It was a cold morning, and snow was lying on the hills. Ketil sat in front of the boathouse, caulking the seams of his boat.
About breakfast time Tummas arrived, bareheaded, and with his clenched fists thrust into his pockets. He draped himself over the boathouse door and remained standing there. His jaws revolved like millstones, and the pavement around him became dark with tobacco spit.
Tummas was a young man. He had a wife and children, and a house bought with a savings-bank mortgage, and that was all. In the summer he went fishing.
‘You’re tough all right,’ said Tummas admiringly. ‘Already out of bed and making your boat tight. You put us young men to shame.’
‘It doesn’t really amount to much, the pottering about I do,’ snorted Ketil. ‘It’s just that we older folk aren’t accustomed to hang about doing nothing, my friend.’
‘What are you going to do with that boat when you’ve put in all this work on it – sell it?’
‘Ho-ho! Sell it?’ laughed Ketil. ‘This is a fine thing to sell. Who do you think would buy this old tub?’
There was no more talk than this, but Tummas did a fair amount of guessing, and went the rounds of the village, full of news. ‘Ketil’s going to sell that old wreck of a boat of his. He got up before daybreak this morning to caulk her seams.’
Men, newly out of bed, sat down with stockings around their ankles, chewing. They scratched their heads and swore. ‘Ketil, the old rogue, he’d find a way of making money if you put him on a tide-washed skerry without a blade of grass. You don’t know what he’s going to get for it – and who’s going to buy it?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ replied Tummas. ‘It could be one of the sloop owners. It’d be good enough for a ship’s boat, they’d think. Don’t you reckon he could get a hundred kroner for it?’
Tummas had not gone far around the village, before the details about the shipowner and the hundred kroner were no longer conjecture, but sober fact. They even named the shipowner who was to buy the boat.
Before very long, Tummas had been around the village, and had come back to the boathouse. Then he stuck his legs out, and leaned spine and rear quarters against the boathouse door, and let his pipe weigh his head forwards over his chest. He stood in this way, half dozing.
Other people arrived, strolling in from all over the village, to the boathouse. Some of them were carrying tools, and were on their way to work, but had come around this way before they went off. Others had neither tools nor plans, but were just strolling around, taking it easy for the five months until they went off with the fishing boats again.
Jóhan stood there, and straightened his back. ‘You’re a sly old hound, Ketil, the way you turn everything to account,’ he jeered. ‘Are you going to get some service out of that leaky old tub now? The folk that sail in that one will have a fine craft underneath them!’
Ketil glanced up and spat, but said nothing. Jóhan slapped his shoulders to warm himself, and laughed, well content to have dared to make a bit of fun out of Ketil. But no, it was silly for him to hang around here, he was on his way to Dale Head to do a job there. He took his spade on his shoulder and went off. His wife was lying in with her ninth. Two grown lads of his were just at this moment coming through the gate into the infield. They were carrying creels, and had been out stealing peat.
The others stood silently, unwilling to mock an old man as Jóhan had done. They had just come across to see with their own eyes if it was true what Tummas had said, that he was converting this discarded boat into a ship’s boat. They stood there amazed, looking at one another and shaking their heads. Some of them swore.
They began to talk about other things, and now about the bad times. ‘Damned hard times. Seven hundred kroner – a deckhand won’t get any more than that. How are folk going to pay their way?’
Then Jóhan came back with the spade over his shoulder.
‘What, didn’t you go to Dale Head, then?’ someone asked him. No. He had met some people on the way, and the time had just slipped away. ‘And now it’s so near lunch time, it’s not worth going over there,’ he explained. He began to talk with the others about how bad the times were.
Now Ketil placed his tar-pot under the boat, wiped his hands on his trousers, and joined the others. He pulled an ember-baked loaf out of a glove he had pushed under his trouser belt, and settled down with them to eat it.
They asked him what he thought of the bad times. He replied that he didn’t know a great deal about these things – he wasn’t a very clever man, and he’d never been to school. ‘But I can tell you that good health is everything, my friends. This I do know, that if God only grants that, one can do almost anything else. And, thank God, all of us who went out to the fishing this spring have come back safe and sound. Neither have we had war or crop failure in our part of the world.’ Then he fell silent, and ate his bread.
An uneasiness spread around the flock. Their faces darkened, and they seemed to want to conceal any tools they had with them. They all gaped, and some time passed before anyone could find words in reply.
Then Jógvan burst out, ‘Health is a good thing to have, all right, but damn it, you can’t eat it … when there’s nothing to be earned.’
‘I don’t see how that can be,’ answered Ketil mildly. ‘We all have our land to till, and a boat.’
Then one of them gave a sharp laugh. ‘Eat earth, yes.’
‘And fish that don’t take your hook,’ added another.
‘I don’t know,’ answered Ketil, stuffing himself with his bread. ‘The old folks used to say that anyone who had a cow in his house wouldn’t starve. If we till our land, we can raise potatoes and barley. If you keep yourself in food, and perhaps get a bit of money from boat-fishing while you’re at home, you can keep going. We have peat. That way, you can make your fishery earnings stretch out perfectly well ...’ He intended to say more, but then he noticed that nobody was left there in the boat-house. So he carried on repairing his boat.
The following morning Ketil and Kálvur went out fishing. They sat and bickered.
‘Shame on you,’ said Ketil, ‘sitting there laughing while I’m struggling away teaching you about the fishing grounds. In my young days there was no giggling when older men were teaching the younger ones. Everyone did his best to learn as much as he could, so that he could catch the most fish, and measure himself satisfactorily against other men.’
‘No, I wasn’t laughing at you, Father, I was laughing at the moon – it’s so strange that it should be in the sky during the day, when it isn’t needed.’
‘My dear lad,’ replied Ketil scornfully, ‘are you sitting there laughing at the moon, when I’m trying to give you the wisdom of a man?’
‘Yes, but why doesn’t God make the moon shine at night instead of wasting its light in the daytime?’
‘What a fellow!’ scolded Ketil. ‘If you’ve started courting, you’ve got to think about setting up your own household. Do you think you can feed a wife and children by laughing at the moon?’
Kálvur blushed, and stroked the oarlock. He thought it was a bit improper of his father to start talking about children the very moment he had started courting. He thought that people didn’t think about such things until they were married. ‘I can earn my living,’ he said, ‘even if I don’t know all these little fishing grounds. I can go with a ship!’
‘The pity of it is, deckhands don’t need to know the village fishing grounds,’ said his father. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to. In the old days it would have been reckoned shameful not to know your way round the sea near your own village. For example, when folk got together at a whale hunt, or at some festivity, that’s what the talk would be about. And those who didn’t know anything would leave the talking to those who did. But now it seems that the ones who carry their heads highest and have most to say are those who know nothing.’
Then they pulled in their fishing line and rowed the boat against the current, which had carried them away from the tiny fishing ground.
‘We didn’t get anything,’ said Kálvur. ‘It won’t be any use rowing back again.’
‘Oh, yes, we’ll try once again, and I’ll bring the boat just a shade further over,’ replied his father.
This time they got some fish. When fish were flopping about in the bottom of the boat, it cheered the two of them up a good deal. Kálvur stood there excitedly hauling them in.
Every time his son hooked a fish, Ketil said, ‘Huh, just pull it in, lad, just pull it in.’ He talked in a confidential tone, as if he were afraid someone would overhear them and get envious. ‘I think you’re doing well,’ he told Kálvur, laughing. ‘You’ve got fishing luck.’ He sat ruminating, while he pulled at the oars. ‘Maybe he will become a fisherman – he’s got the luck for it. So he’d be as much use as many another man with a better headpiece. And what use are their brains to many of them? They just sit and pore over books, and hanker after every possible thing that folk have in other places, instead of doing something useful at home.’
They did well at the fishing that day.
In the evening, when they rowed home again, they were happy and joking, and passed the time in singing. Kálvur imitated the call of the eider duck. When they neared land, however, Ketil bade him guard his tongue. ‘No chattering when we go ashore. And if anyone asks you about anything, tell them as little as you can.’
As they came in, men were standing and watching from the boathouses.
‘Did you get a good catch today, old fellow?’ asked someone. And they laughed.
‘No, just a few,’ replied the old man.
Kálvur stepped ashore to hold the boat. Ketil threw the fish out of the boat. But first he flung ashore an oilskin jacket.
‘Not much flesh on that one,’ said one of the men, laughing.
The old man did not answer, but took up an old buoy they had found, and flung that ashore.
‘Well, you can soon fill your damn boat with that sort of rubbish,’ said another bystander.
But then the fish started to come. ‘Damn me, if they haven’t had a bite or two,’ said another. The old man threw out the fish two by two. The men by the boathouses stopped talking and started counting. When Ketil had thrown out twenty, their eyes began to goggle and one of them said, ‘They’ve had a good day.’
‘Yes,’ drawled one of the others, ‘but if a single boat does get a few fish in a whole day’s fishing, so what?’ But the men disappeared.
Next morning there was good weather again, and Ketil and Kálvur set off from the shore as soon as it was light. When they had passed the skerries, they saw eight motorboats following them, foaming at the bows. The men were sitting in them, their elbows on their knees, smoking their pipes, while the motors throbbed away. The ones who passed nearest to them turned and laughed at Ketil and Kálvur, who were sweating away at the oarlocks.
That day they caught nothing; the sky became murky and the sea rather rough. The second day, the weather improved, but the boats still caught nothing. The third day, Ketil and Kálvur were alone again. Their catch was only a small one, but it included a halibut, which they sold, and got a few kroner for.
They continued fishing all week, and earned nearly forty kroner. This was a good week, Ketil reckoned. But Kálvur made a sour face over it, he was so exhausted. ‘We should have had a motor – then it would have been child’s play to go fishing, and we could have reached the farther fishing grounds,’ he said.
Ketil laughed. ‘Oh yes, I agree with you. If we had had a motor, we wouldn’t have gone to the nearer grounds. The other boats didn’t, did they?
Then the currents became stronger and the weather stormy, so they had to stay ashore.
Klávus was back on his feet again. He came over to Ketil’s house and sat down to gossip. He was very serious this evening. The End was near now, he said, and he talked of the Lamb, that walked and grazed on the heavenly pastures, and had all things in abundance. ‘And here I sit, a sinful man, with a broken leg, and hungry.’ But then everyone jumped, for he sprang up from the bench onto the floor, shouting, ‘Hell and damnation!’ The cause of all this was a hen which was sitting on the beam above him, and which muted right down his neck.
Ketil’s wife apologised to him. She was usually careful to keep the hens from getting so far over, but just now she had forgotten to do this. But Klávus had been put off conversation, and went.
The others laughed at him when he had gone. ‘But it’s a shame for the poor creature,’ said Ketil. ‘His future son-in-law ought to take them over a cod, I think.’
‘Yes, certainly,’ said Kálvur eagerly. ‘I’d be the best one to do that.’ So he went.
Just at that moment, at Klávus’s, they were sitting down to supper: salt and potatoes. But when the codfish came, they left the table and began cooking once again.
‘I heard some noise in your byre,’ said Kálvur. ‘I suppose your cow can’t have broken loose?’
‘It could very well be,’ replied Klávus’s wife. ‘Do please go and have a look, my girl. And you, Kálvur, go along with her.’ This he was quite willing to do.
When they were outside the door, Kálvur said, ‘That was just my trick. The cow isn’t loose at all. I just said it to get you outside for a little bit of courting.’
‘It was a good thing you did that,’ she replied. ‘I was just sitting there wondering how we could kill time until the cod was cooked.’
So they went into the byre.
When Kálvur came home, he was flinging his chest out and slamming the doors.
‘You were a long time away. Were you eating up their cod for them?’ asked his father.
‘No, I was talking with my girl.’
‘Oh yes, and what did you say to her?’
‘People don’t go telling what they say to their girls.’
‘Oh, they don’t, don’t they? I suppose you didn’t tell her the land-sightings and cross-bearings we used when we went to find the fishing grounds?’
Then Kálvur hung his head, and admitted that he had told her about them. ‘Because you’ve got to talk about something when you’re with your girl. But she won’t repeat them, that I do know. She’s more loyal than to do such a thing.’
His mother clapped her hands together and roared with laughter. ‘God bless us, we’ve got a pretty lover here, who sits and talks about cross-bearings with his girlfriend. She must be a bit desperate for a man, if she didn’t chase you out of the house.’
‘I didn’t only talk about cross-bearings. I … I … also told her that I loved her.’
‘Well, and what did you do with her?’ teased Ketil.
‘Oh yes, you think I wouldn’t dare to tell you! I took her around the waist and kissed her, several times. I know how many times, but I’m not going to tell you that.’ And they could get no more out of him.
Soon after they had been sitting and teasing Kálvur, and making merry, in came the area rating officer. They stiffened and gazed at him.
No, it was only a little matter he had come about, he was only dropping in for a moment. It was some rates arrears he was dealing with, and he happened to be passing by, so …
‘But we’ve paid our rates,’ said both the old folk in one breath. ‘Didn’t you enter it up?’
‘Oh, yes, it wasn’t that I meant. There’s no difficulty about your rates. There’s no occasion to call about them, you know that. But you did so well at the fishing last week, perhaps you could spare a bit for one of your sons.’
Ketil and his wife stared at each other. ‘Do they owe on their rates?’
‘Oh, no, not exactly. It’s just the eldest who has got a bit behindhand.’
‘No, no,’ answered Ketil feebly. ‘I’m now a seventy-year-old man. The young fellows must pay their own rates. It’s got to be that way now.’
‘There’s also this about it,’ added his wife, ‘that even if we did pay a few kroner, it wouldn’t make any difference, because it can’t be any trifling debt, since you’ve come to us about it.’
‘Oh yes, it would help, however little it was,’ said the man.
‘Yes, but I don’t think we can do anything about it,’ answered Ketil. ‘We have our own affairs to think about, and we’ve both got one foot in the grave.’
‘Of course, of course, I can well understand that you might not be able to pay, for naturally you have your own expenses. It was just this, that if I got thirty kroner, then I … wouldn’t have to take anything out of his house.’
The old people felt as though they had been stabbed. ‘Is our son going to be sold up?’
The area rating officer shrugged his shoulders and wriggled the whole of the upper part of his body. ‘Yes, only too true, only too true. We don’t want to harass folk like this, but what can one do? I go round the village to get a few oyru in now and then, but get nothing from one year’s end to the next.’
Ketil went into the bedroom, and came back with three ten-kroner notes and pushed them forward as if in a daze. The rating officer took them and slipped away. Not a word more was said.
All this time Kálvur was asleep on the bench with a whole potful of porridge in his stomach.
That night, neither of the old folk could sleep, but they lay in one another’s arms, weeping.
About four o’clock Ketil got up, bored with lying there sleepless. And there was, perhaps, a job he could put his hand to. For example, there was his new oilskin jacket that he had thrown off the previous evening, when he had come in from the sea – it ought to be hung up so that it would dry. He went out to his storehouse, taking a lamp in his hand.
When he got outside, he found the storehouse door open. He started, but then recalled that it must have been Kálvur who had left it open the previous evening when he went for the cod, and gave it no more thought. He put his lamp on the floor, picked up a lath and thrust it through the oilskin, and was going to hang it up on the eaves. Then he saw a man standing up on the beams, and he jumped with surprise. ‘Jesus preserve us, which of God’s creatures is out here so late?’
‘Don’t ask who it is, my friend,’ replied Klávus from the beam, ‘but praise your Maker that you are not in my place this night. Had not the Almighty been so strong, here I would have hung lifeless, like a child of perdition. I felt so crushed that I despaired, and crept up here to hang myself. Now I am saved, miraculously snatched from the edge of the abyss.’
‘Yes, yes, Klávus. Come on down now and get back to bed. Next time, do your despairing in the daytime, and come over to my house and ask me for what you need.’ So he gave him a few dried fish, and lit his way out through the door.
A little after Klávus had gone, Ketil began to wax furious. ‘God help me, I’m not right in the head,’ he shouted into the storehouse. ‘People beg from my right hand and steal from my left. And I do nothing about it. No, I’m through with my easygoing ways.’ He leaped out into the lane, picked up a stone and hurried through the yard. Now, by the living God, he would go and pull Klávus’s house about his ears. It was a sin and a shame to have an old thief like him running round and doing just what he liked.
But when he came over to his house, a light was burning inside, and he saw Klávus sitting by the fire with a stone across his knees. He was pounding the dried fish to prepare it for eating – and peace and humility were in his face.
Then Ketil’s wrath subsided, and he dropped the stone. ‘But I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.’ And he flung the door open, and stepped into the house like a whirlwind. ‘Now you’re sitting here all cosy and pleasant, you old parasite, it would be no sin to give you a damn good thrashing!’
Klávus looked up, with calm and peaceful eyes, and stared paternally at Ketil. In a low voice, he said, ‘Guard your tongue, my friend, and remember the apostle’s words, “Let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil”. I tell you this as one that has a care for your soul.’ He calmly tore a bit off the fish, and fell silent.
But Ketil was not in a mood to be easily pacified. He clenched his fist and shook it in front of Klávus’s nose. ‘I could grind you into the ground, you thief! And you dare to take God’s words into your mouth!’
Then Klávus began to cry, and begged Ketil not to bring further calamity upon him. ‘A sinner I am, and my burden of guilt is great. But the more I am forgiven, the more I will have to give thanks for. O, Ketil, my friend, forget not in your wrath, that no child of man has sat without food through Klávus wending his sinful way amongst them. Never shall it be said on the Morning of Resurrection that I have emptied the poor man’s larder. Humbly have I slaked my hunger, where God’s gifts were in overflowing abundance. Sheathe the sword of your wrath, and threaten me not with your fist, as if I were a wicked wretch.’
‘Yes, Klávus,’ said Ketil, ‘you’re a wretched fellow, I know that. But why didn’t you come and tell me when you were in need?’
‘Don’t add stones to my burden, Ketil. The beggar’s step is a very heavy one. Humbly I drink the cup that the Lord gives me, and look for no betterment before that of the Kingdom of Heaven.’