The Jonas Lie MEGAPACK ® - Jonas Lie

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his fellows came they fleeced and flayed. No sooner, then, did the rumour of the new boats reach him than he sent his people out to see what truth was in it, for he himself used to go fishing in the fishing grounds with large crews. When thus his fellows came back and told him what they had seen, the Bailiff was so taken with it that he drove straightway over to Sjöholm, and one fine day down he came swooping on Jack like a hawk. “Neither tithe nor tax hast thou paid for thy livelihood, so now thou shalt be fined as many half-marks of silver as thou hast made boats,” said he.

      Ever louder and fiercer grew his rage. Jack should be put in chains and irons and be transported northwards to the fortress of Skraar, and be kept so close that he should never see sun or moon more.

      But when the Bailiff had rowed round the Femböring, and feasted his eyes upon it, and seen how smart and shapely it was, he agreed at last to let Mercy go before Justice, and was content to take the Femböring in lieu of a fine.

      Then Jack took off his cap and said that if there was one man more than another to whom he would like to give the boat, it was his honour the Bailiff.

      So off the magistrate sailed with it.

      Jack’s mother and sister and brothers cried bitterly at the loss of the beautiful Femböring; but Jack stood on the roof of the boat-house and laughed fit to split.

      And towards autumn the news spread that the Bailiff with his eight men had gone down with the Femböring in the West-fjord.

      But in those days there was quite a changing about of boats all over Nordland, and Jack was unable to build a tenth part of the boats required of him. Folks from near and far hung about the walls of his boat-house, and it was quite a favour on his part to take orders, and agree to carry them out. A whole score of boats soon stood beneath the pent-house on the strand.

      He no longer troubled his head about every seventh boat, or cared to know which it was or what befell it. If a boat foundered now and then, so many the more got off and did well, so that, on the whole, he made a very good thing indeed out of it. Besides, surely folks could pick and choose their own boats, and take which they liked best.

      But Jack got so great and mighty that it was not advisable for any one to thwart him, or interfere where he ruled and reigned.

      Whole rows of silver dollars stood in the barrels in the loft, and his boat-building establishment stretched over all the islands of Sjöholm.

      One Sunday his brothers and merry little Malfri had gone to church in the Femböring. When evening came, and they hadn’t come home, the boatman came in and said that some one had better sail out and look after them, as a gale was blowing up.

      Jack was sitting with a plumb-line in his hand, taking the measurements of a new boat, which was to be bigger and statelier than any of the others, so that it was not well to disturb him.

      “Do you fancy they’re gone out in a rotten old tub, then?” bellowed he. And the boatman was driven out as quickly as he had come.

      But at night Jack lay awake and listened. The wind whined outside and shook the walls, and there were cries from the sea far away. And just then there came a knocking at the door, and some one called him by name.

      “Go back whence you came,” cried he, and nestled more snugly in his bed.

      Shortly afterwards there came the fumbling and the scratching of tiny fingers at the door.

      “Can’t you leave me at peace o’ nights?” he bawled, “or must I build me another bedroom?”

      But the knocking and the fumbling for the latch outside continued, and there was a sweeping sound at the door, as of some one who could not open it. And there was a stretching of hands towards the latch ever higher and higher.

      But Jack only lay there and laughed. “The Fembörings that are built at Sjöholm don’t go down before the first blast that blows,” mocked he.

      Then the latch chopped and hopped till the door flew wide open, and in the doorway stood pretty Malfri and her mother and brothers. The sea-fire shone about them, and they were dripping with water.

      Their faces were pale and blue, and pinched about the corners of the mouth, as if they had just gone through their death agony. Malfri had one stiff arm round her mother’s neck; it was all torn and bleeding, just as when she had gripped her for the last time. She railed and lamented, and begged back her young life from him.

      So now he knew what had befallen them.

      Out into the dark night and the darker weather he went straightway to search for them, with as many boats and folk as he could get together. They sailed and searched in every direction, and it was in vain.

      But towards day the Femböring came drifting homewards bottom upwards, and with a large hole in the keel-board.

      Then he knew who had done the deed.

      But since the night when the whole of Jack’s family went down, things were very different at Sjöholm.

      But no sooner was it quiet of an evening than he had company. His mother bustled and banged about the house, and opened and shut drawers and cupboards, and the stairs creaked with the heavy tread of his brothers going up to their bedrooms.

      At night no sleep visited his eyes, and sure enough pretty Malfri came to his door and sighed and groaned.

      Then he would lie awake there and think, and reckon up how many boats with false keel-boards he might have sent to sea. And the longer he reckoned the more draug-boats he made of it.

      Then he would plump out of bed and creep through the dark night down to the boathouse. There he held a light beneath the boats, and banged and tested all the keel-boards with a club to see if he couldn’t hit upon the seventh. But he neither heard nor felt a single board give way. One was just like another. They were all hard and supple, and the wood, when he scraped off the tar, was white and fresh.

      But while he sat in the boat, and was bending over the thwart with a light, there was a gulping sound out at sea, and then came such a vile stench of rottenness. The same instant he heard a wading sound, as of many people coming ashore, and then up over the headland he saw a boat’s crew coming along.

      Behind them came another boat’s crew, big and little, grown men and little children, rattling and creaking.

      And crew after crew came ashore and took the path leading to the headland.

      When the moon peeped forth Jack could see right into their skeletons. Their faces glared, and their mouths gaped open with glistening teeth, as if they had been swallowing water. They came in heaps and shoals, one after the other: the place quite swarmed with them.

      Then Jack perceived that here were all they whom he had tried to count and reckon up as he lay in bed, and a fit of fury came upon him.

      He rose in the boat and spanked his leather breeches behind and cried: “You would have been even more than you are already if Jack hadn’t built his boats!”

      But now like an icy whizzing blast they all came down upon him, staring at him with their hollow eyes.

      They gnashed their

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