forestry, began to ramble about Scandinavia like a gentleman at large.
Here, however, he did ultimately hit on a pursuit into which he could
throw himself with decided energy. The old Norsemen laid their spell
upon him; he was bitten with a zeal for saga-hunting, studied
vigorously the Northern tongues, went off to Iceland, returned to
rummage in the libraries of Copenhagen, began to translate the
Heimskringla, planned a History of the Vikings. Emphatically, this kind
of thing suited him. No one was less likely to turn out a bookworm, yet
in the study of Norse literature he found that combination of mental
and muscular interests which was perchance what he had been seeking.

But his father was dissatisfied; a very practical man, he saw in this
odd enthusiasm a mere waste of time. Denzil's secession from the Navy
had sorely disappointed him; constantly he uttered his wish that the
young man should attach himself to some vocation that became a
gentleman. Denzil, a little weary for the time of his Sea-Kings, at
length consented to go to London and enter himself as a student of law.
Perhaps his father was right. "Yes, I need discipline--intellectual and
moral. I am beginning to perceive my defects. There's something in me
not quite civilized. I'll go in for the law."

Yet Scandinavia had not seen the last of him. He was backwards and
forwards pretty frequently across the North Sea. He kept up a
correspondence with learned Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and men of
Iceland; when they came to England he entertained them with hearty
hospitality, and searched with them at the British Museum. These
gentlemen liked him, though they felt occasionally that he was wont to
lay down the law when the attitude of a disciple would rather have
become him.

He had rooms in Clement's Inn, retaining them even when his abode,
strictly speaking, was at the little house by Clapham Common. To that
house no one was invited. Old Mr. Quarrier knew not of its existence;
neither did Mr. Sam Quarrier of Polterham, nor any other of Denzil's
kinsfolk. The first person to whom Denzil revealed that feature of his
life was Eustace Glazzard--a discreet, upright friend, the very man to
entrust with such a secret.

It was now early in the autumn of 1879. Six months ago Denzil had lost
his father, who died suddenly on a journey from Christiania up the
country, leaving the barrister in London a substantial fortune.

This change of circumstances had in no way o