sighed in the trees. When I look upon my home and see the reapers
in the fields, and hear the maidens singing at their work, I would
sometimes be willing to turn hermit like your father, and sit in
the sun for ever.

"But," he went on, and his voice rose to a clear, stirring note,
"I could not rest long so. The sea calls us Northmen, and we
cannot bide at home. Unrest seizes us like a giant and hurls us
forth. We must be men; we must seek adventure on sea or on shore;
there are foemen to be met, and we long to meet them; and if we
bear us bravely, never striking sail though the wind blow high,
and never flinching from the greatest odds, we know that the gods
will smile, and, if they will, we die happy. We are not all bairn-
slayers. I have been taught to spare where there was nothing
worthy of my steel, and no maid or mother has yet suffered wrong
at my hands. Yet must I sail the seas, Osla, and fight where I
find a foe; for I feel that the gods bid me, and a man cannot
struggle with his fate."

While he spoke Osla's gaze was fixed on the turning tide, but her
eyes, had he seen them, were lit by the fire of his words. She
sprang to her feet as he finished, and said,--

"I, too, have the Norse blood in me; the sea calls me as it calls
you; and if I were a man, I fear I should make a bad hermit. Yet"-
-and she held up a warning finger to stay the impetuous words on
Estein's tongue--"yet I know I should be wrong. What is this
feeling but the hunger of wolves, and what are your gods but names
for it? Wolves, too, go out to slay; and if they had speech,
doubtless they would say that Thor called them."