The Jonas Lie MEGAPACK ® - Jonas Lie

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one of them sighed and groaned for his lost life.

      Then Jack, in his horror, put out from Sjöholm.

      Dead hands grabbed at the corners of them with their white knuckles and couldn’t grip fast. They stretched themselves across the water and sank again.

      Then Jack let out all his clews and sailed and sailed and tacked according as the wind blew.

      He glared back at the rubbish behind him to see if those things were after him. Down in the sea all the dead hands were writhing, and tried to strike him with gaffs astern.

      Then there came a gust of wind whining and howling, and the boat drove along betwixt white seething rollers.

      The weather darkened, thick snowflakes filled the air, and the rubbish around him grew greener.

      In the daytime he took the cormorants far away in the grey mist for his landmarks, and at night they screeched about his ears.

      And the birds flitted and flitted continually, but Jack sat still and looked out upon the hideous cormorants.

      At last the sea-fog lifted a little, and the air began to be alive with bright, black, buzzing flies. The sun burned, and far away inland the snowy plains blazed in its light.

      He recognised very well the headland and shore where he was now able to lay to. The smoke came from the Gamme up on the snow-hill there. In the doorway sat the Gan-Finn. He was lifting his pointed cap up and down, up and down, by means of a thread of sinew, which went right through him, so that his skin creaked.

      And up there also sure enough was Seimke.

      She looked old and angular as she bent over the reindeer-skin that she was spreading out in the sunny weather. But she peeped beneath her arm as quick and nimble as a cat with kittens, and the sun shone upon her, and lit up her face and pitch-black hair.

      She leaped up so briskly, and shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked down at him. Her dog barked, but she quieted it so that the Gan-Finn should mark nothing.

      Then a strange longing came over him, and he put ashore.

      He stood beside her, and she threw her arms over her head, and laughed and shook and nestled close up to him, and cried and pleaded, and didn’t know what to do with herself, and ducked down upon his bosom, and threw herself on his neck, and kissed and fondled him, and wouldn’t let him go.

      But the Gan-Finn had noticed that there was something amiss, and sat all the time in his furs, and mumbled and muttered to the Gan-flies, so that Jack dare not get between him and the doorway.

      The Finn was angry.

      Since there had been such a changing about of boats over all Nordland, and there was no more sale for his fair winds, he was quite ruined, he complained. He was now so poor that he would very soon have to go about and beg his bread. And of all his reindeer he had only a single doe left, who went about there by the house.

      Then Seimke crept behind Jack, and whispered to him to bid for this doe. Then she put the reindeer-skin around her, and stood inside the Gamme door in the smoke, so that the Gan-Finn only saw the grey skin, and fancied it was the reindeer they were bringing in.

      Then Jack laid his hand upon Seimke’s neck, and began to bid.

      The pointed cap ducked and nodded, and the Finn spat in the warm air; but sell his reindeer he would not.

      Jack raised his price.

      But the Finn heaved up the ashes all about him, and threatened and shrieked. The flies came as thick as snow-flakes; the Finn’s furry wrappings were alive with them.

      Jack bid and bid till it reached a whole bushel load of silver, and the Finn was ready to jump out of his skins.

      Then he stuck his head under his furs again, and mumbled and jöjked till the amount rose to seven bushels of silver.

      Then the Gan-Finn laughed till he nearly split. He thought the reindeer would cost the purchaser a pretty penny.

      But Jack lifted Seimke up, and sprang down with her to his boat, and held the reindeer-skin behind him, against the Gan-Finn.

      And they put off from land, and went to sea.

      Seimke was so happy, and smote her hands together, and took her turn at the oars.

      The northern light shot out like a comb, all greeny-red and fiery, and licked and played upon her face. She talked to it, and fought it with her hands, and her eyes sparkled. She used both tongue and mouth and rapid gestures as she exchanged words with it.

      Then it grew dark, and she lay on his bosom, so that he could feel her warm breath. Her black hair lay right over him, and she was as soft and warm to the touch as a ptarmigan when it is frightened and its blood throbs.

      Jack put the reindeer-skin over Seimke, and the boat rocked them to and fro on the heavy sea as if it were a cradle.

      They sailed on and on till night-fall; they sailed on and on till they saw neither headland nor island nor sea-bird in the outer skerries more.