Surely the time was gone forever when the broad river could bring up unwelcome ships; Russia was only the place where the linseed came from,--the more the better,--making grist for the great vertical millstones with their scythe-like arms, roaring and grinding and carefully sweeping as if an informing soul were in them.

The Catholics, bad harvests, and the mysterious fluctuations of trade were the three evils mankind had to fear; even the floods had not been great of late years.

The mind of St.Ogg's did not look extensively before or after.

It inherited a long past without thinking of it, and had no eyes for the spirits that walk the streets.

Since the centuries when St.Ogg with his boat and the Virgin Mother at the prow had been seen on the wide water, so many memories had been left behind, and had gradually vanished like the receding hilltops! And the present time was like the level plain where men lose their belief in volcanoes and earthquakes, thinking to-morrow will be as yesterday, and the giant forces that used to shake the earth are forever laid to sleep.