no longer seemed to belong to
her.

Now one year, when it was again drawing nigh to Yule-tide, he began
roaming about as usual, heavy and cast down; and the day before Little
Christmas Eve he took his wife along with him into the packhouse loft.

"Do you see anything there by the meal sack?" he asked.

But she saw nothing.

Then he gripped her by the hand, and begged and implored her to remain,
and go with him there at night. As his life was dear to him, said he, he
would fain try and stay at home that day.

In the course of the night he tightly grasped her hand time after time,
and sighed and groaned. She felt that he was holding on to her, and
striving hard, and with all his might, against _something_.

When morning came, it was all over. He was happier and lighter of mood
than she had seen him for a long, long time, and he remained at home.

On that Christmas Eve there was such a hauling and a-carrying upstairs
from both shop and cellar, and the candles shone till all the
window-panes sparkled again. It was the first real festival he had ever
spent in his own house, he said, and he meant to make a regular banquet
of it.

But when, as the custom was, the people of the house came in one by one,
and drank the healths of their master and mistress, he grew paler and
paler and whiter and whiter, as if his blood were being sucked out of
him and drained away.

"The earth draws!" he shrieked, and there was a look of horror in his
eyes.

Immediately afterwards he sat there--dead!

* * * * *

[1] _Lille Jule-aften_, i.e., the day before Christmas Eve
(_Jule-aften_).

* * * * *

_THE CORMORANTS OF ANDVAER_

[Illustration: _THE TWELVE CORMORANTS_.]

THE CORMORANTS OF ANDVAER

Outside Andvaer lies an island, the haunt of wild birds, which no man can
land upon, be the sea never so quiet; the sea-swell girds it round about
with sucking whirlpools and dashing breakers.

On fine summer days something sparkles there through the sea-foam like a
large gold ring; and, time out of mind, folks have fancied there was a
treasure there left by some pirates of old.

At sunset, sometimes, there looms forth from thence a vessel with a
castle astern, and a glimpse is caught now and then of an old-fashioned
galley. There it lies as if in a tempest, and carves its way along
through heavy white rollers.

Along the rocks sit the cormorants in a long black