It was not bad fun upon the whole, for the id, though not possessing a tithe of the life and activity of the salmo genus, pull like donkeys, and might have lasted some time longer, for the Parson was getting interested, when Jacob was seen making his leisurely way along the bank, for the purpose of announcing “mid-dag’s mad.” The ground was sufficiently tangled, and Torkel, who was managing the boat and landing the fish, was extremely amused at the air of vexation and annoyance with which he dipped under a low-spreading fir branch, or put aside a too affectionate bramble. About a hundred yards above the id pool was a little beach of the whitest and smoothest sand that ever fairy danced upon. From the point where the boat was anchored, it was evident that this was caused by a little dull-looking stream, which had brought the white particles from the hills during the floods; but which then, very suspiciously, did not run into the river, but lost itself behind the white beach. All this was lost upon Jacob, who was in the wood, and who, not liking the tangled ground, made a valorous jump on to the white beach.
“Der var et spring af en Leerovn!” shouted Torkel, quoting a Danish proverb (“there was a jump for a tile-stove!”)—as poor Jacob flopped through the thin crust of white sand into a bed of black, tenacious clay, in which he seemed planted up to his middle, with his long flowing coat-tails spread out upon the unbroken sand.
The more he screamed with fear, the more they screamed with laughter. There was not the slightest danger, for he had evidently got as far as he meant to sink; but as for getting out without a purchase from something solid, the thing was impossible.
“We must have another fish,” said Torkel, to make up the dozen; “and it will be impossible to get Jacob out without spoiling the pool by pulling the boat across it.”
The Parson coolly took another cast,—Jacob screamed louder than ever.
“Bother that fellow,—I have missed him,” said the Parson, meaning not Jacob, but the fish.
“Try again,” said Torkel, coolly, “you will get him next time.”
A despairing shriek from Jacob.
“Ah! that is in him!—this is the biggest we have had yet! mind what you are about with the landing-net,—do not let him run under the boat! Well, really, we must pull out poor Jacob, or he will poison us with bad cookery, out of revenge. Up killick! or whatever you call it in your language, and shove across to him.”
But when they landed, they seemed as far from the rescue as ever. Jacob had jumped vigorously, and the bank from which he had jumped was high. To reach him was impossible, and to get out on the sand would be to share his fate. While Torkel was trying to slip down the bank, the Parson took out his knife to cut a branch.