s are
worthless enough; it is only the great names of heroes that endure, to
teach the lesson that is never learned sufficiently,--namely, that man
and man alone is fitted to grasp the prize of immortality."

"Ye believe in immortality?" inquired Macfarlane seriously.

Gueldmar's keen eyes lighted on him with fiery impetuousness.

"Believe in it? I possess it! How can it be taken from me? As well make
a bird without wings, a tree without sap, an ocean without depths, as
expect to find a man without an immortal soul! What a question to ask?
Do _you_ not possess heaven's gift? and why should not I?"

"No offense," said Macfarlane, secretly astonished at the old _bonde's_
fervor,--for had not he, though himself intending to become a devout
minister of the Word,--had not he now and then felt a creeping doubt as
to whether, after all, there was any truth in the doctrine of another
life than this one. "I only thocht ye might have perhaps questioned the
probabeelity o't, in your own mind?"

"I never question Divine authority," replied Olaf Gueldmar, "I pity those
that do!"

"And this Divine authority?" said Duprez suddenly with a delicate
sarcastic smile, "how and where do you perceive it?"

"In the very Law that compels me to exist, young sir," said
Gueldmar,--"in the mysteries of the universe about me,--the glory of the
heavens,--the wonders of the sea! You have perhaps lived in cities all
your life, and your mind is cramped a bit. No wonder, . . . you can
hardly see the stars above the roofs of a wilderness of houses. Cities
are men's work,--the gods have never had a finger in the building of
them. Dwelling in them, I suppose you cannot help forgetting Divine
authority altogether; but here,--here among the mountains, you would
soon remember it! You should live here,--it would make a man of you!"

"And you do not consider me a man?" inquired Duprez with imperturbable
good-humor.

Gueldmar laughed. "Well, not quite!" he admitted candidly, "there's not
enough muscle about you. I confess I like to see strong fellows--fellows
fit to rule the planet on which they are placed. That's my whim!--but
you're a neat little chap enough, and I dare say you can hold your own!"

And his eyes twinkled good-temperedly as he filled himself another glass
of his host's fine Burgundy, and drank it off, while Duprez, with a
half-plaintive, half-comical shrug of resignation to Gueldmar's verdict
on his personal appearance, asked Thelma i