her daughter should sit there like a stone and leave her unaided to do
the work of trying to save at least some of the household from the
flames. But the daughter neither heard nor cared for her. She had
found what was left of her idol--her youngest child--once a ruddy,
fearless boy, with curly flaxen hair, who had already begun to carve
model longships and wooden swords, and to talk with a joyous smile and
flashing eye of war! but now--the fair hair gone, and nothing left save
a blackened skull and a small portion of his face, scarcely enough--yet
to a mother far more than enough--to recognise him by.

Erling and Glumm dismounted and approached the young woman, but received
no glance of recognition. To a remark made by Erling no reply was
given. He therefore went close to her, and, bending down, laid his
large hand on her head, and gently smoothed her flaxen hair, while he
spoke soothingly to her. Still the stricken woman took no notice of him
until a large hot tear, which the youth could not restrain, dropped upon
her forehead, and coursed down her cheek. She then looked suddenly up
in Erling's face and uttered a low wail of agony.

"Would ye slay her too?" shrieked the old woman at that moment, coming
forward with the pole with which she had been raking in the ashes, as if
she were going to attack them.

Glumm turned aside the point of the pole, and gently caught the old
woman by the arm.

"Oh! spare her," she cried, falling on her knees and clasping her
withered hands; "spare her, she is the last left--the last. I tried to
save the others--but, but, they are gone--all gone. Will ye not spare
_her_?"

"They won't harm us, mother," said the younger woman huskily. "They are
friends. I _know_ they are friends. Come, sit by me, mother."

The old woman, who appeared to have been subdued by exhaustion, crept on
her hands and knees to her side, and laying her head on her daughter's
breast, moaned piteously.

"We cannot stay to aid thee," said Erling kindly; "but that matters not
because those will soon be here who will do their best for thee. Yet if
thou canst travel a few leagues, I will give thee a token which will
ensure a good reception in my father's house. Knowest thou Haldorstede
in Horlingdal?"

"I know it well," answered the woman.

"Here is a ring," said Erling, "which thou wilt take to Herfrida, the
wife of Haldor, and say that her son Erling sent thee, and would have
thee and thy mother w