VISITING 



a merry hail did we get from the fishing boats as 

 they passed us on their way home, for all the village 

 had been a-fishing. It was a rare reward at the end 

 of that long pull to kneel on the soft moss beside 

 the rude couch of reindeer skins, and hear the whis- 

 pered "Nakomek" from poor tired suffering lips: 

 life is wonderfully well worth living at moments 

 like that. 



By the time I was ready to start back the tide 

 had turned, and with it had come the wind. The 

 little ripples on the bay were all crested with white, 

 but it was a home wind and a home tide, and I set 

 out on my solitary journey without any misgivings. 

 But half-an-hour later I was wishing I had walked 

 ound. My tub of a boat was bouncing about like a 

 rk, with great waves chasing after it, and I was 

 ruggling to get the oars into the water and keep in 

 nt of the sea. If I got broadside on I was done 

 for, for the sea was high enough to swamp the boat 

 in an instant ; and with the water only two or three 

 degrees above freezing-point a two miles' swim was 

 an utter impossibility. So I stuck to the oars till 

 my fingers were numb, silently praying all the while 

 for strength to win through. But the biting spray 

 takes all the nerve out of an Englishman's fingers, 

 and my grip began to loosen ; and more than once 

 the boat turned enough to ship a heavy smack from 

 one of the chasing waves. There was a mighty 

 bump, and I tumbled backward off my seat. A 

 rough hand seized my arm as I fell, and I found 

 myself scrambling into Paulus's boat, with Paulus's 

 round face beaming at me from under a mop of 

 sodden hair. He had the tiller in an iron grasp, and 



with one hand he was hitching the painter of my 



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