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He stood there looking until he had seen enough.
He went out and disappeared behind the rock on which the
boathouse stood and launched the other færing, it was
older than the damaged one, it had been in there for a long
time and was dry and leaky. But it was easy to row. He was
rowing around the north point and southwards through the
sound when he spotted his wife. She was standing and
waving both arms.
He wanted to row past her, but her voice drew him towards
the shore. He asked her what she wanted. She said he
couldn’t haul in the lines on his own. He backed the oars
towards the shore. Barbro stepped on board, pushed him
aside, took hold of the oars, rowed by the Skarve skerries
and grasped the first sinker. Lars pulled in the line while
Barbro rested on the oars and baled water. The sea was
calm. They filled one and a half rib sections with fish, a lot
of it old and half-eaten, but some of it usable. Then they
hauled in all the tackle.
They rowed with an oar each back to the new landing stage
and unloaded the fish. Lars split them and Barbro laid them
in boxes, fetched some snow and sprinkled it on top. After
they had finished Paulus came round the headland and
moored, loaded the milk, what little there was, and also the
fish, which he expressed his satisfaction with, although it
wasn’t much of a catch and the splitting was perhaps a bit
slipshod. Lars said he wouldn’t be catching any more for a