e other. Fare thee well, Borghild, for here our
paths separate."

He turned his back upon her and began to descend the slope.

"For God's sake, stay, Truls," implored she, and stretched her arms
appealingly toward him; "tell me, oh, tell me all."

With a leap he was again at her side, stooped down over her, and, in a
hoarse, passionate whisper, spoke the secret of his life in her ear. She
gazed for a moment steadily into his face, then, in a few hurried words,
she pledged him her love, her faith, her all. And in the stillness of
that summer night they planned together their flight to a greater and
freer land, where no world-old prejudice frowned upon the union of two
kindred souls. They would wait in patience and silence until spring;
then come the fresh winds from the ocean, and, with them, the birds of
passage which awake the longings in the Norsemen's breasts, and the
American vessels which give courage to many a sinking spirit, strength
to the wearied arm, hope to the hopeless heart.

During that winter Truls and Borghild seldom saw each other. The parish
was filled with rumors, and after the Christmas holiday it was told for
certain that the proud maiden of Skogli had been promised in marriage to
Syvert Stein. It was the general belief that the families had made the
match, and that Borghild, at least, had hardly had any voice in the
matter. Another report was that she had flatly refused to listen to any
proposal from that quarter, and that, when she found that resistance was
vain, she had cried three days and three nights, and refused to take any
food. When this rumor reached the pastor's ear, he pronounced it an
idle tale; "for," said he, "Borghild has always been a proper and
well-behaved maiden, and she knows that she must honor father and
mother, that it may be well with her, and she live long upon the land."

But Borghild sat alone in her gable window and looked longingly toward
the ocean. The glaciers glittered, the rivers swelled, the buds of the
forest burst, and great white sails began to glimmer on the far western
horizon.

If Truls, the Nameless, as scoffers were wont to call him, had been a
greater personage in the valley, it would, no doubt, have shocked the
gossips to know that one fine morning he sold his cow, his gun and his
dog, and wrapped sixty silver dollars in a leathern bag, which he sewed
fast to the girdle he wore about his waist. That same night some one was
heard playing wildly up in