uld not but notice results. The
Scotch trader came also, and the slipshod Norse way of barter and
bargaining had no chance with the Scotch steady prices and ready
money. But even through all these domestic and civic changes Orkney
was constantly in zones of danger. In the first half of the nineteenth
century England was at war with France and Spain and Russia, and the
Orcadeans have a fine inherited taste for a sea fight. The Vikings did
not rule them through centuries for nothing: the Orcadean and his
brother, the Shetlander, salt the British Navy, and they rather enjoy
danger zones.

A single generation, with the help of steam communications, changed
Orkney entirely and in the course of the second generation the
Orcadean became eager for improvements of all kinds, and ready to
forward them generously with the careful hoardings of perhaps many
generations. And as it is in this transient period of the last century
that my hero and heroine lived, I have thought it well to say
something of antecedents that Americans may well be excused for
knowing nothing about. Also--

... the past will always win
A glory from its being far;
And orb into the perfect star,
We saw not, when we walked therein.

However, Orkney was far from being out of danger zones in the
nineteenth century. In its first quarter French and Dutch privateers
made frequent raids on the islands; and the second quarter gave her
men their chance of danger in the Crimea. They were not strangers in
the Russian Chersoneus; their fathers had been in southern seas
centuries before them. During the last fifty years they have made
danger zones of their own free will, quarreling with coast guards,
tampering with smugglers, wandering off with would-be discoverers of
the North Pole, or with any other doubtful and dangerous enterprise.

And these reflections made me quite comfortable about the
"made-in-Germany" danger zone. I think the Orcadeans will rather enjoy
it; and I am quite sure if any Germans take to trafficking, or buying
or selling, in Kirkwall, they will get the worst of it. In this
direction it is rather pleasant to remember that even Scotchmen,
disputing about money, will find the Orcadeans "too far north for
them."

CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE OF RAGNOR

Kind were the voices I used to hear
Round such a fireside,
Speaking the mother tongue old and dear;
Making the heart beat,
With endless tales of wonder and fear,