Thelma. Marie Corelli

brow cleared and an expression of relief settled there. The look of gladness was unconscious; but Lorimer saw it at once and noted it.

      "Nonsense!" he said in a mirthful undertone. "How can I go in and win, as you say? What am I to do? I can't go up to that window and speak to her,—she might take me for a thief."

      "You look like a thief," replied Lorimer, surveying his friend's athletic figure, clad in its loose but well-cut yachting suit of white flannel, ornamented with silver anchor buttons, and taking a comprehensive glance from the easy pose of the fine head and handsome face, down to the trim foot with the high and well-arched instep, "very much like a thief? I wonder I haven't noticed it before. Any London policeman would arrest you on the mere fact of your suspicious appearance."

      Errington laughed. "Well, my boy, whatever my looks may testify, I am at this moment an undoubted trespasser on private property,—and so are you for that matter. What shall we do?"

      "Find the front door and ring the bell," suggested George promptly. "Say we are benighted travellers and have lost our way. The bonde can but flay us. The operation, I believe, is painful, but it cannot last long."

      "George, you are incorrigible! Suppose we go back and try the other side of this pine-wood? That might lead us to the front of the house."

      "I don't see why we shouldn't walk coolly past that window," said Lorimer. "If any observation is made by the fair 'Marguerite' yonder, we can boldly say we have come to see the bonde."

      Unconsciously they had both raised their voices a little during the latter part of their hasty dialogue, and at the instant when Lorimer uttered the last words, a heavy hand was laid on each of their shoulders,—a hand that turned them round forcibly away from the window they had been gazing at, and a deep, resonant voice addressed them.

      "The bonde? Truly, young men, you need seek no further,—I am Olaf Güldmar!"

      Had he said, "I am an Emperor!" he could not have spoken with more pride.

      Errington and his friend were for a moment speechless,—partly from displeasure at the summary manner in which they had been seized and twisted round like young uprooted saplings, and partly from surprise and involuntary admiration for the personage who had treated them with such scant courtesy. They saw before them a man somewhat above the middle height, who might have served an aspiring sculptor as a perfect model for a chieftain of old Gaul, or a dauntless Viking. His frame was firmly and powerfully built, and seemed to be exceptionally strong and muscular; yet an air of almost courtly grace pervaded his movements, making each attitude he assumed more or less picturesque. He was broad-shouldered and deep-chested; his face was full and healthily colored, while his head was truly magnificent. Well-poised and shapely, it indicated power, will, and wisdom; and was furthermore adorned by a rough, thick mass of snow-white hair that shone in the sunlight like spun silver. His beard was short and curly, trimmed after the fashion of the warriors of old Rome; and, from under his fierce, fuzzy, grey eyebrows, a pair of sentinel eyes, that were keen, clear, and bold as an eagle's, looked out with a watchful steadiness—steadiness that like the sharp edge of a diamond, seemed warranted to cut through the brittle glass of a lie. Judging by his outward appearance, his age might have been guessed at as between fifty-eight and sixty, but he was, in truth, seventy-two, and more strong, active, and daring than many another man whose years are not counted past the thirties. He was curiously attired, after something of the fashion of the Highlander, and something yet more of the ancient Greek, in a tunic, vest, and loose jacket all made of reindeer skin, thickly embroidered with curious designs worked in coarse thread and colored beads; while thrown carelessly over his shoulders and knotted at his waist, was a broad scarf of white woollen stuff, or wadmel, very soft-looking and warm. In his belt he carried a formidable hunting-knife, and as he faced the two intruders on his ground, he rested one hand lightly yet suggestively on a weighty staff of pine, which was notched all over with quaint letters and figures, and terminated in a curved handle at the top. He waited for the young men to speak, and finding they remained silent, he glanced at them half angrily and again repeated his words—

      "I am the bonde,—Olaf Güldmar. Speak your business and take your departure; my time is brief!"

      Lorimer looked up with his usual nonchalance,—a faint smile playing about his lips. He saw at once that the old farmer was not a man to be trifled with, and he raised his cap with a ready grace as he spoke.

      "Fact is," he said frankly, "we've no business here at all—not the least in the world. We are perfectly aware of it! We are trespassers, and we know it. Pray don't be hard on us, Mr.—Mr. Güldmar!"

      The bonde glanced him over with a quick lightening of the eyes, and the suspicion of a smile in the depths of his curly beard. He turned to Errington.

      "Is this true? You came here on purpose, knowing the ground was private property?"

      Errington, in his turn, lifted his cap from his clustering brown curls with that serene and stately court manner which was to him second nature.

      "We did," he confessed, quietly following Lorimer's cue, and seeing also that it was best to be straightforward. "We heard you spoken of in Bosekop, and we came to see if you would permit us the honor of your acquaintance."

      The old man struck his pine-staff violently into the ground, and his face flushed wrathfully.

      "Bosekop!" he exclaimed. "Talk to me of a wasp's nest! Bosekop! You shall hear of me there enough to satisfy your appetite for news. Bosekop! In the days when my race ruled the land, such people as they that dwell there would have been put to sharpen my sword on the grindstone, or to wait, hungry and humble, for the refuse of the food left from my table!"

      He spoke with extraordinary heat and passion,—it was evidently necessary to soothe him. Lorimer took a covert glance backward over his shoulder towards the lattice window, and saw that the white figure at the spinning-wheel had disappeared.

      "My dear Mr. Güldmar," he then said with polite fervor, "I assure you I think the Bosekop folk by no means deserve to sharpen your sword on the grindstone, or to enjoy the remains of your dinner! Myself, I despise them! My friend here, Sir Philip Errington, despises them—don't you, Phil?"

      Errington nodded demurely.

      "What my friend said just now is perfectly true," continued Lorimer. "We desire the honor of your acquaintance,—it will charm and delight us above all things!"

      And his face beamed with a candid, winning, boyish smile, which was very captivating in its own way, and which certainly had its effect on the old bonde, for his tone softened, though he said gravely—

      "My acquaintance, young men, is never sought by any. Those who are wise, keep away from me. I love not strangers, it is best you should know it. I freely pardon your trespass; take your leave, and go in peace."

      The two friends exchanged disconsolate looks. There really seemed nothing for it, but to obey this unpleasing command. Errington made one more venture.

      "May I hope, Mr. Güldmar," he said with persuasive courtesy, "that you will break through your apparent rule of seclusion for once and visit me on board my yacht? You have no doubt seen her—the Eulalie—she lies at anchor in the Fjord."

      The bonde looked him straight in the eyes. "I have seen her. A fair toy vessel to amuse an idle young man's leisure! You are he that in that fool's hole of a Bosekop, is known as the 'rich Englishman,'—an idle trifler with time,—an aimless wanderer from those dull shores where they eat gold till they die of surfeit! I have heard of you,—a mushroom knight, a fungus of nobility,—an ephemeral growth on a grand decaying old tree, whose roots lie buried in the annals of a far forgotten past."

      The rich, deep voice of the old man quivered as he spoke, and a shadow of melancholy flitted across his brow. Errington listened with unruffled patience. He heard himself, his pleasures, his wealth, his rank, thus made light of, without the least offense. He met the steady gaze of the bonde quietly, and slightly bent his head as though in deference to his remarks.

      "You are quite