ook and motion.

"You cursed wretch!" shrieked Syvert, and made a leap over two benches
to where Truls was standing. It came so unexpectedly that Truls had
no time to prepare for defense; so he merely stretched out the hand in
which he held the violin to ward off the blow which he saw was coming;
but Syvert tore the instrument from his grasp and dashed it against
the cannon, and, as it happened, just against the touch-hole. With a
tremendous crash something black darted through the air and a white
smoke brooded over the bridal boat. The bridegroom stood pale and
stunned. At his feet lay Borghild--lay for a moment still, as if
lifeless, then rose on her elbows, and a dark red current broke from her
breast. The smoke scattered. No one saw how it was done; but a moment
later Truls, the Nameless, lay kneeling at Borghild's side.

"It WAS a worthless life, beloved," whispered he, tenderly. "Now it is
at an end."

And he lifted her up in his arms as one lifts a beloved child, pressed
a kiss on her pale lips, and leaped into the water. Like lead they fell
into the sea. A throng of white bubbles whirled up to the surface. A
loud wail rose from the bridal fleet, and before the day was at an end
it filled the valley; but the wail did not recall Truls, the Nameless,
or Borghild his bride.

What life denied them, would to God that death may yield them!

ASATHOR'S VENGEANCE.

I.

IT was right up under the steel mountain wall where the farm of Kvaerk
lay. How any man of common sense could have hit upon the idea of
building a house there, where none but the goat and the hawk had easy
access, had been, and I am afraid would ever be, a matter of wonder to
the parish people. However, it was not Lage Kvaerk who had built
the house, so he could hardly be made responsible for its situation.
Moreover, to move from a place where one's life has once struck deep
root, even if it be in the chinks and crevices of stones and rocks, is
about the same as to destroy it. An old tree grows but poorly in a new
soil. So Lage Kvaerk thought, and so he said, too, whenever his wife
Elsie spoke of her sunny home at the river.

Gloomy as Lage usually was, he had his brighter moments, and people
noticed that these were most likely to occur when Aasa, his daughter,
was near. Lage was probably also the only being whom Aasa's presence
could cheer; on other people it seemed to have the very opposite effect;
for Aasa was--according to the test