mrade;
intercepted the green worms and other insects that kept dropping down
upon him from the alder branches overhead, and brushed away the flies
that would fain disturb his slumbers. They were all steeped to the core
in old Norse heroism; and they enjoyed the situation hugely. All the
life about them was half blotted out; they saw it but dimly. That light
of youthful romance, which never was on sea or land, transformed all
the common things that met their vision into something strange and
wonderful. They strained their ears to catch the meaning of the song of
the birds, so that they might learn from them the secrets of the future,
as Sigurd the Volsung did, after he had slain the dragon, Fafnir. The
woods round about them were filled with dragons and fabulous beasts,
whose tracks they detected with the eyes of faith; and they started
out every morning, during the all too brief vacation, on imaginary
expeditions against imaginary monsters.

When at the end of an hour the Skull-Splitter woke from his slumber,
much refreshed, Witch-Martha bandaged his arm carefully, and Wolf-in-the
Temple (having no golden arm-rings) tossed her, with magnificent
superciliousness, his purse, which contained six cents. But she flung
it back at him with such force that he had to dodge with more adroitness
than dignity.

"I'll get my claws into thee some day, thou foolish lad," she said,
lifting her lean vulture-like hand with a threatening gesture.

"No, please don't, Martha, I didn't mean anything," cried the boy, in
great alarm; "you'll forgive me, won't you, Martha?"

"I'll bid thee begone, and take thy foolish tongue along with thee," she
answered, in a mollified tone.

And the Sons of the Vikings, taking the hint, shouldered the litter once
more, and reached Skull-Splitter's home in time for supper.

III.

The Sons of the Vikings were much troubled. Every heroic deed which they
plotted had this little disadvantage, that they were in danger of going
to jail for it. They could not steal cattle and horses, because they
did not know what to do with them when they had got them; they could
not sail away over the briny deep in search of fortune or glory, because
they had no ships; and sail-boats were scarcely big enough for daring
voyages to the blooming South which their ancestors had ravaged. The
precious vacation was slipping away, and as yet they had accomplished
nothing that could at all be called heroic. It was while the b