"George, you are incorrigible! Suppose we go back and try the other side of this pine-wood? That might lead us to the front of the house."
"I don't see why we shouldn't walk coolly past that window," said Lorimer. "If any observation is made by the fair 'Marguerite' yonder, we can boldly say we have come to see the bonde."
Unconsciously they had both raised their voices a little during the latter part of their hasty dialogue, and at the instant when Lorimer uttered the last words, a heavy hand was laid on each of their shoulders,—a hand that turned them round forcibly away from the window they had been gazing at, and a deep, resonant voice addressed them.
"The bonde? Truly, young men, you need seek no further,—I am Olaf Güldmar!"
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. He waited for the young men to speak, and finding they remained silent, he glanced at them half angrily and again repeated his words—
"I am the bonde,—Olaf Güldmar. Speak your business and take your departure; my time is brief!"
Lorimer looked up with his usual nonchalance,—a faint smile playing about his lips. He saw at once that the old farmer was not a man to be trifled with, and he raised his cap with a ready grace as he spoke.
"Fact is," he said frankly, "we've no business here at all—not the least in the world. We are perfectly aware of it! We are trespassers, and we know it. Pray don't be hard on us, Mr.—Mr. Güldmar!"
The bonde glanced him over with a quick lightening of the eyes, and the suspicion of a smile in the depths of his curly beard. He turned to Errington.