said, "How are
you, Marianne?"

It was as if these people lived surrounded by a thick wall of
indifference, against which her tiny existence was shattered like
fragile glass.

Marianne took a short cut through the ship-yard, where the carpenters
were busy dividing the shavings and putting them into sacks. She found
her grandfather, who had finished his work in the pitch-house, and they
set off homewards together.

Anders Begmand lived in the last of the little red-painted cottages
which lay below the steep slope on the western side of the bay of
Sandsgaard. The road along the shore was only a footpath leading to the
door of each cottage, and then on to the next. Seaweed and half-decayed
fish refuse lay on the shore, while at the back of the houses were heaps
of kitchen refuse, and other abominations. The path itself consisted of
a row of large stones, on which people had to walk if they wished to
keep out of the accumulation of dirt. The houses were mostly crowded,
but especially so in the winter, when the sailors were home from sea.

They were all in the employ of Garman and Worse, and the firm owned
everything they possessed, even to their boats, their houses, and the
very ground under their feet. When the boys grew old enough, they went
to sea in one of the vessels belonging to the firm, and the brightest of
the girls were taken into service, either at the house or at the farm.
Otherwise the cottagers were left pretty much to themselves. They paid
no rent, and there was no interference on the part of the firm with the
"West End," which was the name by which the little row of cottages was
generally known amongst the workpeople.

Anders Begmand's house was both the last and the smallest, but now that
he was alone with his two grandchildren, Marianne and Martin, he did not
require much room. Before, when his wife was alive, and they had three
grown-up sons at home, one of whom was married, it was often close work
enough; but now all were dead and gone. The wife lay in the churchyard,
and the sons in the deep sea.

Anders was an old man, bent by age. His curly white hair covered his
head like a mop, and stood out under his flat cap, which looked more
like the clot of pitch it really almost was, than anything else. In his
youth Anders had made one voyage to the Mediterranean, in the _Family
Hope_, but he had then been discharged; for he had a failing, and that
was--he stammered. Sometimes he could talk away withou