Errington laughed. "Well, my boy, whatever my looks may testify, I
am at this moment an undoubted trespasser on private property,--and
so are you for that matter. What shall we do?"

"Find the front door and ring the bell," suggested George promptly.
"Say we are benighted travellers and have lost our way. The bonde
can but flay us. The operation, I believe, is painful, but it cannot
last long."

"George, you are incorrigible! Suppose we go back and try the other
side of this pine-wood? That might lead us to the front of the
house."

"I don't see why we shouldn't walk coolly past that window," said
Lorimer. "If any observation is made by the fair 'Marguerite'
yonder, we can boldly say we have come to see the bonde."

Unconsciously they had both raised their voices a little during the
latter part of their hasty dialogue, and at the instant when Lorimer
uttered the last words, a heavy hand was laid on each of their
shoulders,--a hand that turned them round forcibly away from the
window they had been gazing at, and a deep, resonant voice addressed
them.

"The bonde? Truly, young men, you need seek no further,--I am Olaf
Guldmar!"

Had he said, "I am an Emperor!" he could not have spoken with more
pride.