"Say it is the white ptarmigan you caught in the snare," whispered she.
And Jack felt that she was huddling up against him and trembling all over.
Then she told him so softly that he thought it was his own thoughts speaking to him, that the Finn was angry and muttering mischief, and jöjking,4 against the boat which Jack wanted to build. If Jack were to complete it, said she, the Gan-Finn would no longer have any sale for his fair-winds in all Nordland. And then she warned him to look to himself and never get between the Finn and the Gan-flies.
Then Jack felt that his boat might be the undoing of him. But the worse things looked, the more he tried to make the best of them.
In the grey dawn, before the Finn was up, he made his way towards the sea-shore.
But there was something very odd about the snow-hills. They were so many and so long that there was really no end to them, and he kept on trampling in deep and deeper snow and never got to the sea-shore at all. Never before had he seen the northern lights last so long into the day. They blazed and sparkled, and long tongues of fire licked and hissed after him. He was unable to find either the beach or the boat, nor had he the least idea in the world where he really was.
At last he discovered that he had gone quite astray inland instead of down to the sea. But now, when he turned round, the sea-fog came close up against him, so dense and grey that he could see neither hand nor foot before him.
By the evening he was well-nigh worn out with weariness, and was at his wits' end what to do.
Night fell, and the snowdrifts increased.
As now he sat him down on a stone and fell a brooding and pondering how he should escape with his life, a pair of snow-shoes came gliding so smoothly towards him out of the sea-fog and stood still just in front of his feet.