ro was
uneasy. In the winter, in that tempestuous latitude, boats were often
delayed for weeks. They ran from shelter to shelter in constant peril
of shipwreck, and with a full cargo a good skipper was bound to be
prudent. But Snorro had a presentiment of danger and trouble. He
watched night after night for Jan, until even his strength gave way,
and he fell into a deep sleep. He was awakened by Jan's voice. In a
moment he opened the door and let him in.

Alas! Alas, poor Jan! It was sorrow upon sorrow for him. The Solan had
been driven upon the Quarr rocks, and she was a total wreck. Nothing
had been saved but Jan's life, even that barely. He had been so
bruised and injured that he had been compelled to rest in the solitary
hut of a coast-guardsman many days. He gave the facts to Snorro in an
apathy. The man was shipwrecked as well as the boat. It was not only
that he had lost every thing, that he had not a penny left in the
world, he had lost hope, lost all faith in himself, lost even the will
to fight his ill fortune any longer.

CHAPTER VI.

MARGARET'S HEART.

"Do not drop in for an after-loss.
Ah, do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow,
Come in the rereward of a conquered woe."

--SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, XC.

"Man is his own star, and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late."

--FLETCHER'S "HONEST MAN'S FORTUNE."

Jan, the sole survivor of The Solan, had brought the news of his own
misfortune, but there was no necessity to hasten its publication.
Nothing could be gained by telling it at once, and no one could be
helped, so Snorro advised him to sleep all the following day. Jan
hardly needed the advice. In a few minutes he sank into a dreamless
lethargic sleep, which lasted nearly twenty-four hours. When he awoke
from it, he said, "I will see Tulloch, and then I will sleep again,
Snorro."

"Let me go for thee."

"Nay, then he will think that I am a coward. I must tell my own tale;
he can but be angry."

But Tulloch took his loss with composure. "Thou did the best that
could be done, Jan," he answered, when Jan had told the story of the
shipwreck; "wind and wave are not at thy order."

"Thou wilt say that for me? It is all I ask. I did my best, Tulloch."

"I will say it; and in the spring I will see about another boat. I am
not afraid to trust thee."

Jan looked