But when the son had made a couple of efforts he grew stiff.

“Wait a moment!” cried the father, and began to row toward his son.

Then the son rolled over on his back, gave his father one long look, and sank.

Thord could scarcely believe it; he held the boat still, and stared at the spot where his son had gone down, as though he must surely come to the surface again.  There rose some bubbles, then some more, and finally one large one that burst; and the lake lay there as smooth and bright as a mirror again.

For three days and three nights people saw the father rowing round and round the spot, without taking either food or sleep; he was dragging the lake for the body of his son.  And toward morning of the third day he found it, and carried it in his arms up over the hills to his gard.

It might have been about a year from that day, when the priest, late one autumn evening, heard some one in the passage outside of the door, carefully trying to find the latch.  The priest opened the door, and in walked a tall, thin man, with bowed form and white hair.  The priest looked long at him before he recognized him.  It was Thord.

“Are you out walking so late?” said the priest, and stood still in front of him.

“Ah, yes! it is late,” said Thord, and took a seat.

The priest sat down also, as though waiting.  A long, long silence followed.  At last Thord said:—­

“I have something with me that I should like to give to the poor; I want it to be invested as a legacy in my son’s name.”

He rose, laid some money on the table, and sat down again.  The priest counted it.

“It is a great deal of money,” said he.

“It is half the price of my gard.  I sold it to-day.”

The priest sat long in silence.  At last he asked, but gently: 

“What do you propose to do now, Thord?”

“Something better.”

They sat there for awhile, Thord with downcast eyes, the priest with his eyes fixed on Thord.  Presently the priest said, slowly and softly:—­

“I think your son has at last brought you a true blessing.”

“Yes, I think so myself,” said Thord, looking up, while two big tears coursed slowly down his cheeks.

WILLIAM BLACK

(1841-)

In view of Mr. Black’s accurate and picturesque descriptions of natural phenomena, it is interesting to know that of his varied youthful studies, botany most attracted him, and that he followed it up as an art pupil in the government schools.  But his bent was rather for journalism than for art or science.  Before he was twenty-one he had written critical essays for a local newspaper on Ruskin, Carlyle, and Kingsley; and shortly afterward he wrote a series of sketches, after Christopher North, that at this early age gave evidence of his peculiar talent, the artistic use of natural effects in the development of character, the pathos of the gray morning or the melancholy of the evening mist when woven in with tender episode or tragic occurrence.