“You used to shoot them, yourself, in Sligo Bay.”
“Yes, I did, but there was a tide there, and we shot them at high water, and picked them up when the sands were bare—even then, though, we lost a good many, but here there is not a chance; that fellow is food for lobsters.”
“Well, I hope the cockneys will profit by it when the next batch goes to the London market,” said the Captain, loading his rifle, “but have we no tide here?”
“We have no sands that we can make available; but a tide there is, though a faint one. Did you ever hear how there came to be a tide in Norway—for originally there certainly was nothing of the kind? Thor was on a visit to Loki Uttgard, who, in all love, challenged him to drink his great horn out, and to turn it over to show there were no heeltaps, as is the custom in Norway. Thor had never been conquered yet in drinking, or in anything else; in fact, he had the hardest head, inside and out, of any god in Norway. He drank, and he drank, but there was no bottom to be found to the horn, and Thor put it down with shame, and acknowledged himself at last vanquished; but the Uttgarders, who were all giants of a very ferocious stamp, stood round, in speechless admiration. Loki had made a communication between the bottom of the horn and the sea itself, and what Thor had drunk was the ebb.”
“H’m! Hence the fine of a glass of salt and water,” said the Captain, “I have often inflicted it, but I never knew the high authority I had for so doing. Come, boys, give way for the Haaf.”
But before so doing they had to stop at a shoal, well known to Tom, who now began to take the command, while Torkel sank into comparative insignificance. It was necessary to lay in a supply of cod-bait, which was not to be had in deep water. This was a species of large limpet, that clung to the rocks by thousands, and was dislodged by the boat-hooks, and stowed away in the balers. At length the swell of the open sea made itself to be felt, for ever heaving and setting and rolling along in vast mountains, and flashing in spray against the black rocks, though the surface was as glassy and unbroken as that of the harbour. The whole swell of the North Sea, and of the Atlantic beyond it heaves against these coasts, and is never quiet in the calmest weather. The sun, which had now risen, gleamed against the white tower of the light-house, and flashed back in blinding rays from its lantern, as the boats pulled past it into the Haaf.
They had now formed line abreast, at five or six hundred yards distance, and were pulling leisurely along, keeping a bright look out on every side. Calm as it was, the swells were quite heavy enough to conceal the boats entirely from each other as, from time to time, the huge mountains rolled between them.
They had proceeded in this manner for about half an hour, without seeing anything, except gulls and cormorants—which latter, sitting in the water, and rising and falling on the swells, had more than once deceived them,—when, suddenly, Birger, who was on the extreme right, pointed with his hand to the westward of their course: all eyes were turned in that direction, and the line wheeled on Birger, as a pivot, when a dozen or so, of black spots were seen on the side of the swell, in the rare intervals when the boats and they were both rising.
The centre boat, which was the Parson’s, pulled right on the objects, while the flankers having increased their distance to half a mile, pulled on some hundred yards in advance of her.