ow thinks, she
never yet saw a token of any evil spirit--of any spirit but the Good One
that rules all things. What a sigh she will give--what a free breathing
hers will be, the day when I can show her, as plainly as I see myself,
that it is nothing but her own fears and griefs that have crossed her
path, and she never doubting that they were demons and sprites!
Heigh-ho! Where is Erlingsen? It is nothing short of cruel to keep me
waiting to-day, of all days, and in this spot of all places, almost
within sight of the seater where my poor Erica sits pining, and seeing
nothing of the pastures, but only with her mind's eye, the sea-caves
where she thinks these limbs are stretched, cold and helpless, as in a
grave. A pretty story I shall have to tell her, if she will only
believe it, of another sort of sea-cave."

To pass the time, he took out the shells he had collected for Erica, and
admired them afresh, and planned where she would place them, so as best
to adorn their sitting-room, when they were married. Erlingsen arrived
before he had been thus engaged five minutes; and indeed before he had
been more than a quarter of an hour altogether at the place of meeting.

"My dear master!" exclaimed Rolf, on seeing him coming, "have pity on
Erica and me; and hear what I have to tell you, that I may be gone."

"You shall be gone at once, my good fellow! I will walk with you, and
you shall tell your story as we go."

Rolf shook his head, and objected that he could not, in conscience, take
Erlingsen a step further from home than was necessary, as he was only
too much wanted there.

"Is that Oddo yonder?" he asked. "He said you would bring him."

"Yes: he has grown trustworthy of late. We have had fewer heads and
hands among us than the times require since Peder grew old and blind,
and you were missing, and Hund had to be watched instead of trusted. So
we have been obliged to make a man of Oddo, though he has the years of a
boy, and the curiosity of a woman. I brought him now, thinking that a
messenger might be wanted, to raise the country against the pirates; and
I believe Oddo, in his present mood, will be as sure as we know he can
be swift."

"It is well we have a messenger. Where is the bishop?"

"Just going to his boat, at this moment, I doubt not," replied
Erlingsen, measuring with his eye the length of the shadows. "The
bishop is to sup with us this evening."

"And how long to stay?"

"Over to-morrow n