t voice addressed them.

"The _bonde_? Truly, young men, you need seek no further,--I am Olaf
Gueldmar!"

Had he said, "I am an Emperor!" he could not have spoken with more
pride.

Errington and his friend were for a moment speechless,--partly from
displeasure at the summary manner in which they had been seized and
twisted round like young uprooted saplings, and partly from surprise and
involuntary admiration for the personage who had treated them with such
scant courtesy. They saw before them a man somewhat above the middle
height, who might have served an aspiring sculptor as a perfect model
for a chieftain of old Gaul, or a dauntless Viking. His frame was firmly
and powerfully built, and seemed to be exceptionally strong and
muscular; yet an air of almost courtly grace pervaded his movements,
making each attitude he assumed more or less picturesque. He was
broad-shouldered and deep-chested; his face was full and healthily
colored, while his head was truly magnificent. Well-poised and shapely,
it indicated power, will, and wisdom; and was furthermore adorned by a
rough, thick mass of snow-white hair that shone in the sunlight like
spun silver. His beard was short and curly, trimmed after the fashion of
the warriors of old Rome; and, from under his fierce, fuzzy, grey
eyebrows, a pair of sentinel eyes, that were keen, clear, and bold as an
eagle's, looked out with a watchful steadiness--steadiness that like the
sharp edge of a diamond, seemed warranted to cut through the brittle
glass of a lie. Judging by his outward appearance, his age might have
been guessed at as between fifty-eight and sixty, but he was, in truth,
seventy-two, and more strong, active, and daring than many another man
whose years are not counted past the thirties. He was curiously attired,
after something of the fashion of the Highlander, and something yet more
of the ancient Greek, in a tunic, vest, and loose jacket all made of
reindeer skin, thickly embroidered with curious designs worked in coarse
thread and colored beads; while thrown carelessly over his shoulders and
knotted at his waist, was a broad scarf of white woollen stuff, or
_wadmel_, very soft-looking and warm. In his belt he carried a
formidable hunting-knife, and as he faced the two intruders on his
ground, he rested one hand lightly yet suggestively on a weighty staff
of pine, which was notched all over with quaint letters and figures, and
terminated in a curved handle at the top