humanely interposed to prevent the visitation of her wrathful displeasure, by sending her to feed the poultry, while she herself proceeded to instruct the newly-purchased slave in some of the household duties which he would be required to perform.

On the following day, Selwood ordered his shepherd, his neatherd, swineherd, and wood cutter, to put him in the way of becoming a useful assistant in their several vocations, but Guthredwas sullen and refractory with the men, and rebellious to the women; the authority of both was, of course, enforced by harsh measures, and the young thrall was compelled to yield reluctant obedience after repeated chastisements; thus entailing upon himself severe personal sufferings in addition to the hardships of servitude.

His foreign accent and complexion, so different from that of his Saxon masters, had obtained for Guthred the name of the Son of the stranger, a designation by no means likely to improve his condition among the Saxon serfs and ceorls, who had suffered too deeply from the aggressions of the Danes to be disposed to regard any foreigner with favourable eyes. Guthred was exposed to many taunts from the serving folk, on account of his persisting in wearing his dark hair, flowing on his shoulders, in its natural length, and rich luxuriance of spiral ringlets. Long hair was only worn by persons of noble or royal birth; and though Guthred had refused to declare his birth and lineage, he assumed this envied distinction, to the infinite displeasure of

his associates in labour, who had more than once seized upon him, and, forcibly shorn these aristocratical honours from the proud head of the youthful slave; and when their mistress interposed her authority to prevent a repetition of the outrage, they vented their spleen in addressing him by the title of "high and mighty thane," whenever they required him to perform the most servile offices.

Guthred once smiled in scorn at the insult, and told his tormentors, "that, like ignorant churls as they were, they addressed him by a title far below that which was his due."

But this intimation drew upon him a torrent of such bitter mockery, that from that time forward he preserved a contemptuous silence when assailed by the taunts of the serfs.

The long weary winter, the hardest time of bondage that Guthred had yet sustained, passed away, and the sweet season of spring once more clothed the Northumbrian fields with verdure, and enamelled the pastures with flowers. It was some relief to the persecuted thrall of Selwood, when he was separated from the rude churls, and employed in the solitary office of keeping the sheep on the extensive downs, heath-clad hills, or pleasant meads; but lovely as the scenes were, the sick heart of the young exile fondly yearned after the wild and rugged scenery of the far distant land of his fathers, whose eternal forests of sombre pines and chains of barren mountains, he preferred to the oaken glades, and the verdant hills and dales of the fertile island of

the west, of which he had become an unwilling denizen. The land was indeed fair; but to him who has neither sympathies nor companionship, the most smiling landscape becomes a dreary desert.

Had Guthred ever felt the divine influence of religion, he might have supported his early sorrows with resignation; for, though companionless, he would have known that he was not alone, that he was upheld by the everlasting arm of his Father and his God, and would have learned in every dispensation, however afflicting, to recognise his hand; but he had been born in a heathen land, and the light of Christianity had never dawned on his benighted mind. Selwood and his household, indeed, were, nominally speaking, Christians; but their creed and practice were so corrupted, and interwoven with pagan superstitions and idolatries, that they were scarcely in less darkness than the young heathen, whose aversion to their mode of worship excited their anger and contempt.

Guthred only disliked their mode of worship because it was theirs, for he had never deigned to examine into the nature of their belief; from his own he drew no consolation; it was made up of shadowy recollections of gigantic idols, before whose images he had been taught by his father to bow the knee in the depth of gloomy groves. His remembrance recalled their terrific forms, but of their attributes he retained no idea, though he was occasionally wont to revoke them as the avengers

of his wrongs, when injured by his Danish or Saxon task-masters.

One day, when a war of words between him and Swindreda had ended in his stubborn refusal to draw water at her behest, and a severe corporeal punishment from the franklin had compelled him to submission, he proceeded to the sheepfold with a swelling heart, and throwing himself upon the ground, called aloud upon Thor and Woden to bring destruction upon Selwood and his whole household.

He paused, partly exhausted by the violence of his transport of fury, and partly, perhaps, from a sort of undefined expectation of receiving an answer to his vengeful invocation. It came; but neither in the uproar of the elements, nor the rush of the chariot wheels of the destroyer careering through the air; but in the soft low voice of compassionate expostulation. He raised his face from the earth, and perceived a stranger beside him, whose majestic form and mild countenance impressed him with the idea that he was a being of a different order from the rude and savage men with whom he had been accustomed to associate.

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Unhappy boy!" said the stranger, "upon whom hast thou called ?"

"On the gods of my fathers," replied Guthred. "Those whom mine own people worshipped within the strong circles of their power, and on whose rough-hewn altars my father was wont to pour forth the blood of his slaughtered foes."

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The stranger shuddered. "Alas, poor child!" said he," and canst thou believe that such inhuman sacrifices could be acceptable to the beneficent Creator of this beautiful world, which he has formed for the happiness and delight of his creatures, whom he has commanded to love one another, and to worship him in the beauty of holiness, not with polluted hands and bloody rites?"

Guthred looked perplexed, for the language of the stranger was incomprehensible to him. At length he said, "It was to Thor and Woden these sacrifices were offered by my father. To them the savour of the blood is sweet; for they are called the Destroyer and the Avenger. Oh that they would bring fire and sword upon the homestead of Selwood, the Saxon!"

"Thy guilty prayer is such as might indeed be expected from the lips of a benighted worshipper of the powers of evil," replied the stranger: "but know, my son, that in offering homage to Thor and Woden you are acting in direct rebellion to the Lord and Giver of Life, and the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and are provoking his wrath to visit you with those maledictions which you impiously call down upon your enemies."

"I cannot be more wretched than I am," replied Guthred, "or suffer greater reverses, for I, who was born a prince, am now the slave of slaves." He bowed his face once more upon the earth, and lifting up his voice, wept aloud.

The stranger allowed his passionate grief to vent