rate Dane, even as I
had seen it of yore in the pent-house of the ancient church to which,
with my mother and my brother, I had wandered on the memorable summer
eve.

And now the old man handed me the book; a strange and uncouth-looking
volume enough. It was not very large, but instead of the usual covering
was bound in wood, and was compressed with strong iron clasps. It was a
printed book, but the pages were not of paper, but vellum, and the
characters were black, and resembled those generally termed Gothic.

"It is certainly a curious book," said I, "and I should like to have it;
but I can't think of taking it as a gift; I must give you an equivalent;
I never take presents from anybody."

The old man whispered with his dame and chuckled, and then turned his
face to me, and said, with another chuckle, "Well, we have agreed about
the price, but, may be, you will not consent."

"I don't know," said I; "what do you demand?"

"Why, that you shake me by the hand, and hold out your cheek to my old
dame,--she has taken an affection to you."

"I shall be very glad to shake you by the hand," said I, "but as for the
other condition, it requires consideration."

"No consideration at all," said the old man, with something like a sigh;
"she thinks you like her son, our only child, that was lost twenty years
ago in the waves of the North Sea."

"Oh, that alters the case altogether," said I, "and of course I can have
no objection."

And now at once I shook off my listlessness, to enable me to do which
nothing could have happened more opportune than the above event. The
Danes, the Danes! And was I at last to become acquainted, and in so
singular a manner, with the speech of a people which had as far back as I
could remember exercised the strongest influence over my imagination, as
how should they not!--in infancy there was the summer-eve adventure, to
which I often looked back, and always with a kind of strange interest,
with respect to those to whom such gigantic and wondrous bones could
belong as I had seen on that occasion; and, more than this, I had been in
Ireland, and there, under peculiar circumstances, this same interest was
increased tenfold. I had mingled much whilst there with the genuine
Irish--a wild, but kind-hearted race, whose conversation was deeply
imbued with traditionary lore, connected with the early history of their
own romantic land, and from them I heard enough of the Danes, but nothing
commonp