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And at last one day the world put on a new dress, all steel-blue and misty green, and a thousand voices woke of flashing streams and nesting birds and tossing pines, and the dwellers in Hightown knew that spring had fairly come. Then was Biorn the happy child. All through the long day, and through much of that twilight which is the darkness of a Norland summer, he was abroad on his own errands.
But even as he was thus uplifted the end came. Thorwald Thorwaldson tottered and went down, for a hurled axe had cleft him between helm and byrnie. With him fell the last hope of Hightown and the famished clan under Sunfell. The Shield-ring was no more. Biorn found himself swept back as the press of numbers overbore the little knot of sorely wounded men.
"There's our spare room it hasn't been used since Parson Greenwood was here," said Mrs. Rivers reflectively. "Melinda could put it to rights in an hour. At what time will he come?" "He'd come about nine. They drive over from Hightown depot. But," he added grimly, "here ye are orderin' rooms to be done up and ye don't know who for." "You said a friend of Dr. Duchesne," returned Mrs. Rivers simply.
I know of the place. It is called Gundbiorn's Reef and it is beyond the world." All this befell in Biorn's eleventh summer. The winter which followed brought ill luck to Hightown and notably to Ironbeard the King.
From there to Broxton, where Grace's married sister will put us up, and then, in turn to Simpson's Corners that's my uncle, you know to Flatbush, where Grace's mother's niece has kindly consented to receive us; on to Hightown, that's Mollie's aunt's place; to Cameron that's where we'll go to the camp that Mr. Ford's half-brother runs."
If it breaks, he will sup like the rest of us with Odin." Then came days of bustle and preparation. Biorn was agog with excitement and yet solemnised, for there was strange work afoot in Hightown. The King made a great festival in the Gods' House, the dark hall near the Howe of the Dead, where no one ventured except in high noon.
"It is, sir; it is the highest of three homesteads; the next below it is Plas Canol and the one below that Plas Isaf." "Middle place and lower place," said I. "It is very odd that I know in England three people who derive their names from places so situated. One is Houghton, another Middleton, and the third Lowdon; in modern English, Hightown, Middletown, and Lowtown."
It spoke of kings whose names he had never heard, and of the darkness gathering about the Norland, and famine and awe stalking upon the earth. Then came a whisper from Leif asking the fortune of the young prince of Hightown. "Death," said the weird-wife, "death but not yet. The shears of the Norns are still blunt for him, and Skuld has him in keeping."
Duchesne, finding the end of Jack's "cure" approaching, and not hearing from that interesting invalid, resolved to visit him at about this time. Having no chance to apprise Jack of his intention, on coming to Hightown at night he procured a conveyance at the depot to carry him to Windy Hill Rancho.
Mulford, who had friends acquainted with the parents of the child who insisted she had "two muvvers." So that little incident ended happily, and once more the outdoor girls were left to pursue their way as they had started out. They stayed a day with Mollie's aunt, a rain preventing comfortable progress, and when it cleared they went on to Hightown, where they stopped with Grace's cousin.
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