are apt to think it a poor sort of life. But to boys the “land of
the midnight sun” is a veritable paradise. Every season of the year
has its own kind of sport; and as schoolmasters are rare birds so
far north, the boys are to a great extent left to follow their
own devices until they are old enough to be sent away to school
in the cities. From morning till night the air is filled with a
screaming host of birds, which whirl in through the fiords like an
approaching snow-storm. The eider-ducks lie gently bobbing upon
the water, the black surf-scoters dive in the surf and make short
work of the young whiting, and the puffins sit in long soldier-like
rows on the rocks, and plunge headlong into the sea at the first
signal of danger. In this glorious region the fish and fowl from
all quarters of the globe seem to have appointed an annual meeting
about New Year’s; and the Norwegian peasants, who are dependent
upon the inhabitants of the sea and the air for their living, are
on the lookout for them, and hasten to the coast to give them a
fitting reception.
Harry Winchester’s motive, however, for visiting the Arctic
wonderland was quite a different one. He had made the acquaintance
of the Birk boys during the previous summer, and he had struck up
a warm friendship with one of them, named Magnus. His parents,
who lived in New York, had permitted him to accept the invitation
of Mr. Birk to spend the winter with his sons, and Harry was so
completely fascinated with the sports and adventures which every
day offered in abundance that he would have liked to prolong his
stay indefinitely.
Hasselrud, the estate of the Birks, was a fine, old-fashioned
mansion, which peeped out from the dense foliage of chestnut and
maple trees. Mr. Birk conducted a large business in fish and
lumber, and manned every year several boats and sent them to the
Lofoten fisheries. His three sons, Olaf, Magnus, and Edwin, were
brisk and courageous lads, who had been accustomed to danger from
their earliest years, and could handle a gun and manage a sail
as well as any man in that region. Olaf was nineteen years old,
and wore the uniform of a midshipman in the navy, and by courtesy
was styled lieutenant; Magnus, who was sixteen, was a fair-faced,
curly-headed lad, with frank blue eyes, a straight, handsome nose,
and a singular talent for getting into mischief. Edwin was but
twelve years old; but, as he does not figure conspicuously in this
narrative, there is no need of describing him. But altogether the
most important person at Hasselrud, next to Mr. Birk, was Grim
Hering-Luck, a hoary, bow-legged fisherman, who was Mr. Birk’s
right-hand man and captain of his boat-guild. Grim had a stern,
deep-wrinkled face, framed in a wreath of grayish whiskers. He
had small, piercing eyes, and bushy, gray-sprinkled hair. On his
head he wore a sou’wester. The seat and knees of his trousers and
the elbows of his coat were adorned with great shiny patches of
leather. The leathern girdle about his waist did not quite fulfil
its duties as suspenders, but allowed the trousers to slip down
on his hips, leaving some four inches of shirt visible under the
border of the waistcoat. Grim was a gruff old customer, but it
was commonly believed that his bark was worse than his bite. He
liked the bright American boy better than he cared to confess,
and therefore neglected no opportunity for quarrelling with him.
In fact, everybody admired Harry’s enterprising spirit and was
entertained by his lively talk. Olaf was fairly dazzled by his
knowledge and experience of the world, and little Edwin copied his
walk and his picturesque recklessness to the extent of his small
ability; but among all the family there was no one who was more
ardently attached to Harry than Magnus. The two were inseparable;
from morning till night they roamed about together, setting traps
for hares and ptarmigan, spearing trout in the shallows of the
river, trawling for mackerel in the salt water, and sometimes
tacking in and out of the fiord in a furious gale. At such times,
however, they were sure to have Grim in the boat, and Grim was a
capital man to have in a boat in case of an emergency. Thus they
spent the beautiful autumn months until the November storms began
to blow, the snow began to fall, and the air, when they looked out
the fiord, was thick and the sky threatening. The great trees bent
in agony and howled in the blast with voices of despair. Then Grim
would begin to investigate and to mend the nets which hung in long
festoons along the walls of the boat-houses, and, with his friendly
grunt, he would say in reply to Magnus’ queries:
“Wal, Mester Yallertop, the Lord he looks out fer them as they look
out fer themselves. He puts the cod in the sea, but I never heared
of his puttin’ it in yer mouth fer ye. He made the land poor up
here, but he made the sea rich, jest fer to make the average right
in the end. He lets ye starve like a toothless rat if ye have a
taste fer starvin’. But thar ain’t no call for anybody to starve
here north, ef he can bait a hook and ain’t afeared of bein’ late
to his funeral.”
“Being late to your own funeral, Grim!” Magnus would exclaim, in
amazement; “how can a man be late to his funeral?”
“Wal, now, Mester Yallertop, that I’ll tell ye. Fur that ain’t no
uncommon case here north. Suppose ye go out in the mornin’ with
the fishin’ fleet, and it blows up right lively, and ye don’t
never come back again. Then after a week or so the parson reads
the sarvice over yer name and prays fer ye, and the next mornin’,
likely as not, yer legs drift ashore, quite independent-like, jest
because the cod found yer tarred top-boots indergestible.”
“And do such things ever happen, Grim?” the boy would ask,
shuddering at the ghastly picture which his friend’s words
suggested.
“Do they ever happen? Wal, I reckon they do. I might jest mention
to ye that I ain’t in the habit of tellin’ no lies. My father--God
ha’e mercy on his soul--he sent only his legs fur to represent
him at his funeral; and my grandfather--wal, the cod turned the
tables on him; he had meant to eat them, but--it ain’t no use bein’
squeamish about it--they ate him. It war in the great storm of the
11th of February, 1848, when five hundred fisherman cheated the
parson out of his funeral fees.”
“How terrible, Grim! How can you go to the fisheries every winter,
when both your father and your grandfather lost their lives there?”
“Wal, now ye are puzzlin’ me, Mester Magnus,” Grim replied,
taking his clay pipe from the corner of his mouth, and looking up
seriously from his labor; “but I’ll tell ye a yarn I heared when I
was young. I reckon it is true, because I have never heared nobody
say it warn’t. Some city chap axed a fisherman purty much what ye
have axed me, and the fisherman says, says he: ‘Whar did yer father
die?’ ‘Why, he expired peacefully in his bed,’ said the city chap.
‘And yer grandfather?’ axed the fisherman. ‘Wal, he had jest the
same luck,’ says the city chap. ‘And yer great-grandfather?’ ‘He,
too, turned up his toes in the same style.’ ‘Wal, now,’ says the
fisherman, ‘if I were you I wouldn’t never go to bed again, sence
all yer forbears come to their death in it.’ Now, I reckon that is
the way with all of us. Ef the Lord wants us he will know whar to
find us, wharsoever we be.”
When the Christmas holidays, with all their old-fashioned
hospitality and sports, were over the question was seriously
debated whether the boys should be permitted to accompany Grim and
the housemen (tenants) to the Lofoten fisheries. It was decided
that three boats should be manned, and Grim was as usual elected
captain of the whole guild. The “tokens” had been uncommonly good
this year, and a profitable fishery was expected. Mr. Birk, who
well knew the dangers connected with this enterprise, was very
unwilling to let the boys start out in the open boats, and suffer
the discomforts which were inseparable from the life on these
barren islands, where thousands of people were huddled together
in booths and shanties, and quarrels and fights were the order
of the day. Harry, however, argued that such an experience would
scarcely offer itself to him a second time in his life, and that
it was easy to avoid danger while still observing all that was
interesting and instructive in the lives of the people. Olaf and
Magnus, too, added their powers of persuasion to those of Harry,
and in the end Mr. Birk (after enjoining a hundred precautions)
had to yield, stipulating only that Edwin should remain at home.
Grim promised to keep a careful look-out over the movements of the
boys, but he refused to be responsible for their safety, because,
as he remarked, “they were too lively a lot to be controlled by a
stiff-legged old crab like himself.”
It was a gray morning in January that the long eight oared boats
were made ready, the chests containing provisions and clothes were
placed in the stern, and the sails with a rattling noise flew up
and bulged before the wind. The sky had a peculiar whitish-gray
color, which has always an ominous look and promises squalls. Yet
it was a glorious sensation to feel the boats shooting away over
the crests of the waves, dashing the spray like smoke about them
and yielding like living things to the slightest prompting of the
rudder. Grim himself sat in the stern of the first boat, which the
boys had named “The Cormorant,” holding the tiller in his left hand
and the sheet in his right. Magnus had found a rather elevated seat
in the prow, from whence he could observe the captain’s manœuvres
and take lessons in seamanship. Harry and Olaf sat on the middle
bench, watching the horizon and seeing the squalls dash down from
the mountains and sweep their trails of smoke across the fiord.
“It must be dangerous sailing here, Grim,” Harry observed, uneasily.
“It ain’t no joke--fer goslings,” answered Grim.
“I should think, on the whole, it would be more comfortable for
goslings than for men,” retorted Harry, carelessly. “They wouldn’t
mind a ducking half as much as I should.”
“If ye are afeard just say so, and I’ll put ye ashore,” said Grim,
sternly.
“Afraid!” said Harry, indignantly; “not much, old man; guess I can
give you odds any day if you want to try my courage.”
“I want to try ef ye can hold your tongue,” was the captain’s
ungracious reply. “I ain’t much for gassin’ on the water.”
Harry, thinking that perhaps the situation was graver than he
supposed, failed to resent the snub, and fell again to watching
the horizon. They shot away at a tearing speed over the waves, and
sometimes “The Cormorant” careened heavily to leeward and shipped
a sea, but Grim still made no motion to reef the sail. The other
Hasselrud boats, which had kept bravely in the wake of their
leader, were now falling behind, and the blinding spray often hid
them completely from sight. The fiord was growing wider, and the
long “ground swell” showed that they were nearing the ocean. The
stormy petrel was seen skimming lightly, half flying, half running,
over the tops of the billows, and her shrill scream pierced like
a sharp instrument through the deep bass of the wind. The boats
round about them multiplied, and a whole fleet of reddish-brown
sails was seen steering toward the Lofoten Islands. The day passed
without any incident, and when about three o’clock in the afternoon
the darkness came rolling in like a gray curtain from the west,
Grim put into port and the boys devoured between them a five-pound
cod, whereupon they all crawled into the same bunk in a fisherman’s
lodging-house and slept the sleep of the just.
The next morning they were aroused before daybreak, and after
a frugal repast of coffee and sandwiches were hurried into the
boat. The wide ocean now stretched out before them, rolling with
a mighty thundering rhythm against the rock-bound coast. A light
mist was hovering over the water, but the wind was fair, and
hundreds of boats were already scudding northward toward the rich
fishing-banks. As soon as the fog rose and was scattered, the
invisible sun sent a faint semblance of light up among the low
clouds, and immediately thousands of gulls and auks and cormorants
were on the wing, and whirled with a wild confusion of screams in
the wake of the fishing-fleet. When toward noon the wind slackened
a little, Magnus swung out a trawling-line and had almost in the
same moment a bite which sent the line whizzing over the gunwale.
“Gracious! I am afraid I have caught a whale,” he shouted, standing
up in the boat, and holding on to the line with all his might; but
being unable to keep his footing, he flung himself prone across the
row-bench and would inevitably have been pulled overboard if Harry
and Olaf had not caught hold of him by the legs and told him to let
the line go.
“You remind me of the Englishman at the siege of Quebec who had
caught three Frenchmen,” said Harry. “I should say it was the
whale who had caught you, in the present case, if a whale it is.
Now _I_ am going to try my luck,” he added, seizing the wooden
frame to which the line was attached just as it was about to fly
overboard. He braced himself against the mast and flung his body
backward, but the line cut into his hands so terribly that he had
to cry for help. Then Olaf was promptly at his side, and by their
united efforts they succeeded in hauling in a couple of fathoms;
but it was not until one of the boatmen added his strength to
theirs that they made any sensible headway. Great was their delight
when, at the end of five minutes, they caught sight of an enormous
halibut, weighing some forty or fifty pounds, but, as well might be
imagined, it was no easy job to get such a monster into the boat
without upsetting it. The only way was evidently to tire him out
until he lost all power of resistance, and as he had swallowed the
metal bait with tremendous vim there was no danger of his escaping.
It was well on toward evening when they put into harbor on the
northern coast of Lofoten, where they were to remain while the
fisheries lasted. An endless double row of boats stretched
along the shore, and behind these the so-called “Hjælder,” or
drying-houses, rose in gaunt perspective against the dark sky.
Thousands of boats were drawn up along the whole beach, and the
smell of fish pervaded the air and seemed even to be borne in on
the ocean breeze. Grim, followed by all the men from the three
boats, marched up to the Hasselrud booth, which he unlocked,
and ordered the temporary cook to make a fire on the hearth and
to prepare supper. It was a large empty room, one wall of which
was occupied by the hearth and two by rows of bunks, one above
the other, resembling the berths in the steerage of an immigrant
steamer. It looked cheerless, and the boys, whose expectations
had pictured to them something quite different, shivered at the
sight of the bare and sooty walls. Nevertheless when the fire had
been lighted, and a couple of burning pine knots stuck into the
wall, they took heart again and determined to make the best of the
situation.
The next morning at daybreak they jumped into their clothes,
pulling complete oil-cloth suits on the outside of their ordinary
garments. Then fastening their yellow sou’westers under their
chins, they surveyed each other with undisguised looks of
admiration and began to feel like real fishermen. The breakfast was
swallowed in haste, and they scarcely noticed how the hot coffee
scalded their mouths, so eager were they to be off. Nevertheless,
as they had no nets to draw as yet, they delayed their departure
for several hours. It was a raw, cold morning, but the signals
at the government station indicated fair but blustery weather.
The whole fleet had already started, and the Hasselrud boats were
among the last to set sail for the fishing-banks. It was glorious
to see the wide ocean studded, as far as the eye could reach, with
swelling sails, and the air filled for miles with a screaming host
of great, white-winged sea-birds. Round about the whales were
spouting, shooting columns of water into the gray light of the
morning: and the auks were rocking upon the waves, and vanishing,
quick as a flash, as soon as a boat approached them. The fresh
sea-breeze blew into the faces of the three boys, and they felt
like Norse Vikings of the olden time starting out in search of
fame and adventures. It was about twelve o’clock when they arrived
at the fishing-banks; the sails were lowered and the nets sunk by
means of lead sinkers and stones attached to their lower edge.
Wooden floats, similarly attached to their upper edge, held them
in position in the water. Grim sat, grave and imperturbable, in
the stern, issuing his commands in a voice which rose high above
the rushing of the water and the whizzing of the wind, and every
man obeyed with a promptness as if his life depended upon it. The
sea was so packed with cod that the nets often stopped, gliding
slowly over the backs of the fishes, and being again arrested by
the myriads of finny creatures below. Often the same net had to be
taken up and disentangled several times before it made its way to
the bottom. The water was thick with spawn, which clung in long
gelatinous ropes to the blades of the oars, and doubled their
weight to the rowers. The boys, leaning out over the gunwale, could
see the huge male cods winding themselves onward through the dense
throngs of females which stood still with their noses against the
current, moving their fins, and shedding their spawn. It seemed a
positive mercy to haul up a million or so of them, just to make
room for the rest.
“I understand now,” exclaimed Harry, “how the Canadians managed
to cheat us out of so much money--six millions, more or less, I
think--because we had encroached upon their fishing-grounds. I
would myself pay a good round sum for sport like this; and the joke
of it is that you are making money at it and have all the fun in
the bargain.”
“And have ye fisheries in America too, lad?” Grim asked, with
visible interest, as he let the last float slip from his hand.
“Have we got fisheries in America? Well, I should say we had, old
man,” said Harry, fired with patriotic ardor. “You just tell me
what we haven’t got in America. If you’ll come over and see I shall
be happy to entertain you.”
“Ye are safe in invitin’ me, lad,” Grim retorted, biting a quid
from his roll of tobacco. “A purty figger an old sea-dog like me
would make in your ma’s carpeted parlor.”
Harry in his heart admitted the force of this remark, and he
laughed to himself at the thought of Grim’s ungainly form seated in
one of his mother’s spindle-legged blue satin chairs; but, for all
that, he liked Grim too much to wish to offend him, and therefore
stuck bravely to his invitation, insisting that it was sincerely
meant. As they were amicably squabbling, the sun suddenly burst
forth, and flung its dazzling radiance upon the ocean. The noise of
the sea-birds grew louder, making the vast vault of the sky alive
with countless varieties of screams. The fishes leaped, the whales
spouted lustily, the stormy petrel danced over the crests of the
billows; thousands of boats lay bobbing up and down on the waves,
while the lines were being baited; a thousand voices shouted to
each other from boat to boat; oars and rudders rattled, and the
wind sang in the mast-tops. It was a scene which once seen could
never be forgotten.
II.
Long before the Hasselrud men had their lines set the whole fleet
had rowed back toward land. But Grim’s boat-guild, which had just
arrived, and had as yet no nets to draw, lingered for a while
eating their dinner, which they had brought with them in the boats.
They chatted and told stories about Draugen, the sea-bogey, who
rows in a half boat, and whose scream sounds terribly through
the tempest. Any man who sees him knows that he will never see
land again. Draugen is only out in the worst weather; he has a
sou’wester on his head, his face is white and ghastly as death
itself, and his empty eye-sockets have no eyes in them. The boys
shuddered at the horrible picture which was conjured up before
them, and it was a relief to them when the time came for pulling up
the lines, and the great codfishes were hauled sprawling into the
boat; each one had plenty to do now in cutting out the hooks and
in winding the lines upon their frames. A smart gale had sprung up
while they were thus engaged, and Grim began to look wistfully at
the lurid sunset.
“The sun draws water,” he said; “that means lively weather. Hoist
the sails, lads, and let us turn our noses shoreward.”
He had hardly uttered his command when a thick curtain seemed to be
drawn across the face of the sun, and the sea became black as ink.
“Clew up the sail!” he shouted, in a voice of thunder; “we are in
for it.”
With a roar as of a chorus of cataracts the storm advanced, lashing
the water into smoke which whirled heavenward, making the sky dense
as night. The masts creaked, the boats tore away with a frantic
speed, and the waves rose mountain-high, with steep, black gulfs
between them.
“Cap’n,” one of the men ventured to remonstrate, “are we not
carryin’ too much sail?”
Grim deigned him no reply, but, with a sharp turn of the tiller,
ran The Cormorant closer to the wind. Forward bounded the boat,
cleaving the coming wave with a blow of her bows which made her
timbers groan. The spray was dashed fathoms high, and would
have drenched every man on board if his oil-skins had not been
water-tight. Of the other boats only two were visible, and it was
splendid to see how they rose out of one sea, until half the length
of their keels were visible, then buried their noses in the next,
while great sheets of foam splashed on either side, and were torn
into shreds by the gale.
“This is rather lively work, I should say,” remarked the
midshipman. “I think I should prefer a man-of-war to The Cormorant
in this sort of weather.”
“I confess to a weakness for Cunarders,” said Harry; “yet I dare
say I shall enjoy this affair well enough when we get safely
ashore.”
“You mean _if_ we get safely ashore,” said Magnus, quietly. “This
has rather an ugly look to me. Though I dare say Grim knows what he
is about.”
He had scarcely spoken when a harsh voice bellowed, “Lay hold of
the mast, lads!” and in the same moment they seemed to be flung to
a dizzying height; a huge wave towered in front, showing a white
whirling top which seemed on the point of breaking right over them.
They had just time to clasp the mast when the boat, lying flat on
her side, pressed down by her weight of canvas, plunged her nose
into this mountain of water, but by some astonishing manœuvre
righted herself, slid down within another black hollow, and again
rose high on the crest of another wave.
“All hands bail!” roared the captain.
The command came not a moment too soon; the water was rushing in
from the leeward, and the flying wreaths of foam struck the boy’s
faces with a terrible force and made them smart furiously.
“Grim! Grim!” shouted Olaf, making himself heard with a difficulty
above the storm, “you are carrying too much sail.”
“Hold your tongue, gosling,” Grim thundered back; “we have got
nothin’ but the sail fer to save us.”
“What point are you making for?”
“The Bird Islands.”
“I thought there was no harbor there.”
“Reckon ye be right.”
“Gracious heavens!” cried Olaf, turning a terrified countenance
toward his comrades; “he means to wreck the boat; but he knows what
he is about. There is no other chance.”
He sat for a moment silent, gazing up into the cloud rack which
scudded along at a furious rate before the wind. Strips of
storm-riven sky, with momentary vistas of blue, were now and then
visible, but vanished again, making the dusk more dismal by their
memory.
“Breakers ahead!” shouted Olaf, “look out!”
“I see a black ridge against the sky,” cried Harry; “now it is gone
again!”
He was going to say more, but the wind came with a howling screech
and forced his breath down his throat. He gasped, and as the boat
gave a tremendous lurch, diving down into a black hollow, he could
only cling to the base of the mast, lest the next tumble might toss
him overboard. The sound of a steady rhythmic roar rose and fell
upon the air, and made them strain their eyes in the direction from
which it was coming.
“Why, Grim, you are steering away from the island,” Magnus
screamed, pointing to the black ridge which was, once more, for a
moment revealed.
“He means to land us on the leeward side,” Olaf bawled in his
brother’s ear; “the chances are that the water is there a bit
smoother.”