to blab, even if what you say
is worth blabbing."

"It is a more serious affair than you think," continued Fern,
thrusting his peaked staff deep into the sod. "If the glacier goes on
advancing at this rate, your farm is doomed within a year."

The old peasant raised his grizzly head, scratched with provoking
deliberation the fringe of beard which lined his face like a frame,
and stared with a look of supercilious scorn at his informant.

"If our fare don't suit you," he growled, "you needn't stay. We
shan't try to keep you."

"I had no thought of myself," retorted Fern, calmly; for he had by
this time grown somewhat accustomed to his host's disagreeable ways.
"You will no doubt have observed that the glacier has, within the last
thirty years, sent out a new branch to the westward, and if this
branch continues to progress at its present rate, nothing short of a
miracle can save you. During the first week after my arrival it
advanced fifteen feet, as I have ascertained by accurate measurements,
and during the last seven days it has shot forward nineteen feet more.
If next winter should bring a heavy fall of snow, the nether edge may
break off, without the slightest warning, and an avalanche may sweep
down upon you, carrying houses, barns, and the very soil down into the
fjord. I sincerely hope that you will heed my words, and take your
precautions while it is yet time. Science is not to be trifled with;
it has a power of prophecy surer than that of Ezekiel or Daniel."

"The devil take both you and your science!" cried the old man, now
thoroughly aroused. "If you hadn't been poking about up there, and
digging your sneezing-horn in everywhere, the glacier would have kept
quiet, as it has done before, as far back as man's memory goes. I knew
at once that mischief was brewing when you and your black Satan came
here with your pocket-furnaces, and your long-legged gazing-tubes, and
all the rest of your new-fangled deviltry. If you don't hurry up and
get out of my house this very day, I will whip you off the farm like a
dog."

Tharald would probably have continued this pleasing harangue for an
indefinite period (for excitement acted as a powerful stimulus to his
imagination), had he not just then felt the grasp of a hand upon his
arm, and seen a pair of blue eyes, full of tearful appeal, raised to
his.

"Get away, daughter," he grumbled, with that shade of gruffness which
is but the transition to absolute surrender. "I