The crew cheered, the women came on deck to enjoy the scene, Thorgils shook hands with Jósteinn, and then took the helm himself. The sail was furled, the boats run out, but misfortune had not deserted the settlers.

A shock, a crash-all were thrown on their faces; the vessel was fast on a sunken reef, and was exposed to the violence of the swell, which rolled over the stern and swept the deck. Providentially, all hands were saved, and everything of value was conveyed ashore before the ship went to pieces.

The scene was strangely solemn. Walls of basaltic rock, crowned with green ice, soared up out of the water to the north and south, whilst a mighty mountain of snow rose in terraces on the west, leaving a narrow plain covered with grass and low brushwood between its roots and the beach. Puffins, auks, and guillemots stood in rows along the ledges of rock above the Scoters dived among the waves, gulls and gannets circled around, descending on their prey with a dash; whilst the saucy skuas hovered near, waiting to make the gulls disgorge for their own peculiar benefit.

sea.

Thorgils and his party were not idle, but laboured hard to erect a house with the fragments of the ship and the driftwood which littered the shore. The store of meal brought from Iceland lasted whilst they were engaged in building, after which the men fished for their subsistence.

Winter crept on. The birch shed its glossy leaves, and the flowers which had gladdened the brief summer in this solitude, shed their petals and died. The migratory birds disappeared, the nights became long, ice formed in the creeks, and the streams from the Jökulls were congealed.

Yule approached, and Thorgils forbade his men going out after dusk, or indulging in any heathen rites; for Yule is the season when the Esir ride forth on the blast, and gather up the offerings laid for them by their votaries.

Dreary cries from the snow wastes, and strange sights alarmed Jósteinn's men, warning them that evil drew nigh. Disease broke out among the settlers, and one sank after another the survivors buried the dead in the sands by the

shore, within sound of the ocean roar, which a Norseman loves. so well. Jósteinn and his wife died. Thorey was confined to her bed, having given birth to a son, whom Thorgils baptized under the name of Thorfin.

As spring advanced, and the food of the poor settlers improved, the sickness which had made such ravages, ceased altogether, but not till it had carried off nine victims.

Thorey never rallied after her confinement, but remained pale and delicate throughout the summer.

She longed for the time when this bay with all its melancholy associations and privations might be left for ever; but it was found impossible to remove thence during that year, as the boat which Thorgils and his men were constructing, was not yet seaworthy, and, moreover, the ice had not broken up on the sea.

During the second winter died Guthruna, the sister of Kolr and Starkathr, so that Thorey was the only woman of the party remaining. Her husband noticed her increasing pallor with anxiety, but he buoyed himself up with the hope that he should be able to get to sea in the summer, and reach inhabited shores, where she might be provided with proper nourishment.

66

'Husband," said she one day, taking his hand, and drawing him to the side of her bed, "I have had a dream of bright omen. Methought that I saw a goodly country full of trees and flowers; men in bright clothing came to me, knee-deep in dewy grass, and, extending their hands to me, bid me rejoice, for my sorrows were over. Surely the dream promises that we shall escape from this miserable bay!"

Thorgils stooped over his wife and kissed her.

"Your dream is fair, but it points to another country than any we shall find below. You shall inherit a sunny land, and be holpen by bright angels, for you have led a good life, and passed through bitter sufferings."

Thorey begged her husband to leave the place, and he promised to do so as soon as possible.

One bright day Thorgils proposed an ascent of the Jökull,

that he might look out seaward, and discover whether the ice were breaking up, and blue water visible. The bay itself had been clear for some little while, but great hummocks of ice had encumbered the opening.

Thorey begged her husband not to leave her alone with the thralls, but he laughed at her fears. His son Thorleif, with Kolr and Starkathr, offered to accompany him; and he objected at first, saying that his wife wished some one to remain with her; yet, when they persisted, he gave way, and all three climbed the glacier mountain together. They held on, ascending slowly, till Nones, when a fog came over the mountain, and they were compelled to descend. However, they had seen enough to satisfy them that there was clear water along the coast, as far as the eye could reach; so that, if they were unable to put out to sea, they might, at all events, follow the shore. At the same time, dark blue vapour on the horizon showed that the ice-fields were local, and that the ocean was free at no very great distance, and would soon break up the remaining ice.

The descent was accomplished with difficulty, as the mist was dense, and it was evening when the three reached the shore.

The first circumstance which caused them any alarm was the absence of the new-built boat. Thorgils ran to the house in trepidation. The doors were gone and the hall was perfectly dark within. He stood and listened. The snuffle of a baby was the only sound which broke the stillness.

66

Thorey! Thorey!" he cried. There was no answer. Trembling with the agony of despair, the poor man leaped to his wife's bed. He found her lying cold and dead, on a mattress soaked in blood which had flowed from a stab in her side, made by some small instrument. The baby lay at her breast, encircled by one lifeless arm. When the first burst of misery was past, the other three men examined the house.

Almost every particle of food, the bedding, all the warm clothes, and one of the tents, had been carried off; the toolchest had been broken open and ransacked, and all the thralls

had vanished with the boat. About the only things left were a small kettle which had belonged to Thorey, a tent, and Thorgils' sword and axe, which he had taken with him when he ascended the Jökull.

That was a sad night for all, but Thorleif did his utmost to cheer his father.

The whimpering of the poor baby, as it cried for its mother's breasts, first roused Thorgils from his stupor. He went to the bed where the little thing lay, lifted it out, and folding it to his heart, walked up and down the hall, rocking it to sleep. Every time that he came to the light he looked down at the tiny tear-blubbered face, so like that of his dead wife; and Thorleif saw, by the workings of his father's countenance, that his heart was nearly broken.

But the baby could not be stilled; it was hungry, and its little eager fingers plucked and felt at Thorgils' bosom. The poor father laid the little thing beside the fire, and knelt before it, watching it thoughtfully and sadly as it sobbed and held out its dimpled hands.

"Thorleif, the child must not die!" groaned he; then suddenly he exclaimed, "Give me my sword!"

The young man handed it to him.

Thorgils bared his breast, and with the edge of the blade slit the nipples. At first there came out blood, but presently blood and water, and finally milk. So he took the child to his bosom, and nourished it like a mother.*

During the spring and summer the four men toiled at boat building, but as they were without the requisite tools, their labour was much increased. Moreover, victuals were not abundant, so that their time had to be divided between fishing and building.

One morning Thorgils found a couple of Esquimaux women on the beach, carrying between them their winter supply of provisions tied up into a large bundle. Believing them to be Trolls, whom it was the duty of all good Christians

See a notice of a similar occurrence in Dr. Livingstone's Africa, p. 127.

to exterminate, the worthy man grasped his sword and rushed down upon them. The poor creatures took to flight, but did not relinquish their stock of food till Thorgils had hewn off one of their hands.

This stock of victuals was a great catch, and so long as it lasted the work of boat-building progressed rapidly.

The baby was not yet weaned: it seemed to be tolerably healthy, and engrossed its father's whole affection. The bonder washed and dressed his child every day, and brought it to the beach when he went to work on the new smack, that the little one might be near him, and might amuse itself with shells and pebbles.

Winter passed, and with summer the settlers put to sea in their vessel. They kept the Jökulls on one side of them and the ice-fields, which covered the ocean, on the other, steering due south.

The coast of Greenland presents a succession of scenes of savage beauty. Bare crags of black trap, 2,000 feet high, capped by beds of ice, rise abruptly from the water, or terraces of alternate snow and rock soar into the clouds. Stony needles start out of the seas, and their bases in summer are white with foam. Deep inlets between mural precipices crowned by ice, wind for many miles inland, and terminate in glaciers of prodigious magnitude. These fjords, now twinkling in the sun, now shaded in gloom, are the resort of countless wild-fowl, relieving the desolation of the landscape. Icy platforms dip to the sea from the high table land of the interior, and their tall blue cliffs, continually undermined by the surge, fall into the waves with a roar like thunder, and stud the sea with icebergs. At rare intervals, a sheltered bay is green with meadows and bushes of service tree, willow, and birch, but the prevailing hues of the shore are black and white.

The settlers wintered in a little island, the caves of which were thronged with seals; and when summer came they put to sea again.

Among the rocks they found the eggs of a black-backed