Weird Tales from Northern Seas | Page 7

complained bitterly against that fellow Jack, who had
tempted them on, and led them into destruction. What would now
become of their wives and children? They would starve now that they
had none to care for them.
When it grew dark, their hands began to stiffen, and they were carried
off by the sea one by one.
And Jack heard and saw everything, down to the last shriek and the last
clutch; and to the very end they never ceased reproaching him for
bringing them into such misery, and bewailing their sad lot.
"I must hold on tight now," said Jack to himself, for he was better even
where he was than in the sea.
And so he tightened his knees on the keel, and held on fast till he had
no feeling left in either hand or foot.
In the coal-black gusty night he fancied he heard yells from one or
other of the remaining boats' crews.
"They, too, have wives and children," thought he. "I wonder whether
they have also a Jack to lay the blame upon!"
Now while he thus lay there and drifted and drifted, and it seemed to
him to be drawing towards dawn, he suddenly felt that the boat was in
the grip of a strong shoreward current; and, sure enough, Jack got at
last ashore. But whichever way he looked, he saw nothing but black sea
and white snow.
Now as he stood there, speering and spying about him, he saw, far
away, the smoke of a Finn Gamme,[3] which stood beneath a cliff, and

he managed to scramble right up to it.
The Finn was so old that he could scarcely move. He was sitting in the
midst of the warm ashes, and mumbling into a big sack, and neither
spoke nor answered. Large yellow humble-bees were humming about
all over the snow, as if it were Midsummer; and there was only a young
lass there to keep the fire alight, and give the old man his food. His
grandsons and grand-daughters were with the reindeer, far far away on
the Fjeld.
Here Jack got his clothes well dried, and the rest he so much wanted.
The Finn girl, Seimke, couldn't make too much of him; she fed him
with reindeer milk and marrow-bones, and he lay down to sleep on
silver fox-skins.
Cosy and comfortable it was in the smoke there. But as he thus lay
there, 'twixt sleep and wake, it seemed to him as if many odd things
were going on round about him.
There stood the Finn in the doorway talking to his reindeer, although
they were far away in the mountains. He barred the wolf's way, and
threatened the bear with spells; and then he opened his skin sack, so
that the storm howled and piped, and there was a swirl of ashes into the
hut. And when all grew quiet again, the air was thick with yellow
humble-bees, which settled inside his furs, whilst he gabbled and
mumbled and wagged his skull-like head.
But Jack had something else to think about besides marvelling at the
old Finn. No sooner did the heaviness of slumber quit his eyes than he
strolled down to his boat.
There it lay stuck fast on the beach and tilted right over like a trough,
while the sea rubbed and rippled against its keel. He drew it far enough
ashore to be beyond the reach of the sea-wash.
But the longer he walked around and examined it, the more it seemed
to him as if folks built boats rather for the sake of letting the sea in than
for the sake of keeping the sea out. The prow was little better than a
hog's snout for burrowing under the water, and the planking by the
keel-piece was as flat as the bottom of a chest. Everything, he thought,
must be arranged very differently if boats were to be really seaworthy.
The prow must be raised one or two planks higher at the very least, and
made both sharp and supple, so as to bend before and cut through the
waves at the same time, and then a fellow would have a chance of

steering a boat smartly.
He thought of this day and night. The only relaxation he had was a chat
with the Finn girl of an evening.
He couldn't help remarking that this Seimke had fallen in love with him.
She strolled after him wherever he went, and her eyes always became
so mournful when he went down towards the sea; she understood well
enough that all his thoughts were bent upon going away.
And the Finn sat and mumbled among the ashes till his fur jacket
regularly steamed and smoked.
But Seimke coaxed and wheedled Jack with her brown eyes, and