“Why you precious rascal,” said the Captain, “how could you expect it? When were your sins shriven, I should like to know?”
The men were not by any means displeased at Jacob’s rebuff, who seemed much more disconcerted by it than the occasion at all required; when Birger took up the conversation. “There is danger in that,” said he, “not that you should miss seeing the Lady, but that you should suffer for your rashness. The fact is,” he continued, turning to his friends, “the Lady of the Lake is the impersonation of the sudden squalls which fall unexpectedly on open spaces of any kind in mountainous countries, and her small white hand and arm are the dangerous little white breakers that are stirred up by the gusts, which, though diminutive when compared with the mighty rollers of the ocean, very often do draw men down, just as the hand draws Torkel’s cake. There is a similar spirit for the rivers, called the Black Horse, and another for the sea. This latter is called King Tolf, and is represented as driving furiously across the Sound, his chariot drawn by water-horses, and cutting right through any ship or boat that may lie in his path. But they all signify the same thing, in different situations to which their several attributes are very well adapted.”
“And that thing is?”
“Death, by drowning.”
“Here are the corks,” broke in Piersen in very indifferent English; “we shall have gjep for supper to-day, I see the floats bobbing.”
The corks which he had pointed out were, in reality, a string of birch-bark floats, which on being examined, were found attached to lines anchored in the very deepest spot of the whole lake; for the gjep, or great lake char, unlike any of its congeners, and indeed unlike any fresh-water fish whatever, except the common char, the eel, and the fictitious mal,[28] is never found but in the deepest waters.
Birger, who was the hero of this fishing, caught the nearest float in the crook of his gaff, and began hauling in—evidently there was something, for at first the line twitched and twitched and was nearly jerked out of his hand; but as he hauled on (and in good truth the line seemed as long as if some one, as Paddy says, had cut off the other end of it), it came lighter and lighter, and before he had got it in, a large ugly fish, three or four pounds weight, with an enormous protuberant belly, lay helpless on the surface.
“That’s the fellow,” said Piersen, pouncing on him,—but the fish made little effort to get away; it was almost dead before he got hold of it. The gjep, though classed as a char by the learned, is as little like the bright crimson char of our own lakes or of the mountain lakes of Norway as can well be imagined; never met with except in water of immense depth, never found out of his hole, never caught except with a still and (so the Swedes assert) a stinking bait, he bears the colours and character of his local habitation, a sober dark olive brown back, a dark grey side shot with purple, which turns black when the fish is dead; no red spots or very minute ones, no splashes of red or anything red about it, except one bright line along the edge of the fins. The most remarkable point about it, its enormous belly, from which it derives its name, Salvelinus ventricosus, is really no distinguishing mark at all, except of its habitat. The fact is, drawn suddenly and against its will from the depths of the lake, its air-bladder swells so enormously as to kill the fish, and give it that peculiarly inelegant appearance.
Inelegant as it looks, and disagreeable as it is to catch, it is by far the best eating of any Swedish fish, and, from its rarity, and from the difficulty of catching it, bears, when it is to be had at all, which is very seldom, by far the highest price of any fish in the market. In fact, to eat it at all in perfection, a man must go after it; it will never answer to catch it for amusement; but the men may easily be set to lay lines for it while other sports are going forward.