bbing and wiping their eyes, the twelve warriors followed them.

'What can all this mean?' Arwed asked himself, as he returned to the
session room.

'Mac Donalbain,' observed he to the governor, 'appeared to seek you
with great haste; had he any very important favor to ask?'

'Not that I know of,' answered the governor. 'He came here only for a
moment, to fulfill his promise that he would greet me at Tornea. He was
obliged to decline my invitation to dinner because of an engagement
with a hunting party.'

'Has Mac Donalbain been here?' asked Megret, hastily entering the room.

'But a moment since,' answered Arwed, 'and he cannot now be far off.
What do you wish of him?'

'A crowd of Laplanders,' said Megret, 'are seeking, with spears and
poles, in all the streets of Tornea for a huntsman, who, according to
their description, can be no other than Mac Donalbain; and I should be
very happy to place the noble gentleman before the good people, so that
I might learn precisely what they want of him.'

'We shall probably find him in the garden,' answered Arwed, and they
hastened there together. But the garden was empty. 'Incomprehensible!'
exclaimed the sheriff, who had followed them. 'The garden gate leading
to the street is closed, and I have the key with me.'

'Not so incomprehensible as you may suppose,' rejoined Megret, pointing
to a hedge-row by the garden wall whose freshly broken and trampled
branches plainly showed that some one had recently clambered over them.

'Your pardon, sir officer,' stammered the sheriff, examining the
damaged hedge, 'that is still more incomprehensible,--for what could
have induced the gentleman to climb over the wall, and thus do me so
great an injury?'

'That, master sheriff,' answered Megret, 'is to me most comprehensible,
if I am right in my suspicions.'

'What do you mean by that?' asked Arwed; but Megret, who was busily
examining the marks of injury upon the hedge, did not hear him. 'So the
weasel has escaped me,' said he, grating his teeth; 'but, by my honor,
he is lost if he again venture into my snare.'

CHAPTER XXXV.

'The royal taxes were raised, the constantly recurring lawsuits of the
Finns and Laplanders about pasturage, the chase and the fishery, were
settled in some way, by power and with mildness, the sun was
approaching the horizon, and the hum of the crowd in the market place
grew fainter and fainter.

'My business is finis