"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old man, "and if
you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and deaden
the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you
I ought to know something of the Moskoe-str?¶m."
I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.
"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of
about seventy tons burden, with which we were in the habit of fishing
among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all violent
eddies at sea there is good fishing, at proper opportunities, if one
has only the courage to attempt it; but among the whole of the Lofoden
coastmen we three were the only ones who made a regular business of
going out to the islands, as I tell you. The usual grounds are a great
way lower down to the southward. There fish can be got at all hours,
without much risk, and therefore these places are preferred. The
choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only yield the
finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that we often got in
a single day what the more timid of the craft could not scrape
together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate
speculation--the risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage
answering for capital.
"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than
this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of
the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the
Moskoe-str?¶m, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage
somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so
violent as elsewhere.
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