“Was she who came of a race at whose feet jarls have crawled and kings have knelt not good enough?” I was hearing the story and did not interrupt him--“Not good enough for him!” he continued in his low, fierce monotone. “I did not want him. What if he was a Saxon? His fathers were our boatmen. Rather Cnut a thousand times. Then the race would not have died. Then she would not be--not be so.” The reference to her recalled him to himself, and he suddenly relapsed into silence. “At least, Cnut paid the score,” he began once more, in a low intense undertone. “In his arms he bore him down from the Devil’s Seat, a thousand feet sheer on the hard ice, where his cursed body lies crushed forever, a witness of his falsehood.” I did not interrupt, and he rewarded my patience, giving a more connected account, for the first time addressing me directly. “Her mother died when she was a child,” he said, softly. His gentle voice contrasted strangely with the fierce undertone in which he had been speaking. “I was mother as well as father to her. She was as good as she was beautiful, and each day she grew more and more so. She was a second Igenborg. Knowing that she needed other companionship than an old man, I sought and brought her Cnut (he spoke of him as if I must know all about him). Cnut was the son of my only kinsman, the last of his line as well, and he was tall and straight and strong. I loved him and he was my son, and as he grew I saw that he loved her, and I was not sorry, for he was goodly to look on, straight and tall as one of old, and he was good also. And she was satisfied with him, and from a child ordered him to do her girlish bidding, and he obeyed and laughed, well content to have her smile. And he would carry her on his shoulder, and take her on the mountain to slide, and would gather her flowers. And I thought it was well. And I thought that in time they would marry and have the farm, and that there would be children about the house, and the valley might be filled with their voices as in the old time. And I was content. And one day _he_ came! (the reference cost him an effort). Cnut found him fainting on the mountain and brought him here in his arms. He had come to the village alone, and the idle fools there had told him of me, and he had asked to meet me, and they told him of the mountain, and that none could pass the Devil’s Ledge but those who had the old blood, and that I loved not strangers; and he said he would pass it, and he had come and passed safely the narrow ledge, and reached the Devil’s Seat, when a stone had fallen upon him, and Cnut had found him there fainting, and had lifted him and brought him here, risking his own life to save him on the ledge. And he was near to death for days, and she nursed him and brought him from the grave.