gh the strong current so that the foam was like a foss
all round it.

Now it was gone, and now it ducked up again like a sea-mew, and past
skerries and capes it whizzed like a dart.

Out in the fishing grounds the folks rested upon their oars and gaped.
Such a boat they had never seen before.

But if in the first year it was an Ottring, next year it was a broad
heavy _Femboering_ for winter fishing which made the folks open their
eyes.

And every boat that Jack turned out was lighter to row and swifter to
sail than the one before it.

But the largest and finest of all was the last that stood on the stocks
on the shore.

This was the _seventh_.

Jack walked to and fro, and thought about it a good deal; but when he
came down to see it in the morning, it seemed to him, oddly enough, to
have grown in the night and, what is more, was such a wondrous beauty
that he was struck dumb with astonishment. There it lay ready at last,
and folks were never tired of talking about it.

Now, the Bailiff who ruled over all Helgeland in those days was an
unjust man who laid heavy taxes upon the people, taking double weight
and tale both of fish and of eider-down, nor was he less grasping with
the tithes and grain dues. Wherever his fellows came they fleeced and
flayed. No sooner, then, did the rumour of the new boats reach him than
he sent his people out to see what truth was in it, for he himself used
to go fishing in the fishing grounds with large crews. When thus his
fellows came back and told him what they had seen, the Bailiff was so
taken with it that he drove straightway over to Sjoeholm, and one fine
day down he came swooping on Jack like a hawk. "Neither tithe nor tax
hast thou paid for thy livelihood, so now thou shalt be fined as many
half-marks of silver as thou hast made boats," said he.

Ever louder and fiercer grew his rage. Jack should be put in chains and
irons and be transported northwards to the fortress of Skraar, and be
kept so close that he should never see sun or moon more.

But when the Bailiff had rowed round the _Femboering_, and feasted his
eyes upon it, and seen how smart and shapely it was, he agreed at last
to let Mercy go before Justice, and was content to take the _Femboering_
in lieu of a fine.

Then Jack took off his cap and said that if there was one man more than
another to whom he would like to give the boat, it was his honour the
Bailiff.

So off the magistrate sailed with it.

Jack's