ng carried by his comrades from the
battle-field, where he had greatly distinguished himself. And now to be
going, to the witch who, by magic rhymes and incantations, was to stanch
the ebbing stream of his life--what could be more delightful?

II.

Witch Martha lived in a small lonely cottage down by the river. Very few
people ever went to see her in the day-time; but at night she often had
visitors. Mothers who suspected that their children were changelings,
whom the Trolds had put in the cradle, taking the human infants away;
girls who wanted to "turn the hearts" of their lovers, and lovers who
wanted to turn the hearts of the girls; peasants who had lost money
or valuables and wanted help to trace the thief--these and many
others sought secret counsel with Witch-Martha, and rarely went away
uncomforted. She was an old weather-beaten woman with a deeply wrinkled,
smoky-brown face, and small shrewd black eyes. The floor in her cottage
was strewn with sand and fresh juniper twigs; from the rafters under
the ceiling hung bunches of strange herbs; and in the windows were
flower-pots with blooming plants in them.

Martha was stooping at the hearth, blowing and puffing at the fire
under her coffee-pot, when the Sons of the Vikings knocked at the door.
Wolf-in-the-Temple was the man who took the lead; and when Witch-Martha
opened the upper half of the door (she never opened both at the same
time) she was not a little astonished to see the Captain's son, Frithjof
Ronning, staring up at her with an anxious face.

"What cost thou want, lad?" she asked, gruffly; "thou hast gone astray
surely, and I'll show thee the way home."

"I am Wolf-in-the-Temple," began Frithjof, thrusting out his chest, and
raising his head proudly.

"Dear me, you don't say so!" exclaimed Martha.

"My comrade and foster-brother Skull-Splitter has been wounded; and I
want thee, old crone, to stanch his blood before he bleeds to death."

"Dear, dear me, how very strange!" ejaculated the Witch, and shook her
aged head.

She had been accustomed to extraordinary requests; but the language
of this boy struck her as being something of the queerest she had yet
heard.

"Where is thy Skull-Splitter, lad?" she asked, looking at him dubiously.

"Right here in the underbrush," Wolf-in-the-Temple retorted, gallantly;
"stir thy aged stumps now, and thou shalt be right royally rewarded."

He had learned from Walter Scott's romances that this was the p