He was known to have more than once stayed alone on board a water-logged vessel while he sent his comrade on shore for help; and in his little room at home, with its white-painted windows, and geraniums, and Dutch cuckoo-clock, there stood above the roll of charts and telescope on the wall a bracket with more than one silver goblet upon it, which, like the telescope, were presents in acknowledgment of his services in piloting vessels into port under circumstances of unusual difficulty and danger.
But, notwithstanding the repute in which he was held, he had never yet received the medal for saving life, nor had he yet been made a certificated pilot of the district.
He was not a man who gathered comrades round him; and as the years passed, his unapproachability of demeanour, which seemed intended to convey to people with a certain bitterness that he could do very well without them, increased.

It was said up in the town that he had taken to drink.

For after selling off his mackerel down on the quay, he would often now sit the whole day in Mother Andersen's parlour with his brandy-glass before him; and when evening approached, and his head had had as much as it could carry, it was just as well to keep out of his way.

He did not talk much; and what attraction he found in Mother Andersen's parlour it was not easy to say.

But they knew, at all events, how to treat him there; and he felt, from the casual questions that would be addressed to him after he had returned from sea, or from the way in which a newcomer would salute him, that he was in a sympathetic atmosphere, and that his name was in repute.