the grip of a strong shoreward current; and, sure enough, Jack got at
last ashore. But whichever way he looked, he saw nothing but black sea
and white snow.

Now as he stood there, speering and spying about him, he saw, far away,
the smoke of a Finn Gamme,[3] which stood beneath a cliff, and he
managed to scramble right up to it.

The Finn was so old that he could scarcely move. He was sitting in the
midst of the warm ashes, and mumbling into a big sack, and neither spoke
nor answered. Large yellow humble-bees were humming about all over the
snow, as if it were Midsummer; and there was only a young lass there to
keep the fire alight, and give the old man his food. His grandsons and
grand-daughters were with the reindeer, far far away on the _Fjeld_.

Here Jack got his clothes well dried, and the rest he so much wanted.
The Finn girl, Seimke, couldn't make too much of him; she fed him with
reindeer milk and marrow-bones, and he lay down to sleep on silver
fox-skins.

Cosy and comfortable it was in the smoke there. But as he thus lay
there, 'twixt sleep and wake, it seemed to him as if many odd things
were going on round about him.

There stood the Finn in the doorway talking to his reindeer, although
they were far away in the mountains. He barred the wolf's way, and
threatened the bear with spells; and then he opened his skin sack, so
that the storm howled and piped, and there was a swirl of ashes into the
hut. And when all grew quiet again, the air was thick with yellow
humble-bees, which settled inside his furs, whilst he gabbled and
mumbled and wagged his skull-like head.

But Jack had something else to think about besides marvelling at the old
Finn. No sooner did the heaviness of slumber quit his eyes than he
strolled down to his boat.

There it lay stuck fast on the beach and tilted right over like a
trough, while the sea rubbed and rippled against its keel. He drew it
far enough ashore to be beyond the reach of the sea-wash.

But the longer he walked around and examined it, the more it seemed to
him as if folks built boats rather for the sake of letting the sea in
than for the sake of keeping the sea out. The prow was little better
than a hog's snout for burrowing under the water, and the planking by
the keel-piece was as flat as the bottom of a chest. Everything, he
thought, must be arranged very differently if boats were to be really
seaworthy. The prow must be raised one or two planks higher at the ver