this is the sea itself we are driving over."

Torarin stayed still awhile longer as he gazed at a great vessel
which lay frozen in. She looked altogether out of place as she lay
with the smooth and even snowfields all about her.

But when Torarin saw a thin column of smoke rising from the
vessel's poop he drove up and hailed the skipper to hear if he
would buy his fish. He had but a few codfish left at the bottom of
his load, since in the course of the day he had been round to all
the vessels which were frozen in among the islands, and sold off
his stock.

On board were the skipper and his crew, and time was heavy on
their hands. They bought fish of the hawker, not because they
needed it, but to have someone to talk to. When they came down on
to the ice, Torarin put on an innocent air.

He began to speak of the weather. "In the memory of man there has
not been such fine weather as this year," said Torarin. "For
wellnigh three weeks we have had calm weather and hard frost. This
is not what we are used to in the islands."

But the skipper, who lay there with his great gallias full-laden
with herring barrels, and who had been caught by the ice in a bay
near Marstrand just as he was ready to put to sea, gave Torarin a
sharp look and said: "So then you call this fine weather?"

"What should I call it else?" said Torarin, looking as innocent as
a child. "The sky is clear and calm and blue, and the night is