50 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
accounts the nightly packing is pretty close, and very 
indiscriminate. 
After drinking several cups of coffee, and consuming 
at least a barrel of rusks, we rose to go, in spite of 
Miss Thora’s intimation that a fresh jorum of coffee 
was being brewed. The horses were resaddled; and 
with an eloquent exchange of bows, curtseys, and kindly 
smiles, we took leave of our courteous entertainers, 
and sallied forth into the wind and rain. It was a 
regular race home, single file, the Rector leading; but 
as we sped along in silence, amid the unchangeable 
features of this strange land, I could not help thinking 
of him whose shrewd observing eyes must have rested, 
six hundred and fifty years ago, on the selfsame crags, 
and tarns, and distant mountain-tops; perhaps on the 
very day he rode out in the pride of his wealth, talent, 
and political influence, to meet his murderers at Reik- 
holt. And mingling with his memory would rise the 
pale face of Thora,—not the little lady of the coffee 
and biscuits we had just left, but that other Thora, so 
tender and true, who turned back St. Olave’s hell-hounds 
from the hiding place of the great Jarl of Lade. 
In order that you may understand why the forlorn 
