To be sure, Thor, taking advantage of such an excellent opportunity, when no eye was upon him (for Pirate had slunk to his master's feet when the doll was produced, thinking that his misdemeanour was about to be declared and punished, and had no attention to bestow on a marauder), had hopped on to the table-cloth, and was rapidly investigating the "spread" with an eye to future confiscation. Fortunately, Bill was more interested in the food than in the feud, and gave notice of Thor's depredation in time to prevent any serious calamity to the dinner.
Everybody hastened to the level ground, and were soon seated and busy over the good things which Mrs. Garson had provided with her usual consideration of individual tastes and necessities. When the more serious part of the meal was concluded, and tea and fruit was circulating, there was a great cry for Garth's ballad of the Boden boy who long years before had come to a tragic end in Lunda. So the young scald modestly, but with capital effect, recited his story of
HEL-YA WATER.[2]
"Where the sod is seldom trodden,
Where the haunted hillocks lie,
Where the lonely Hel-ya Water
Looks up darkly to the sky;
Where the daala mists forgather,[3]
Where the plovers make complaint,
Where the stray or timid vaigher[4]
Calls upon his patron saint;
Where the waves of Hel-ya Water
Fret around a rugged isle,
Where the bones of Yarl Magnus
Lie below a lichened pile,
There the raven found a refuge,
There he reared his savage brood;
And the young lambs from the scattald
Were the nestlings' dainty food.
Year by year the Viking's raven
Made that mystic spot his rest;
Year by year within the eyot
Brooded he as on a nest;
And no man would ever venture
To invade the lone domain
Where in solitary scheming
The grim bird of doom did reign.
It was Yule-time, and the Isles' folk
Sained[5] the children by their fires;
Lit the yatlin,[6] filled the daffock,[7]
As of ealdon did their sires.
There was wassail in each dwelling,
And the song and dance went round;
And the laugh, the jest, the music,
Rose above the tempest's sound.
Ho! the winds are raging wildly,
Ho! the thunders are awake—
Tis the night when trows[8] have licence
Over saitor,[9] hill, and brake.
Power is theirs on land and water,
While the Yule-star leads the night;
For where trows may trice their circlet
There they claim exclusive right.
Yelling round the Hel-ya Water,
Sobbing by its eyot drear,
Screaming with the tempest-furies,
Over hillock, over mere;
On the wings of silent snow-flakes,
On the bulwands[10] from the rill,
By the haunted Hel-ya Water
Flit those heralds of all ill.
There the dismal bird of boding
Is exulting with the storm.
Who will dare to-night, and conquer
The old raven's sable form?
Who will venture to the vatn,[11]
Where the phantoms of unrest
Set their weird and magic signet
On each knoll and wavelet's crest?