46 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



and the sea-maids' hair or grass, like grim death ? A sailor 

 would be interested, perhaps, in a description of how the two 

 chains were fouled or twisted, how one shackle opened and 

 the starboard chain went slap into the water. I thought, we 

 are in for more delay, trying to pick it up. But Henriksen 

 spotted that it had caught on the port chain, and his young 

 brother, our mate, promptly slid down it a nice muddy 

 slide down and to his waist in water got a rope through its 

 links and stopped it on the port chain, and so we got both 

 back. All the sea fairies of Norwegian seas could not have 

 given us more trouble in taking our British ship from the 

 Norse anchorage. 



As we motored from sheltered Knarsberg to Christiania 

 fiord we passed Faarman Holme and the yacht club and 

 dipped our Union Jack, and saw the Norse flag dipped in 

 return, no doubt by old Henriksen, who had stopped the 

 night there to flag us adieu in the morning. 



There was more heart-string-breaking before we left. Mrs 

 Henriksen and the children, and Hansen the steward's 

 newly married wife, came part of the way, and we dropped 

 them a few miles down the fiord in a motor- launch we had in 

 tow. There are tender hearts in Norway, tender and brave. 



And now we are out of the great Christiania fiord or firth, 

 passing Fserder Light that marks its entrance, Norway faint 

 on our right and Sweden over the horizon to our left, the sun 

 shining for the first day this summer. The sea has a silky 

 swell. We have shaken off all things earthy except a little 

 mud on our anchors now being stowed away, and three or 

 four green oak leaves and moss on the bole of the oak-tree 

 brought for the anvil. 



Henriksen and I stand for a little on the bow and rejoice 

 in the heave and send, and compare the movement of St 

 Ebba with that of the Haldane and other whalers we know, 

 and we think that she makes good. There is sun, sea, cloud- 

 land, rippling swell and fresh, cold air, with a luxurious roll ; 

 and we feel an hour of such a day at sea is reward for all 

 the months of worry and waiting and planning on shore. 



A pleasure in store for us will be setting our new sails. 

 But even now, with the motor alone and fully loaded with 



