ou remind me so much of one
I loved long ago in my own land. Stay awhile till your other brother
goes with you.'

'Well, I will stay, and think of what you have been telling me; I do not
feel as it I should ever think of anything else for long together, as
long as I live.'

So he sat down again on an old battered anvil, and seemed with his bright
eyes to be beholding something in the land of dreams. A gallant dream it
was he dreamed; for he saw himself with his brothers and friends about
him, seated on a throne, the justest king in all the earth, his people
the lovingest of all people: he saw the ambassadors of the restored
nation, that had been unjustly dealt with long ago; everywhere love, and
peace if possible, justice and truth at all events.

Alas! he knew not that vengeance, so long delayed, must fall at last in
his life-time; he knew not that it takes longer to restore that whose
growth has been through age and age, than the few years of a life-time;
yet was the reality good, if not as good as the dream.

Presently his twin-brother Robert woke him from that dream, calling out:
'Now, brother Svend, are we really ready; see here! but stop, kneel
first; there, now am I the Bishop.'

And he pulled his brother down on to his knees, and put on his head,
where it fitted loosely enough now, hanging down from left to right, an
iron crown fantastically wrought, which he himself, having just finished
it, had taken out of the water, cool and dripping.

Robert and Harald laughed loud when they saw the crown hanging all askew,
and the great drops rolling from it into Svend's eyes and down his
cheeks, looking like tears: not so Svend; he rose, holding the crown
level on his head, holding it back, so that it pressed against his brow
hard, and, first dashing the drops to right and left, caught his brother
by the hand, and said:

'May I keep it, Robert? I shall wear it some day.'

'Yea,' said the other; 'but it is a poor thing; better let Siur put it in
the furnace again and make it into sword hilts.'

Thereupon they began to go, Svend holding the crown in his hand: but as
they were going, Siur called out: 'Yet will I sell my dagger at a price,
Prince Svend, even as you wished at first, rather than give it you for
nothing.'

'Well, for what?' said Svend, somewhat shortly, for he thought Siur was
going back from his promise, which was ugly to him.

'Nay, be not angry, prince,' said the armourer, 'only I pray you to