d run the risk of that for the sake of the chance of
another glorious battle such as I had last night!"

Saying this the reckless youth sallied forth with the spear or leister
on his shoulder, and took the narrow bridle path leading up the glen.

It was one of those calm bright days of early autumn in which men _feel_
that they draw in fresh life and vigour at each inhalation. With the
fragrant odours that arose from innumerable wild flowers, including that
sweetest of plants, the lily of the valley, was mingled the pleasant
smell of the pines, which clothed the knolls, or hung here and there
like eyebrows on the cliffs. The river was swollen considerably by
recent heat, which had caused the great glaciers on the mountain tops to
melt more rapidly than usual, and its rushing sound was mingled with the
deeper roar of the foss, or waterfall, which leaped over a cliff thirty
feet high about two miles up the valley. Hundreds of rills of all sizes
fell and zigzagged down the mountains on either side, some of them
appearing like threads of silver on the precipices, and all, river and
rills, being as cold as the perpetual ice-fields above which gave them
birth. Birds twittered in the bushes, adding sweetness to the wild
music, and bright greens and purples, lit up by gleams of sunshine,
threw a charm of softness over the somewhat rugged scene.

The Norse boy's nature was sensitive, and peculiarly susceptible of
outward influences. As he walked briskly along, casting his eager gaze
now at the river which foamed below him, and anon at the distant
mountain ridges capped with perennial snows, he forgot his late
disappointment, or, which is the same thing, drowned it in present
enjoyment. Giving vent to his delight, much as boys did a thousand
years later, by violent whistling or in uproarious bursts of song, he
descended to the river's edge, with the intention of darting his salmon
spear, when his eye caught sight of a woman's skirt fluttering on one of
the cliffs above. He knew that Hilda and Ada had gone up the valley
together on a visit to a kinswoman, for Herfrida had spoken of expecting
them back to midday meal; guessing, therefore, that it must be them, he
drew back out of sight, and clambered hastily up the bank, intending to
give them a surprise. He hid himself in the bushes at a jutting point
which they had to pass, and from which there was a magnificent view of
the valley, the fiord, and the distant sea.

He h