ul hero-worship. Quite
content was Rol, and more than content when Sweyn paused a minute
to joke, and pat his head and pull his curls. Quiet he remained,
as long as quiescence is possible to limbs young as his. Sweyn
forgot he was near, hardly noticed when his leg was gently
released, and never saw the stealthy abstraction of one of his
tools.

[Illustration: Rol's Worship]

Ten minutes thereafter was a lamentable wail from low on the
floor, rising to the full pitch of Rol's healthy lungs; for his
hand was gashed across, and the copious bleeding terrified him.
Then was there soothing and comforting, washing and binding, and a
modicum of scolding, till the loud outcry sank into occasional
sobs, and the child, tear-stained and subdued, was returned to the
chimney-corner settle, where Trella nodded.

In the reaction after pain and fright, Rol found that the quiet of
that fire-lit corner was to his mind. Tyr, too, disdained him no
longer, but, roused by his sobs, showed all the concern and
sympathy that a dog can by licking and wistful watching. A little
shame weighed also upon his spirits. He wished he had not cried
quite so much. He remembered how once Sweyn had come home with his
arm torn down from the shoulder, and a dead bear; and how he had
never winced nor said a word, though his lips turned white with
pain. Poor little Rol gave another sighing sob over his own
faint-hearted shortcomings.

The light and motion of the great fire began to tell strange
stories to the child, and the wind in the chimney roared a
corroborative note now and then. The great black mouth of the
chimney, impending high over the hearth, received as into a
mysterious gulf murky coils of smoke and brightness of aspiring
sparks; and beyond, in the high darkness, were muttering and
wailing and strange doings, so that sometimes the smoke rushed
back in panic, and curled out and up to the roof, and condensed
itself to invisibility among the rafters. And then the wind would
rage after its lost prey, and rush round the house, rattling and
shrieking at window and door.

In a lull, after one such loud gust, Rol lifted his head in
surprise and listened. A lull had also come on the babel of talk,
and thus could be heard with strange distinctness a sound outside
the door--the sound of a child's voice, a child's hands. "Open,
open; let me in!" piped the little voice from low down, lower than
the handle, and the latch rattled as though a tiptoe child