ui metuit nihil;
Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat." [93]

So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold the Earl, before the
reputed prophetess. She looked on both with a steady eye, which
gradually softened almost into tenderness, as it finally rested upon the
pilgrim.

"And is it thus," she said at last, "that I see the first-born of Godwin
the fortunate, for whom so often I have tasked the thunder, and watched
the setting sun? for whom my runes have been graven on the bark of the
elm, and the Scin-laeca [94] been called in pale splendour from the
graves of the dead?"

"Hilda," said Sweyn, "not now will I accuse thee of the seeds thou hast
sown: the harvest is gathered and the sickle is broken. Abjure thy dark
Galdra [95], and turn as I to the sole light in the future, which shines
from the tomb of the Son Divine."

The Prophetess bowed her head and replied:

"Belief cometh as the wind. Can the tree say to the wind, 'Rest thou on
my boughs,' or Man to Belief, 'Fold thy wings on my heart'? Go where thy
soul can find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its use on earth.
And when I would read thy fate, the runes are as blanks, and the wave
sleeps unstirred on the fountain. Go where the Fylgia [96], whom Alfader
gives to each at his birth, leads thee. Thou didst desire love that
seemed shut from thee, and I predicted that thy love should awake from
the charnel in which the creed that succeeds to the faith of our sires
inters life in its bloom. And thou didst covet the fame of the Jarl and
the Viking, and I blessed thine axe to thy hand, and wove the sail for
thy masts. So long as man knows desire, can Hilda have power over his
doom. But when the heart lies in ashes, I raise but a corpse, that at
the hush of the charm falls again into its grave. Yet, come to me
nearer, O Sweyn, whose cradle I rocked to the chaunt of my rhyme."

The outlaw turned aside his face, and obeyed.

She sighed as she took his passive hand in her own, and examined the
lines on the palm. Then, as if by an involuntary impulse of fondness and
pity, she put aside his cowl and kissed his brow.

"Thy skein is spun, and happier than the many who scorn, and the few who
lament thee, thou shalt win where they lose. The steel shall not smite
thee, the storm shall forbear thee, the goal that thou yearnest for thy
steps shall attain. Night hallows the ruin,--and peace to the shattered
wrecks of the brave!"

The outlaw heard as if