The Fisher Maiden.
Chapter I.
Where herring have for a long time been caught in abundance, there gradually grows up a town, provided that other circumstances are favorable. Not only may it be said of such towns that they are cast up out of the sea, but at a great distance they actually resemble washed-up timber and fragments of wreck, or a mass of keeled boats, overturned by the fishermen for shelter some stormy night. A nearer view shows how entirely by chance the whole has been built, for here a rock lies in the midst of a thoroughfare, there water divides the borough into three or four parts, while the streets wind and curve in every direction. But there is one quality common to them all: there is refuge in the harbor for the largest ships; it is as snug in there as in a box; and therefore these havens are very grateful to vessels that with tattered sails and battered
