thousand times, and thanked each one separately as if she heard it for the first time, and as if it were an announcement from heaven.

And then quite a crowd of women and girls accompanied her, with a still greater crowd of children running beside and after them, to the spot nearly at the end of the peninsula, where, on a high dune, signal-posts and beacons were erected, and behind the dune which still afforded some shelter -- stood a close group of men in high seaboots and sou'westers, looking out over the raging sea, who, as the young lady came up to them, pulled off their hats, while Clas Janssen, as the eldest, took upon himself to be spokesman, and to tell the young lady all about it; and all bent their heads eagerly to listen, and nodded, and when they turned away to spit, took great care to do it to leeward.

Then Clas Janssen related that this morning, as soon as it was light, a vessel, which was now at anchor round there in the bay, had come in and brought word that close to the Grünwald Oie a ship had run aground, and was flying signals of distress. There was so much surf at the spot, that only the mast was altogether visible, and the stern occasionally, and they had seen men clinging to the yards. The vessel -- a small Dutch schooner -- seemed well built, and might hold out for another hour or two, as it was on smooth sand, if only the heavy sea did not wash off the crew. From the Oie no one could get at them; an ordinary boat would be swamped at once by the waves. Half an hour later the lifeboat had been launched, with the Captain on board, and for three hours they had kept it in sight, as it worked against the wind, and had seen it at last in the surf near the Oie; but the sea was too high there, and the weather very thick, and so they had lost sight of it, even from the lookout above, and with the most powerful glass, and could not tell whether the Captain had got on board; anyway, it must be a tough job, as it had taken him so long; but the Captain would be sure to pull through. And now if the young lady would go in and let Frau Rickmann make her a cup of tea, they would bring her word when the boat came in sight; and as for their coming back again, she might make herself quite easy -- the Captain knew what he was about, and the six men who were with him knew what they were about.

Elsa had smiled, not because the man had repeated again in the same words what the women had said to her, but because this confirmation from the mouth of an experienced man brought sweet peace to her heart; and she had shaken the man's rough hand and the hands of the other men, and had gone back to the houses with her escort of women and children; and while she talked to them -- the storm blowing away half their words -- she had always repeated to herself, "He knows what he is about, and the six men who are with him know what they are about! " half as a prayer which she durst not utter with her lips, half as a song of joy which she was ashamed to sing aloud.