A RUNAWAY DAY 65 
There is nothing in life sweeter than a little lone- 
liness. Nowadays we live and die in crowds, like 
ants and bees, so that solitude is likely to become one 
of the lost arts. No book ever tastes so well as before 
a great fire in the heart of a wilderness, even if the 
wilderness be only a few miles away. In my cabin 
I keep a special shelf of the books which I have 
always wanted to read, and for which in some way 
I never find time in the hurry of everyday life. That 
evening I sat for long over the Saga of Burnt Njal, 
and read again of the bill of Gunnar and the grim 
axe, the “ogress of war,” of Skarphedinn and the 
sword of the dauntless Kari. In the flickering fire- 
light I pictured the death-fight of Gunnar of Lithend, 
one of the four great fights of one man against a 
multitude in history, and heard again Hallgarda, the 
fair and the false, forsake him to his death. 
“Give me two locks of thy hair,” said Gunnar 
to Hallgarda, when that his bow-string was cut in 
twain; “‘and ye two, my mother and thou, twist 
them together into a bow-string for me.” 
“Does aught lie on it?” she says. 
“My life lies on it,” he said. 
“T will not do it,” said Hallgarda; ‘“‘for know ye 
now that I never cared a whit for thee.” 
At last it was time to go to bed. I went out to 
get a drink of the most wonderful water in the world. 
Near the cabin a little bog was frozen over a foot 
deep with white bubbled ice. In one place a round, 
black hole had betrayed the secret spring that 
flooded the whole swale. In the coldest weather this 
