strange fancies came over him.
Whenever he went into the dark draughty nooks and corners, he saw the
strong, heavily built shape before him. She laughed and called to him,
and shrieked and sent him messages by the blast. And then a strong
desire came upon him.
And one day he was unable to hold out any longer, so off he went.
He fancied he caught a glimpse of her a long way off. She was casting
huge boulders aside so as to see and follow the course of the boat, and
she beckoned and greeted him through the drizzle and the mist. It was as
though the current was bearing him thither all the time.
When he came up, the sea seethed and boiled for the crowds that were in
it, though he saw them not. They waded out to him and drew his boat
ashore, and steps and a bridge lay there ready for his feet. But right
at the top stood she, and her breath came heavily, and she leaned
towards him and drew him with those bold eyes of hers set in that face
as pale as night. She went swiftly inland, looked behind her, and
beckoned him after her; and then she threw open the door of an old iron
safe in the midst of the wall.
On its shelves sparkled a bridal crown, and a shining girdle and
breastplate and a kirtle, and all manner of bridal finery.
There she stood, and her breath came straining hot and heavy through her
white teeth, and she smiled and ogled him archly. He felt her take hold
of him, and it was as though a darkness fell around him.
Then all at once, as if in a gleam of twilight, he saw the whole
trading-place, vast and wealthy and splendid, all round about him with
its haven, warehouses, and trading-ships. She stretched out her hands
and pointed to it, as if she would say that he should be the lord and
master of the whole of it.
A cold shiver ran through him; he perceived that it led right into the
mountain.
And out he rushed.
He cut the cable through with his knife, and wrenched the ring from his
finger, and cast it into the sea, and off he rowed, so that the sea was
like a foaming foss around him.
When he got home to his work again, and the bustle of the Christmas
season began, he felt as if he had awakened from a heavy nightmare or an
evil dream. He felt so light of heart. He chatted gaily with customers
over the counter, and his old life went on much the same as before. And
everything he put his hand to went along as smooth as butter.
But the tradesman's daughter stuck her head into the shop not once nor
twice. She looked and smiled at him in shy admiration. Never had he
remarked before what taking ways were hers, or noticed how bonnie and
bright the lassie was, and how graceful and supple she looked as she
stood in the doorway. And ever since the tradesman's daughter had looked
so strangely at him, he had no thought for any one but her. He was
always thinking what a way she had of holding her head, and how slim she
looked when she walked about, and what quick and lively blue eyes she
had, just like merry twinkling stars.
He would lay awake o' nights, and reflect upon his grievous abominable
sin in lowering himself to the level of an uncanny monster, and right
glad was he that he had cast the ring away.
But on Christmas Eve, when the shop was shut and the house folks and
servants were making ready for the festival in kitchen and parlour, the
shopkeeper took him aside into his counting-house. If he liked his
daughter, said he, there was no impediment that he could see. Let him
take heart and woo her, for it hadn't escaped him how she was moping
about all love-sick on his account. He himself, said the shopkeeper, was
old, and would like to retire from business.
The good-looking shopman did not wait to be asked twice. He wooed
straightway, and, before the Christmas cheer was on the table, he got
yes for an answer.
Then years and years passed over them, and they thrived and prospered in
house and home.
They had pretty and clever children. He rejoiced in his wife; nothing
was good enough for her, and honour and ease were her portion, both at
home and abroad.
But in the seventh year, when it was drawing towards Yule-tide, such a
strange restlessness came over him. He wandered about all by himself,
and could find peace nowhere.
His wife fretted and sorrowed over it. She knew not what it could be,
and it seemed to her that he oddly avoided her. He would wander for
hours together about the dark packhouse loft, among coffers and casks
and barrels and sacks, and it was as though he didn't like folks to come
thither when he was there.
Now it chanced on the day before Little Christmas Eve[1] that one of the
workpeople had to fetch something from the loft.
There stood the master, deep in thought, by one of the meal sacks,
staring down on the ground before him.
"Don't you see the iron ring down in the floor there?" he asked.
But the man saw no ring.
"I see it there--the earth draws," he sighed heavily.
On Little Christmas Eve he was nowhere to be found, nor on the day
after, though they searched for him high and low, and made inquiries
about him everywhere amidst the Yule-tide bustle and merriment.
But late on Christmas Eve, while they were all running about in the
utmost anxiety, not knowing whether they should lay the table or not,
all at once in he came through the door.
He longed so much for both meat and drink, he said, and he was so happy
and merry and jovial the whole evening through, that they all clean
forgot the fright they had been in.
For a whole year afterwards he was chatty and sociable as before, and he
made so much of his wife that it was quite absurd. He bore her in his
hands, so to speak, and absolutely could not do enough for her.
But when it drew towards Yule-tide again, and the darkest time of the
year, the same sort of restlessness came over him. It was as though they
only saw his shadow amongst them, and he went moping about the packhouse
loft again, and lingering there.
On Little Christmas Eve the same thing happened as before--he
disappeared.
His wife and the people of the house went about in a terrible way, and
were filled with astonishment and alarm.
And on Christmas Eve he suddenly stepped into the room again, and was
merry and jovial, as he generally was. But when the lights had burnt
out, and they all had gone to bed, his wife could hold her tongue no
longer: she burst into tears, and begged him to tell her where he had
been.
Then he thrust her roughly from him, and his eyes shot sparks, as if he
were downright crazy. He implored her, for their mutual happiness' sake,
never to ask him such a question again.
Time went on, and the same thing happened every year.
When the days grew dark, he moped about by himself, all gloomy and
silent, and seemed bent upon hiding himself away from people; and on
Little Christmas Eve he always disappeared, though nobody ever saw him
go. And punctually on Christmas Eve, at the very moment when they were
about to lay the table, he all at once came in at the door, happy and
contented with them all.
But just before every autumn, towards the dark days, always earlier than
the year before, this restlessness came over him, and he moped about
with it, moodier, and shyer of people than ever.
His wife never questioned him; but a load of sorrow lay upon her, and it
seemed to her to grow heavier and more crushing, since she seemed no
longer able to take care of him, and he no longer seemed to belong to
her.
Now one year, when it was again drawing nigh to Yule-tide, he began
roaming about as usual, heavy and cast down; and the day before Little
Christmas Eve he took his wife along with him into the packhouse loft.
"Do you see anything there by the meal sack?" he asked.
But she saw nothing.
Then he gripped her by the hand, and begged and implored her to remain,
and go with him there at night. As his life was dear to him, said he, he
would fain try and stay at home that day.
In the course of the night he tightly grasped her hand time after time,
and sighed and groaned. She felt that he was holding on to her, and
striving hard, and with all his might, against _something_.
When morning came, it was all over. He was happier and lighter of mood
than she had seen him for a long, long time, and he remained at home.
On that Christmas Eve there was such a hauling and a-carrying upstairs
from both shop and cellar, and the candles shone till all the
window-panes sparkled again. It was the first real festival he had ever
spent in his own house, he said, and he meant to make a regular banquet
of it.
But when, as the custom was, the people of the house came in one by one,
and drank the healths of their master and mistress, he grew paler and
paler and whiter and whiter, as if his blood were being sucked out of
him and drained away.
"The earth draws!" he shrieked, and there was a look of horror in his
eyes.
Immediately afterwards he sat there--dead!
* * * * *
[1] _Lille Jule-aften_, i.e., the day before Christmas Eve
(_Jule-aften_).
* * * * *
_THE CORMORANTS OF ANDVÆR_
[Illustration: _THE TWELVE CORMORANTS_.]
THE CORMORANTS OF ANDVÆR
Outside Andvær lies an island, the haunt of wild birds, which no man can
land upon, be the sea never so quiet; the sea-swell girds it round about
with sucking whirlpools and dashing breakers.
On fine summer days something sparkles there through the sea-foam like a
large gold ring; and, time out of mind, folks have fancied there was a
treasure there left by some pirates of old.
At sunset, sometimes, there looms forth from thence a vessel with a
castle astern, and a glimpse is caught now and then of an old-fashioned
galley. There it lies as if in a tempest, and carves its way along
through heavy white rollers.
Along the rocks sit the cormorants in a long black row, lying in wait
for dog-fish.
But there was a time when one knew the exact number of these birds.
There was never more nor less of them than twelve, while upon a stone,
out in the sea-mist, sat the thirteenth, but it was only visible when it
rose and flew right over the island.
The only persons who lived near the Vær[1] at winter time, long after
the fishing season was over, was a woman and a slip of a girl. Their
business was to guard the scaffolding poles for drying fish against the
birds of prey, who had such a villainous trick of hacking at the
drying-ropes.
The young girl had thick coal-black hair, and a pair of eyes that peeped
at folk so oddly. One might almost have said that she was like the
cormorants outside there, and she had never seen much else all her life.
Nobody knew who her father was.
Thus they lived till the girl had grown up.
It was found that, in the summer time, when the fishermen went out to
the Vær to fetch away the dried fish, that the young fellows began
underbidding each other, so as to be selected for that special errand.
Some gave up their share of profits, and others their wages; and there
was a general complaint in all the villages round about that on such
occasions no end of betrothals were broken off.
But the cause of it all was the girl out yonder with the odd eyes.
For all her rough and ready ways, she had something about her, said
those she chatted with, that there was no resisting. She turned the
heads of all the young fellows; it seemed as if they couldn't live
without her.
The first winter a lad wooed her who had both house and warehouse of his
own.
"If you come again in the summer time, and give me the right gold ring I
will be wedded by, something may come of it," said she.
And, sure enough, in the summer time the lad was there again.
He had a lot of fish to fetch away, and she might have had a gold ring
as heavy and as bonnie as heart could wish for.
"The ring I must have lies beneath the wreckage, in the iron chest, over
at the island yonder," said she; "that is, if you love me enough to dare
fetch it."
But then the lad grew pale.
He saw the sea-bore rise and fall out there like a white wall of foam on
the bright warm summer day, and on the island sat the cormorants
sleeping in the sunshine.
"Dearly do I love thee," said he, "but such a quest as that would mean
my burial, not my bridal."
The same instant the thirteenth cormorant rose from his stone in the
misty foam, and flew right over the island.
Next winter the steersman of a yacht came a wooing. For two years he had
gone about and hugged his misery for her sake, and he got the same
answer.
"If you come again in the summer time, and give me the right gold ring I
will be wedded with, something may come of it."
Out to the Vær he came again on Midsummer Day.
But when he heard where the gold ring lay, he sat and wept the whole day
till evening, when the sun began to dance north-westward into the sea.
Then the thirteenth cormorant arose, and flew right over the island.
There was nasty weather during the third winter.
There were manifold wrecks, and on the keel of a boat, which came
driving ashore, hung an exhausted young lad by his knife-belt.
But they couldn't get the life back into him, roll and rub him about in
the boat-house as they might.
Then the girl came in.
"'Tis my bridegroom!" said she.
And she laid him in her bosom, and sat with him the whole night through,
and put warmth into his heart.
And when the morning came, his heart beat.
"Methought I lay betwixt the wings of a cormorant, and leaned my head
against its downy breast," said he.
The lad was ruddy and handsome, with curly hair, and he couldn't take
his eyes away from the girl.
He took work upon the Vær.
But off he must needs be gadding and chatting with her, be it never so
early and never so late.
So it fared with him as it had fared with the others.
It seemed to him that he could not live without her, and on the day when
he was bound to depart, he wooed her.
"_Thee_ I will not fool," said she. "Thou hast lain on my breast, and I
would give my life to save thee from sorrow. Thou shalt have me if thou
wilt place the betrothal ring upon my finger; but longer than the day
lasts thou canst not keep me. And now I will wait, and long after thee
with a horrible longing, till the summer comes."
On Midsummer Day the youth came thither in his boat all alone.
Then she told him of the ring that he must fetch for her from among the
skerries.
"If thou hast taken me off the keel of a boat, thou mayest cast me forth
yonder again," said the lad. "Live without thee I cannot."
But as he laid hold of the oars in order to row out, she stepped into
the boat with him and sat in the stern. Wondrous fair was she!
It was beautiful summer weather, and there was a swell upon the sea:
wave followed upon wave in long bright rollers.
The lad sat there, lost in the sight of her, and he rowed and rowed till
the insucking breakers roared and thundered among the skerries; the
ground-swell was strong, and the frothing foam spurted up as high as
towers.
"If thy life is dear to thee, turn back now," said she.
"Thou art dearer to me than life itself," he made answer.
But just as it seemed to the lad as if the prow were going under, and
the jaws of death were gaping wide before him, it grew all at once as
still as a calm, and the boat could run ashore as if there was never a
billow there.
On the island lay a rusty old ship's anchor half out of the sea.
"In the iron chest which lies beneath the anchor is my dowry," said she;
"carry it up into thy boat, and put the ring that thou seest on my
finger. With this thou dost make me thy bride. So now I am thine till
the sun dances north-westwards into the sea."
It was a gold ring with a red stone in it, and he put it on her finger
and kissed her.
In a cleft on the skerry was a patch of green grass. There they sat them
down, and they were ministered to in wondrous wise, how he knew not nor
cared to know, so great was his joy.
"Midsummer Day is beauteous," said she, "and I am young and thou art my
bridegroom. And now we'll to our bridal bed."
So bonnie was she that he could not contain himself for love.
But when night drew nigh, and the sun began to dance out into the sea,
she kissed him and shed tears.
"Beauteous is the summer day," said she, "and still more beauteous is
the summer evening; but now the dusk cometh."
And all at once it seemed to him as if she were becoming older and older
and fading right away.
When the sun went below the sea-margin there lay before him on the
skerry some mouldering linen rags and nought else.
Calm was the sea, and in the clear Midsummer night there flew _twelve_
cormorants out over the sea.
* * * * *
[1] A fishing-station, where fishermen assemble periodically.
* * * * *
_ISAAC AND THE PARSON OF BRÖNÖ_
[Illustration: _THE PARSON OF BRÖNÖ. (Story of the Sea-Boot.)_]
ISAAC AND THE PARSON OF BRÖNÖ
In Helgeland there was once a fisherman called Isaac. One day when he
was out halibut fishing he felt something heavy on the lines. He drew
up, and, lo! there was a sea-boot.
"That _was_ a rum 'un! " said he, and he sat there a long time looking
at it.
It looked just as if it might be the boot of his brother who had gone
down in the great storm last winter on his way home from fishing.
There was still something _inside_ the boot too, but he durst not look
to see what it was, nor did he exactly know what to do with the sea-boot
either.
He didn't want to take it home and frighten his mother, nor did he quite
fancy chucking it back into the sea again; so he made up his mind to go
to the parson of Brönö, and beg him to bury it in a Christian way.
"But I can't bury a sea-boot," quoth the parson.
The fellow scratched his head. "Na, na!" said he.
Then he wanted to know how much there ought to be of a human body before
it could have the benefit of Christian burial.
"That I cannot exactly tell you," said the parson; "a tooth, or a
finger, or hair clippings is not enough to read the burial service over.
Anyhow, there ought to be so much remaining that one can see that a soul
has been in it. But to read Holy Scripture over a toe or two in a
sea-boot! Oh, no! that would never do!"
But Isaac watched his opportunity, and managed to get the sea-boot into
the churchyard on the sly, all the same.
And home he went.
It seemed to him that he had done the best he could. It was better,
after all, that _something_ of his brother should lie so near God's
house than that he should have heaved the boot back into the black sea
again.
But, towards autumn, it so happened that, as he lay out among the
skerries on the look-out for seals, and the ebb-tide drove masses of
tangled seaweed towards him, he fished up a knife-belt and an empty
sheath with his oar-blade.
He recognised them at once as his brother's.
The tarred wire covering of the sheath had been loosened and bleached by
the sea; and he remembered quite well how, when his brother had sat and
cobbled away at this sheath, he had chatted and argued with him about
the leather for his belt which he had taken from an old horse which they
had lately killed.
They had bought the buckle together over at the storekeeper's on the
Saturday, and mother had sold bilberries, and capercailzies, and three
pounds of wool. They had got a little tipsy, and had had such fun with
the old fishwife at the headland, who had used a bast-mat for a sail.
So he took the belt away with him, and said nothing about it. It was no
good giving pain to no purpose, thought he.
But the longer the winter lasted the more he bothered himself with odd
notions about what the parson had said. And he knew not what he should
do in case he came upon something else, such as another boot, or
something that a squid, or a fish, or a crab, or a Greenland shark might
have bitten off. He began to be really afraid of rowing out in the sea
there among the skerries.
And yet, for all that, it was as though he were constantly being drawn
thither by the hope of finding, perhaps, so much of the remains as might
show the parson where the soul had been, and so move him to give them a
Christian burial.
He took to walking about all by himself in a brown study.
And then, too, he had such nasty dreams.
His door flew open in the middle of the night and let in a cold
sea-blast, and it seemed to him as if his brother were limping about the
room, and yelling that he must have his foot again, the Draugs were
pulling and twisting him about so.
For hours and hours he stood over his work without laying a hand to it,
and blankly staring at the fifth wall[1].
At last he felt as if he were really going out of his wits, because of
the great responsibility he had taken upon himself by burying the foot
in the churchyard.
He didn't want to pitch it into the sea again, but it couldn't lie in
the churchyard either.
It was borne in upon him so clearly that his brother could not be among
the blessed, and he kept going about and thinking of all that might be
lying and drifting and floating about among the skerries.
So he took it upon himself to dredge there, and lay out by the sea-shore
with ropes and dredging gear. But all that he dredged up was sea-wrack,
and weeds, and star-fish, and like rubbish.
One evening as he sat out there by the rocks trying his luck at fishing,
and the line with the stone and all the hooks upon it shot down over the
boat's side, the last of the hooks caught in one of his eyes, and right
to the bottom went the eye.
There was no use dredging for _that_, and he could see to row home very
well without it.
In the night he lay with a bandage over his eye, wakeful for pain, and
he thought and thought till things looked as black as they could be to
him. Was there ever any one in the world in such a hobble as he?
All at once such an odd thing happened.
He thought he was looking about him, deep down in the sea, and he saw
the fishes flitting and snapping about among the sea-wrack and seaweeds
round about the fishing line. They bit at the bait, and wriggled and
tried to slip off, first a cod, and then a ling, and then a dog-fish.
Last of all, a haddock came and stood still there, and chewed the water
a little as if it were tasting before swallowing it.
And he saw there what he couldn't take his eyes off. It looked like the
back of a man in leather clothes, with one sleeve caught beneath the
grapnel of a _Femböring_.[2]
Then a heavy white halibut came up and gulped down the hook, and it
became pitch dark.
"You must let the big halibut slip off again when you pull up
to-morrow," something said, "the hook tears my mouth so. 'Tis of no use
searching except in the evening, when the tide in the sound is on the
ebb."
Next day he went off, and took a piece of a tombstone from the
churchyard to dredge the bottom with; and in the evening, when the tide
had turned, he lay out in the sound again and searched.
Immediately he hauled up the grapnel of a _Femböring_, the hooks of
which were clinging to a leather fisherman's jacket, with the remains of
an arm in it.
The fishes had got as much as they could of it out of the leather
jacket.
Off to the parson he rowed straightway.
"What! read the service over a washed-out old leather jacket!" cried the
parson of Brönö.
"I'll throw the sea-boot into the bargain," answered Isaac.
"Waifs and strays and sea salvage should be advertised in the church
porch," thundered the parson.
Then Isaac looked straight into the parson's face.
"The sea-boot has been heavy enough on my conscience," said he; "and I'm
sure I don't want to be saddled with the leather jacket as well."
"I tell you I don't mean to cast consecrated earth to the winds," said
the parson; he was getting wroth.
Isaac scratched his head again. "Na, na!" said he.
And with that he had to be content and go home.
But Isaac had neither rest nor repose, there lay such a grievous load
upon him.
In the night time he again saw the big white halibut. It was going round
and round so slowly and sadly in the selfsame circle at the bottom of
the sea. It was just as if some invisible sort of netting was all round
it, and the whole time it was striving to slip through the meshes.
Isaac lay there, and gazed and gazed till his blind eye ached again.
No sooner was he out dredging next day, and had let down the ropes, than
an ugly heavy squid came up, and spouted up a black jet right in front
of him.
But one evening he let the boat drive, as the current chose to take it,
outside the skerries, but within the islands. At last it stopped at a
certain spot, as if it were moored fast, and there it grew wondrously
still; there was not a bird in the air or a sign of life in the sea.
All at once up came a big bubble right in front of the jib, and as it
burst he heard a deep heavy sigh.
But Isaac had his own opinion about what he had seen.
"And the parson of Brönö shall see to the funeral too, or I'll know the
reason why," said he.
From henceforth it was bruited abroad that he had second sight, and saw
many things about him which were hid from other folks.