He could tell exactly where the fish were to be found thick together by the sea-banks, and where they were not; and whenever they asked him about such things, he would say—­

“If I don’t know it, my brother does.”

Now one day it chanced that the parson of Broenoe had to go out along the coast on a pious errand, and Isaac was one of them who had to row him thither.

Off they went with a rattling good breeze.

The parson got quickly there, and was not very long about his business, for next day he had to hold divine service in his own parish church.

“The firth seems to me a bit roughish,” said he, “and ’tis getting towards evening; but as we have come hither, I should think we could get back again also.”

They had not got very far on their homeward journey when the rising gale began to whistle and whine, so that they had to take in four clews[3].

And away they went, with the sea-scud and the snow-flakes flying about their ears, while the waxing rollers rose big as houses.

The parson of Broenoe had never been out in such weather before.  They sailed right into the rollers, and they sailed out again.

Soon it became black night.

The sea shone like mountain snow-fields, and the showers of snow and spray rather waxed than waned.

Isaac had just taken in the fifth clew also when one of the planks amidships gave way, so that the sea foamed in, and the parson of Broenoe and the crew leaped upon the upper deck, and bawled out that the boat was going down.

“I don’t think she’ll founder this voyage,” said Isaac; and he remained sitting where he was at the rudder.

But as the moon peeped forth from behind a hail-shower, they saw that a strange foremastman was standing in the scuppers, and baling the water out of the boat as fast as it poured in.

“I didn’t know that I had hired that fellow yonder,” said the parson of Broenoe; “he seems to me to be baling with a sea-boot; and it also seems to me as if he had neither breeches nor skin upon his legs, and the upper part of him is neither more nor less than an empty fluttering leather jacket.”

“Parson has seen him before, I think,” said Isaac.

Then the parson of Broenoe grew angry.

“By virtue of my sacred office,” said he, “I adjure him to depart from amidships.”

“Na, na!” answered Isaac; “and can parson also answer for the plank that has burst?”

Then the parson bethought him of the evil case he was in.

“The man seems to me mortally strong, and we have great need of him,” said he; “nor is it any great sin, methinks, to help a servant of God’s over the sea.  But I should like to know what he wants in return.”

The billows burst, and the blast howled around him.

“Only some two or three shovels of earth on a rotten sea-boot and a mouldy skin-jacket,” said Isaac.