A NORTH SEA ISLANDER'S CONGREGATION
Jacob Alberts
About five or six hundred feet north of the dikegrave's farm, as one stood on the dike, one could see a few thousand feet out in the shallows and, somewhat farther from the opposite bank, a little islet called "Jeverssand" or "Jevershallig." It had been used by the grandfathers of that day as a sheep pasture, for at that time it had been covered with grass; but even that had ceased because several times the low islet had been flooded by the sea, especially in midsummer, and the grass had been damaged and made unfit for the sheep. So it happened that, except for the gulls and other birds that fly along the shore, and perhaps an occasional fishhawk, nothing visited it any more; and on moonlight evenings, looking out from the dike, only the foggy mists could be seen as they hung lightly or heavily above it. When the moon shone from the east on the islet people also thought they could distinguish a few bleached skeletons of drowned sheep and the skeleton of a horse, though how the latter had come there no one could explain.
Once, towards the end of March, late in the evening, the day-laborer who lived in Tede Haien's house and the young dikegrave's man Iven Johns stood together at that spot and gazed out fixedly at the islet, which could scarcely be distinguished in the misty moonlight; apparently something unusual had caught their attention and kept them standing there. The day laborer stuck his hands in his pockets and shook himself. "Come on, Iven," he said, "that's nothing good; let us go home!"
The other one laughed, but a shudder could be heard through his laughter. "Oh, nonsense! It's a living creature, a big one! Who in the devil's name could have driven it out there onto that piece of mud! Look! Now it's stretching its head over towards us! No, it's lowering its head, it's eating! I thought there was no grass there! Whatever can it be?"
"What business is that of ours?" answered the other. "Good night, Iven, if you won't go along; I'm going home."
"Good-night then," the day laborer called back as he trotted home along the dike. The servant looked round after him a few times, but the desire to see something uncanny kept him where he was. Then a dark, stocky figure came along the dike from the village towards him; it was the dikegrave's stable boy. "What do you want, Karsten?" the man called out to him.
"I?—nothing," answered the boy; "but the master wants to speak to you, Iven Johns."