d chimes called them to
high-mass, a suppressed moan would mingle with the sound of the bells,
and die away with the last echo. Lage Ulfson was not the man to be
afraid; yet the church-bells many a time drove the blood from his
cheeks; for he also heard the moan from the mountain.

The year went, and Asathor returned. If he had not told his name,
however, Lage would not have recognized him. That a year could work so
great a change in a god, he would hardly have believed, if his own eyes
had not testified to it. Asathor's cheeks were pale and bloodless, the
lustre of his eye more than half quenched, and his gray hair hung in
disorder down over his forehead.

"Methinks thou lookest rather poorly to-day," said Lage.

"It is only those cursed church-bells," answered the god; "they leave me
no rest day or night."

"Aha," thought Lage, "if the king's bells are mightier than thou, then
there is still hope of safety for my daughter."

"Where is Brynhild, thy daughter?" asked Asathor.

"I know not where she is," answered the father; and straightway he
turned his eyes toward the golden cross that shone over the valley from
Saint Olaf's steeple, and he called aloud on the White Christ's name.
Then the god gave a fearful roar, fell on the ground, writhed and foamed
and vanished into the mountain. In the next moment Lage heard a hoarse
voice crying from within, "I shall return, Lage Ulfson, when thou shalt
least expect me!"

Lage Ulfson then set to work clearing a way through the forest; and when
that was done, he called all his household together, and told them of
the power of Christ the White. Not long after he took his sons and his
daughter, and hastened with them southward, until he found King Olaf.
And, so the Saga relates, they all fell down on their knees before him,
prayed for his forgiveness, and received baptism from the king's own
bishop.

So ends the Saga of Lage Ulfson Kvaerk.

II.

Aasa Kvaerk loved her father well, but especially in the winter. Then,
while she sat turning her spinning-wheel in the light of the crackling
logs, his silent presence always had a wonderfully soothing and calming
effect upon her. She never laughed then, and seldom wept; when she felt
his eyes resting on her, her thoughts, her senses, and her whole being
seemed by degrees to be lured from their hiding-place and concentrate on
him; and from him they ventured again, first timidly, then more boldly,
to grasp the objects aro