to be watched and warded, and his men kept watch and ward around him; he needed the ordeal, and his mother arose and bore the iron for him.
Bishop Nicholas.
[With an involuntary outburst.] But we—we two!
Earl Skule.
We?
Bishop Nicholas.
You, I would say—what of you?
Earl Skule.
The right is Håkon's, Bishop.
Bishop Nicholas.
The right is his, for he is the fortunate one; 'tis even the summit of fortune, to have the right. But by what right has Håkon the right, and not you?
Earl Skule.
[After a short pause.] There are things I pray God to save me from thinking upon.
Bishop Nicholas.
Saw you never an old picture in Christ's Church at Nidaros? It shows the Deluge rising and rising over all the hills, so that there is but one single peak left above the waters. Up it clambers a whole household, father and mother and son and son's wife and children;—and the son is hurling the father back into the flood to gain better footing; and he will cast his mother down and his wife and all his children, to win to the top himself;—for up there he sees a handsbreadth of ground, where he
