Astonishing, such a lot of people had turned up. He felt his responsibility towards them like a delicious ache at his heart.
If only he had had someone to lend a hand. Even Sivert would have been better than nothing. Egholm looked across reproachfully at Krogh, the old blacksmith, who stood on the beach with his jaws drooping as ever. He had just come down with the last bits of the machine, but could not be persuaded to go on board. He dared not mix with the rest, even, for he was an accomplice in the thing, however much he might turn up his nose to show disapproval.
Well, well, he would have to manage alone.
What was that?--who were they lifting their hats to suddenly?
Heavens, if it wasn't the editor himself! Egholm dropped a nut that slipped away between the bottom boards. Perhaps, after all, Anna had not been altogether lying when she said the editor had called him a genius. But he would not do discredit to the name--no, he would take care of that!
Trembling with emotion, Egholm watched the mighty personage striding through the groups. He always walked as if battling his way forward in the teeth of a gale. Even to-day, when the water was smooth as a mirror, his flowing cloak, his greyish-yellow military beard, even his bushy eyebrows, seemed to stand away from him as if borne on the wings of some private particular wind; possibly one he had brought home with him from the battlefields of '64.
The onlookers leaped aside, like recruits, to make way for him. His presence brought sudden encouragement to the rest--something would surely come of it, after all. A good thing they had not stayed at home.
The editor stopped at the water's edge, and hailed across, with a voice rent by the storm:
"Egholm! Can you get done by six, so that I can have a line in the paper?"
Egholm tried to rise, but slipped down again. He was rather cramped for room.
"I think so, yes, I think so!" He drew out his watch and looked at it. A quarter to nine it showed now--as it had done for heaven knows how long past. "I'll do my best."
The editor muttered something, balanced against a sudden gust, and marched off.
But there were plenty remaining. The slopes of the beach were alive and noisy as bird-cliffs in the nesting season.