Weird Tales from Northern Seas eBook

Jonas Lie
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 122 pages of information about Weird Tales from Northern Seas.

Weird Tales from Northern Seas eBook

Jonas Lie
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 122 pages of information about Weird Tales from Northern Seas.

Jack gave a great start.  This was the very being he had been thinking of in his wild rage.  Then he took the large baling can and flung it at the Draug.

But right through the Draug it went, and rattled against the wall behind, and back again it came whizzing about Jack’s ears, and if it had struck him he would never have got up again.

The old fellow, however, only blinked his eyes a little savagely.

“Fie!” cried Jack, and spat at the uncanny thing—­and back into his face again he got as good as he gave.

“There you have your wet clout back again!” cried a laughing voice.

But the same instant Jack’s eyes were opened and he saw a whole boat-building establishment on the sea-shore.

And, there, ready and rigged out on the bright water, lay an Ottring,[13] so long and shapely and shining that his eyes could not feast on it enough.

The old ’un blinked with satisfaction.  His eyes became more and more glowing.

“If I could guide you back to Helgeland,” said he, “I could put you in the way of gaining your bread too.  But you must pay me a little tax for it.  In every seventh boat you build ’tis I who must put in the keel-board.”

Jack felt as if he were choking.  He felt that the boat was dragging him into the very jaws of an abomination.

“Or do you fancy you’ll worm the trick out of me for nothing?” said the gaping grinning Draug.

Then there was a whirring sound, as if something heavy was hovering about the boathouse, and there was a laugh:  “If you want the seaman’s boat you must take the dead man’s boat along with it.  If you knock three times to-night on the keel-piece with the club, you shall have such help in building boats that the like of them will not be found in all Nordland.”

Twice did Jack raise his club that night, and twice he laid it aside again.

But the Ottring lay and frisked and sported in the sea before his eyes, just as he had seen it, all bright and new with fresh tar, and with the ropes and fishing gear just put in.  He kicked and shook the fine slim boat with his foot just to see how light and high she could rise on the waves above the water-line.

And once, twice, thrice, the club smote against the keel-piece.

So that was how the first boat was built at Sjoeholm.

Thick as birds together stood a countless number of people on the headland in the autumn, watching Jack and his brothers putting out in the new Ottring.

It glided through the strong current so that the foam was like a foss all round it.

Now it was gone, and now it ducked up again like a sea-mew, and past skerries and capes it whizzed like a dart.

Out in the fishing grounds the folks rested upon their oars and gaped.  Such a boat they had never seen before.

But if in the first year it was an Ottring, next year it was a broad heavy Femboering for winter fishing which made the folks open their eyes.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Weird Tales from Northern Seas from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.