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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gudrid the Fair, by Maurice Hewlett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gudrid the Fair
+       A Tale of the Discovery of America
+
+Author: Maurice Hewlett
+
+Release Date: November 27, 2007 [EBook #23643]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUDRID THE FAIR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GUDRID THE FAIR
+
+A Tale of the Discovery of America
+
+
+BY
+
+MAURICE HEWLETT
+
+
+Author of
+
+  "The Forest Lovers,"
+  "The Life and Death of Richard Yea and Nay,"
+  "Love and Lucy," etc.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+1918
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1918,
+
+By Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This tale is founded upon two sagas, which have been translated
+literally and without attempt to accord their discrepancies by York
+Powell and Vigfussen in their invaluable _Origines Icelandicae_.  As
+well as those versions I have had another authority to help me, in
+Laing's _Sea-Kings of Norway_.  I have blent the two accounts into one,
+and put forward the result with this word of explanation, which I hope
+will justify me in the treatment I have given them.
+
+I don't forget that a "saga" is history, and that these sagas in
+particular furnish an account of the first discovery of America, no
+less a thing.  Nevertheless, while I have been scrupulous in leaving
+the related facts as I found them, I have not hesitated to dwell upon
+the humanity in the tales, and to develop that as seemed fitting.  I
+don't think that I have put anything into the relation which is not
+implied in the few words accorded me by the text.  I believe that
+everything I give Gudrid and Freydis, Karlsefne and Leif and Eric Red
+to say or to do can be made out from hints, which I have made it my
+business to interpret.  Character makes plot in life as well as in
+fiction, and a novelist is not worthy of his hire who can't weave a
+tale out of one or two people to whom he has been able to give life.
+All romantic invention proceeds from people or from atmosphere.
+Therefore, while I have shown, I hope, due respect to the exploration
+of America, I admit that my tale turns essentially upon the explorers
+of it.  My business as a writer of tales has been to explore them
+rather than Wineland the Good.  I have been more interested in Gudrid's
+husbands and babies than I had need to be as an historian.  I am sure
+the tale is none the worse for it--and anyhow I can't help it.  If I
+read of a woman called Gudrid, and a handsome woman at that, I am bound
+to know pretty soon what colour her hair was, and how she twisted it
+up.  If I hear that she had three husbands and outlived them all I
+cannot rest until I know how she liked them, how they treated her; what
+feelings she had, what feelings they had.  So I get to know them as
+well as I know her--and so it goes on.  Wineland does not fail of
+getting discovered, but meantime some new people have been born into
+the world who do the business of discovering while doing their own
+human business of love and marriage and childbirth.
+
+All this, I say, is implicit in the saga-history.  So it is, but it has
+to be looked for.  The saga listeners, I gather, took character very
+much for granted, as probably Homer's audience did.  Odysseus was full
+of wiles, Achilles was terrible, Paris "a woman-haunting cheat," Gunnar
+of Lithend a poet and born fighter, Nial a sage, and so on.  The poet
+gave them more than that, of course.  Poetry apart, he did not disdain
+psychology.  There is plenty psychology in both _Iliad_ and
+_Odyssey_--less in the sagas, but still it is there.  And when you come
+to know the persons of these great inventions there is as much
+psychology as any one can need, or may choose to put there--as much as
+there is in _Hamlet_, as much as there is in _La Guerre et La Paix_.
+
+In Kormak's Saga, for instance, which I put forward some years ago as
+_A Lover's Tale_, is there no psychology?  It is no way out of it to
+put down Kormak's tergiversations to sorcery.  I doubt if that was good
+enough for the men who first heard the tale; it is certainly no good to
+us.  In the strange barbaric recesses of the tale of Gunnar Helming and
+Frey's wife, what are we to make of it all unless we reckon with the
+states of poor Sigrid's soul, married to a gog-eyed wooden god?  How
+came Halgerd to betray Gunnar to his foes, how came Nial to be burned
+in his bed?  Can one read _Laxdale_ and not desire to read through it
+into the proud heart of Gudrun?
+
+And having once begun with them one could go on, I believe, until the
+hearts of all those fine, straight-dealing people were as plain to us
+as those of our superfine, sophisticated moderns.  For Nature is still
+our mother and mistress, no less now than she ever was--and that's a
+good thing for the story-reader as well as for the story-teller.
+
+
+Out of the Saga of Thorgils, which is a tale of Greenland's
+exploration, I hope that I drew a portrait of a good Icelander.  Out of
+Eric's Saga and Karlsefne's Saga combined I believe there is a no less
+faithful picture of a good Icelandish woman.  Gudrid was wise as well
+as fair, if I have read her truly; she was a good woman, wife and
+mother.  The discovery of Wineland is to my own feelings quite beside
+the mark where she is involved; but I have put it all in, and wish
+there had been more of it.  Psychology and romantic imagination will
+not help us much there.  We want the facts, and they fail us.  All that
+can be made out is that Karlsefne sailed up the Hudson.  His Scraelings
+were Esquimaux.  But who was the black-kirtled woman who appeared to
+Gudrid and gave herself the same name?  And where was the Maggoty Sea?
+And what goaded Freydis to her dreadful deeds?  I admire Freydis
+myself; I think she was a _femme incomprise_.  I have taken pains with
+Freydis, though personally I had rather been Gudrid's fourth husband
+than Freydis's first.
+
+I am not afraid of the accusation of vulgarising the classics.  It is
+good that they should be loved, and if simplification and amplification
+humanise them I can stand the charge with philosophy.  Of all classics
+known to me the sagas are the most unapproachable in their naked
+strength.  Their frugality freezes the soul; they are laconic to
+baldness.  I admire strength with anybody, but the starkness of the
+sagas shocks me.  When Nial lies down by his old wife's side with the
+timbers roaring and crackling over his head, and Skarphedin, his son,
+says, "Our father goes early to bed, but that was to be expected, as he
+is an old man," Professor Ker, exulting in his strength, finds it
+admirable.  I say it is inadequate, and not justified to us by what
+else the saga tells us of the speaker.  I am sure that Skarphedin had
+more to say, or that if he had not the poet could have expressed him
+better.  It recalls the humorous callousness of our soldiers, which,
+nakedly rendered, is often shocking.  This is, however, not really the
+point.  Terseness may be dramatic--it often is, as in "Cover her
+face--mine eyes dazzle--She died young"--but in narrative it may check
+instead of provoke the imagination.  But if it provoke, is it not
+reasonable to let the imagination go to work upon it?  If Skarphedin
+indeed took his father's death in that manner, is one not justified in
+going to work with Skarphedin, to find out what manner of man he was
+who could so express himself in supreme crisis?  I trace a great deal
+of our soldiers' crude jesting at death to their Scandinavian blood;
+and nothing more intensely and painfully interesting has ever been
+given to the imagination to work upon than their conduct in the face of
+horror and sin of late, so dauntless, so blithe and so grim as it is.
+
+Where heroism has been so shown on all sides of us in these three
+dreadful years, it is no longer possible to pick and choose heroic
+nations.  One might otherwise have said that no such heroes were ever
+given to the world as the heroes of Iceland.  That they are not
+accepted as such on all hands is no fault of the literature which
+presents them; for that literature, like all great art, makes demands
+upon its readers.  It hands over the key, but if the lock is stiff it
+will not give you oil for the wards.  That you must find for yourself.
+Oil for the wards is all I can pretend to here; and if I may say that I
+have humanised a tale of endurance, and clothed demigods and shadows in
+flesh and blood, I shall feel that I have done useful work, and bear
+charges of vulgarisation with a philosophy which assures me that the
+two terms are much of a muchness.
+
+The great gestures, the large-scale maps, the grand manner are for
+history and epic, but genre for the novel--and what _genre_ is so
+momentous to it as the human?  Let Homer describe the wrath of Achilles
+and the passion of Hektor and Andromache.  The novelist will want to
+know what Briseïs felt when she was handed from hero to hero, will pore
+upon the matronly charity of Theano, the agony of the two young men
+Achilles slew by Skamander, and find the psychology of these pawns in
+the great game as enthralling as that of the high movers.  I confess
+that to me Gudrid, the many times a wife and the always sweet and
+reserved, is more absorbing a tale than the discovery of Wineland.  I
+like the two running Scots better than their country, would barter all
+Greenland for the tale of the winter sickness in Thorstan Black's
+house.  So much apology I feel moved to offer for having put down
+Exploration from the chief place in the tale, and put up a wife and
+mother.
+
+As for the verse--Gudrid's Wardlock chant is adapted from the Lay of
+Swipday and Merglad in _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, I, 92 _seq_., and
+Thorstan's Song of Helgi and Sigrun is a partial version of that epic
+(_ibid_. 131).
+
+
+
+
+GUDRID THE FAIR
+
+
+I
+
+Thorbeorn was old when this tale begins.  His face was lean, his beard
+was grey, he stooped somewhat in the saddle.  But he had a fiery mind,
+a high spirit, and was so rich, or believed so, that men said he could
+buy off Death more likely than any other man, seeing he would neither
+fail of hardihood nor money.
+
+By this time, old age apart, he had done very well for himself, having
+not only buried a wife, but married another; having not only seen three
+sons out into the world and become a grandfather twice over; but having
+had also, by his second wife, whose name was Hollweg, a daughter, and
+an estate of Bathbrink which could be hers by and by, if he so pleased.
+This daughter was by name Gudrid, and by all men's consent Gudrid the
+Fair.  Iceland has always been famous for handsome women; but three are
+chiefly commemorated as "the Fair."  The first is Gudrun, who was
+daughter of Oswif; but she was now old.  The second is Stangerd,
+daughter of Thorkel of Tongue, and at this time the wife of
+Battle-Berse of Sowerby in the north-west parts.  This Gudrid,
+Thorbeorn's daughter, is the third, and was, at the moment, of
+marriageable age, being full fifteen years old.
+
+She was a tall girl, well and beautifully made, with carriage so
+graceful and look so courteous that men used to stop in the road and
+gaze after her as she walked.  Her hair was very nearly black, and made
+a plait which she could easily sit upon.  She was no talker, but had
+the best of manners, whereby it happened that those who talked with her
+were eloquent and believed that she had been so.  She had a beautiful
+voice and notable skill in singing.  Men heard her songs, and rushed
+out into the dark emulous of desperate work, and the sooner the better,
+to deserve well of her.  Thorbeorn was very proud of her; but it had
+been her mother's work to have her carefully trained.  If she had lived
+this tale might not have been written; but she did not.  She died a
+year before it begins, and left her old husband to a peck of troubles.
+
+Thorbeorn was the last man to cope with trouble.  He was too proud, too
+vain, and too idle--too proud to confide, too vain to accept, too idle
+to repair.  He had always kept a great table and had a hall full of
+guests.  He had them still, though he had not the money to pay for
+them.  He borrowed on his property, and borrowed again to repay the
+first loans; he had ventures at sea, which failed him.  He might have
+had help from his sons, but would not ask them.  When Gudrid was
+fifteen years old these things vexed him sadly; but what vexed him more
+was that young men came to Bathbrink to see if they could get speech
+with her; and that some of them put forward friends with proposals to
+marry her.  So far he had refused to treat with any.  "It is not to be
+thought of," he generally said; sometimes, "It is very unsuitable"; and
+once, "I am greatly offended."  Not that he did not fully intend to
+have her married--rather it was that he had a rooted belief in the
+greatness of his family and in the girl's merits, and could find none
+of the suitors at all equal to them.
+
+He was one of those men who rather wish to believe in themselves than
+do it.  He was always on the look-out for flaws upon his mettle.  He
+thought that Gudrid was unapproachable, and when he found that she was
+not, fretted to make her so.  But Gudrid herself was not at all
+unapproachable.  She liked the company of her equals in age, and saw no
+reason why young men should not be anxious to talk to her, or why, if
+they hung about with the generality at the lower end of the hall, they
+should not be invited to the fire.  With the girls in the bower she
+talked freely of courtships, and of young men.  Thorbeorn would have
+been cut to the heart to hear her.  It might have been better for him
+to have such a wound than the wound which actually he did receive.
+
+He was riding home late one autumn evening.  The weather was still mild
+and warm.  Nearing home, he turned his horse on to the turf and walked
+him, with the reins hanging loose.  Presently he was aware of two
+figures together under a clump of trees.  One of them he saw at once
+for Gudrid.  The other was a man, he knew not whom.  Immediately hot
+water sprang into his eyes and veiled their sight, but he saw enough to
+guess more.
+
+The pair were taking leave of each other.  Their hands were clasped,
+their arms at length.  They were far apart, the man talking, Gudrid
+listening.  Then presently the strain on the arms relaxed, their
+clasped hands fell; they were near together.  Gudrid, he saw, hung her
+head--and then, suddenly, the man put his other arm about her neck, and
+drew her to him and kissed her cheek.  At that she broke away and ran
+towards the house.  The man, looking after her for a little, then
+vaulted the turf wall and ran down the hillside towards the river,
+making great skips and jumps over the tussocks and boulders, as if he
+were as happy as a man could be.  That was what Thorbeorn saw in the
+autumn dusk.
+
+He went home in a dreadful state of mind, and could hardly bear to be
+served supper by his desecrated daughter.  To think that those soft
+cheeks had been profaned by a strange youth, that those grave young
+eyes had looked kindly upon another than himself, that that fair hand
+had clasped another's in kindness--all this seemed to him horrible.  He
+thought her a hypocrite; he thought himself insulted.  Yet even he had
+to admit that the kiss was sudden, and she evidently surprised and
+(since she ran away at once) probably frightened.  He judged that she
+was a novice at such work, but for all that was very much afraid that
+she took kindly to it.
+
+He spent a great part of the night thinking it over, and before he went
+to sleep had made up his mind.  Early in the morning he was out and
+about; before the day-meal he sent for Gudrid.  She came, singing to
+herself, fresh as a rose and as fair.  She asked his pleasure--and he
+had not the heart to tell her his displeasure.  What he did say was
+this: "Put your gear together as soon as you can.  I am taking you to
+Erne Pillar, where you will be put in fostership with Orme."  Gudrid
+looked up startled, and saw in her father's eyes what she had not seen
+before.  Her own eyes fell, she coloured up, turned and went away, to
+do as she was told.
+
+It may be said at once that she had done very little harm, and none
+knowingly.  The young man, who was one of the several who came to the
+house, was the son of a neighbour, a man of repute.  Gudrid favoured
+him no more than any of the others, but it had so happened that he had
+been there that afternoon, talking with the girls, and that Gudrid had
+walked with him as far as the trees on his way home.  He had protracted
+the farewells, and had snatched a kiss; she had been frightened and run
+away.  That might have happened to anybody--but she knew now that
+Arnkel had had no business at the house when her father was not there.
+That could not be denied.  She went soberly about her preparations, and
+the girls were full of pity.  They talked it over and over, but there
+was nothing to be done.  Her bundles and bales were corded upon the
+sumpter's back.  She embraced and kissed her housemates.  There were
+wet cheeks and trembling lips involved, but they were not hers.  Then
+she was put up before her father, and away she went.
+
+As for young Arnkel, he no more comes into the tale than he had stayed
+in Gudrid's mind.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Orme was a friend of Thorbeorn's, and a prosperous man.  He lived at
+Erne Pillar, which is below Snaefellness, and near the sea.  There was
+a haven there and a town.  Moreover it was a Christian settlement, with
+a church and a priest.  Most of the houses and land there belonged to
+Orme, who lived in a good house of his own with his wife Halldis.  They
+had no children, which was a grief to them.
+
+Thorbeorn brought Gudrid to the house, and had a good reception from
+the goodman and his wife.  "Take her with you, good wife, into your
+bower," he said, "while I have a word with Orme.  He will tell you all
+about it, or I will.  It is good for me to be sure that it makes no
+matter which of us tells you."
+
+Halldis said, it was easy to see that Gudrid was not making a short
+stay, and took her with her through the house into the bower.  There,
+it was not long before she knew all that Thorbeorn or Orme could have
+to say, and may be more still.
+
+Meantime, Thorbeorn, after much unnecessary havers, said to Orme: "The
+matter is this, neighbour.  I ask you and the goodwife to take Gudrid
+here in fostership.  It will suit me in every way, and I hope you will
+agree to it."
+
+Orme said that it would suit him too very well.  "Nothing the mistress
+would like better than to see herself reflected in a young pair of
+eyes."  Thorbeorn accepted that as a matter of course; but presently he
+asked whether they saw much company at Erne Pillar.
+
+Not such a deal of company, Orme said.  Now and again a ship came in,
+and there was a bustle, with men coming and going, cheapening the
+goods.  "Nothing to you at Bathbrink, I daresay," he added.  "They tell
+me that you keep a great house up there--as is fitting you should."
+
+"I have to remember what is expected of me," Thorbeorn said, and felt
+that he was no nearer what he wanted to say than he had been.
+
+"Gudrid is young," he said, beginning again.
+
+"She's a beauty, it's evident," Orme said briskly, and instantly
+Thorbeorn felt himself bristling down the backbone.
+
+"She is sought after on all hands--but not by any who is to my liking.
+I hope that Halldis will look after her well."
+
+"She will look after her like one of her own," said Orme.  Thorbeorn
+had rather he had said more than that.  He could not understand that
+Orme did not see what was at stake, and yet could not enlighten him
+further.  The good wife then came springing in.
+
+"She will be happy, and so shall we be," she said.  "I have a roomy
+heart, too long empty, woe's me.  She will soon be singing about the
+house, and then we old folks will fall to it.  It will be like a nest
+of linnets.  She will scour our rusty pipes for us.  Excellent!"
+
+Thorbeorn was put out that they seemed to think it pure pleasure to
+have his daughter on their hands instead of great responsibility and a
+call to duty.
+
+"Well," he said, "you have helped me with a serious trouble.  I leave
+her to you with confidence.  Where is she now?  For I must be going."
+
+"She is with the girls in the wash-house," said Halldis.  "All
+chattering together like starlings on a thatch.  All talking at once,
+and none listening.  Do you wish her fetched?"
+
+"No," said Thorbeorn, waving his hand.  "She will do better where she
+is."  He felt the impossibility of saying what he wished.  Then he took
+his way homewards, and the couple looked at each other.
+
+"A love affair," Halldis said.
+
+"It looks like it," said Orme.  "And there will be love affairs.  She's
+a paragon."
+
+"That remains to be seen," Halldis said.  "She's a beauty at least.
+But a baby as yet.  Wait till she's cut her teeth."
+
+"I hope she won't cut them here," said Orme; but his wife said briskly,
+"Better here than there."  Halldis could see through Thorbeorn and pity
+his barren pride.
+
+Gudrid was happy at Erne Pillar, and soon very much at home.  She had
+found her voice at once, and now she began to find herself.  Her
+discoveries were made in the appreciative eyes of her foster-parents,
+for that is the first place in which we get our notion of ourselves.
+The portrait encouraged her.  She became interesting to herself.  Then
+there were the neighbours, often in and out of the house, but always
+under the heedful eyes of the good wife.  Then there were the ships.
+Last there were the priest, and his little church.  All the people at
+Erne Pillar had been christened, as had Thorbeorn himself been; but
+there was a great difference when you had a priest and a church.  The
+priest at Erne Pillar was a serious priest.  He said Mass every day,
+and expected you, or some of you, to be there.  Now Thorbeorn,
+Christian though he were, had never been to Mass in his life.  His
+Christianity consisted in turning his back on Frey.  Frey had been the
+chief God at Bathbrink and in all the country round.  Thorbeorn had
+been Frey's priest at one time, but now would have nothing to say to
+him; and as for Gudrid, she had never known anything herself about Frey
+or the other gods, but had been sprinkled as soon as she could be
+carried down to Erne Pillar.  That, so far, had been the utmost of her
+Christianity.  But she had heard plenty of talk about the old gods; and
+now she was to hear more about them, and something of the new gods too.
+
+Orme and Halldis had both been heathens and knew a deal about Frey and
+Redbeard, as they called Thor.  Orme was not interested in religion at
+all; but Halldis was.  Halldis kept well with the priest, but on
+certain nights of the year--on the night they called The Mother Night,
+for instance--she was restless, and used to go to the door and stand
+there looking out at the moonlight, as if she would be off with the
+others if she dared.  That, too, was what plenty other women at Erne
+Pillar were doing; but none of them went.  The priest saw to it.
+Halldis taught Gudrid numberless songs--charms, incantations, love
+spells, and long, terrible tales about Valkyrs and their human lovers.
+The girl came to understand that love might become a tearing, wringing
+business, and marriage a tame road for life to take.  Halldis's songs
+were seldom about marriage, but always about love.  The two only came
+together in the same song when it was a case of a giant with a woman
+for his wife, or a Valkyr with a man for her husband.  These cases, it
+seems, had often occurred.  They were exciting and ended in tears--but
+not often in marriage as well.
+
+She went to Mass first of all with Halldis, but afterwards, as often as
+not, she went alone.  Halldis had plenty to do at home.  If she kept to
+what was of obligation she thought she did very well.  But Gudrid liked
+the quiet and darkness; she used to stare at the lights till they
+multiplied themselves and danced like shooting stars.  She liked the
+murmur of the words, and the mysterious movements and shiftings of the
+priest.  When he lifted up the Host, she bowed her head, and used to
+hear her heart beating.  She supposed that something was happening
+overhead, and used to listen for the rushing sound of wings.  This was
+a constantly renewed excitement; it never failed her when she was
+well--and that was always.
+
+The priest, who was a serious priest, and came from the south, was
+interested in Gudrid, and wanted her to confess and communicate; but
+she would not.  "No, I couldn't do that," she said, "without asking my
+foster-mother."
+
+"Ask her, then, my daughter," said the priest.
+
+"But she would have to ask my father," said Gudrid, "who would not
+allow it."
+
+"But your father is a Christian, surely?" said the priest.
+
+"Certainly he is a Christian.  He went into the river to be one."
+
+"Then he will order you to do your duty."
+
+Gudrid shook her head.  "No, no.  He would not like it at all."
+
+The priest spoke to Halldis about it, and scared her.  "It is not the
+custom here," she said, "but I will ask Orme."  The priest himself
+asked Orme, who rubbed his chin.  "One thing at a time is a good rule,"
+he said.  "We in Iceland are not much given to private talks between
+men and women.  Husband and wife is all very well.  And Thorbeorn is a
+peculiar man.  I recommend you to wait for a little.  These are early
+days for new customs."
+
+The priest was vexed.  He did not care to be called a man.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The second summer after Gudrid came to Erne Pillar a fine ship came in
+from Norway with a full cargo.  She came in late in the evening, and
+everybody was on the shore to see her.  Orme knew whose she was and all
+about her.  She was Einar's ship, he said, and overdue.  In the morning
+she would discharge her cargo in his warehouse, "and then," he said to
+Gudrid, "there will be matters for you to see to, which will last you a
+good while.  Fine cloth, Einar always brings, and embroidered lengths
+from Russia.  We shall have you going as gay as a kingfisher about the
+ways."
+
+Nothing was done that night except that Orme was rowed out to the ship
+and stayed drinking with the master till late.  But in the morning,
+when Gudrid went to Mass, she saw men bringing up the cargo from the
+quay; and when she came back from Mass, there, at the door of Orme's
+warehouse, was Orme himself talking to a stranger who had foreign
+clothes on him, a gold chain round his loins, from which hung a goodly
+knife in a sheath, and rings in his ears.  Gudrid, being well brought
+up, looked neither to the right nor left, but dipped her head to her
+foster-father as she went by.  She had on her sea-blue gown, and a blue
+silk handkerchief knotted in her hair.  The handkerchief was there in
+obedience to the priest, who had told her she must not come to church
+bare-headed, even in the summer-time.  The morning being fresh, her
+cheeks were a-flower with roses.
+
+Orme greeted her with a happy word as she sped by him, but Einar, who
+was the stranger present, the master of the ship, looked after her, and
+presently said, "Tell me, who is that beautiful person?"
+
+Orme told him who she was and of what stock.  Einar's colour was high.
+"She is a prize for a good man indeed," he said.  "And many and many a
+man has tried after her, beyond doubt?"
+
+"Many and many a man," said Orme; "you are right there.  But she is not
+for the first comer, nor yet for the second.  I won't answer for
+herself, if herself had anything to say in it--which isn't likely.  But
+for her father the Franklin, I will say as much as this, that he's a
+great man, and knows it, though not so well to do as he was.  And he
+will be hard to come at in the matter of Gudrid."
+
+Einar said no more about her just then, but turned to his affairs and
+was busy all day long.  Then, at supper-time, Orme took him home to his
+house, where he was to stay so long as his occasions kept him in the
+country.  Halldis made him very welcome, and then Gudrid came into the
+hall, and he had a greeting for her.  He was young and fresh-coloured,
+and showed fine white teeth when he smiled, which was often.  He
+produced his bales, presents for Halldis and Orme; and presently, while
+they were all pulling over the things, he held up a jointed girdle of
+wrought silver with crystals set in every square of it.  This he
+offered to Gudrid.
+
+"For you, lady, if you will accept of it," he said.  Gudrid drew back
+and blushed.  Then she looked at Halldis.
+
+"Oh, may I?" she asked.
+
+Halldis, who had her hands full of scarlet cloth, looked at the
+glittering thing.  "It is too good to refuse," she said.  "And why
+should you refuse it?"
+
+"You will make me proud and contented if you will take it," Einar said.
+"It will be a kind action on your part."
+
+"Einar speaks well," said Orme.  "Put it about you, Gudrid."  Gudrid
+put the belt round her waist and fastened it.
+
+"That's a good fit," said Halldis.  "It might have been made for you."
+
+Einar was still looking at Gudrid, and smiling all the time.
+
+"Does it please you, lady?" he said.
+
+"It is beautiful," said Gudrid.
+
+"It ought to be," Einar said.  Then she thanked him fairly, and turned
+and ran away to show herself to the maids in the bower.  Einar was very
+thoughtful for a time; but brightened up when Gudrid and the girls
+brought in the meal, and served it.  He told tales of his voyages and
+entertained the company.
+
+A very good tale he told of a friend of his called Biorn--Biorn
+Heriolfsson--who was a ship-man like himself, and had come home to
+Iceland two winters back expecting to find his father at home.  But his
+father in the meantime had up-stick with everything and gone off to
+Greenland after Eric Red.  That put Biorn out, because he was a man who
+liked old customs.  It had always been his way to spend the winters at
+home with his father, and now here was his father flitted to Greenland.
+So Biorn stood on the deck of his ship, very much put out.  "Shall we
+break bulk?" somebody asked him.  "No," says Biorn, "you will not do
+that.  Let me think."  When he had thought he told the ship's company
+that he was minded to go to Greenland after his father, and they agreed
+to make the voyage.  He fastened down his cargo again, refitted, and
+away.  But it was one thing to resolve upon Greenland, and another
+thing to hit it off.  He had not sailed those seas before, and falling
+in with bad weather, was driven out of his course; and then--to make
+matters worse--there came down upon him with a northerly wind a thick
+blanket of white fog in which he could get no hint of his whereabouts
+and drifted upon a strong current, fairly smothered up.  He knew no
+more where he was than Einar himself could tell them; he lost count of
+days and nights, but estimated that he was three weeks at sea before
+the fog lifted and he saw the stars.  In the morning the sun rose fair
+out of the sea, and he got a bearing.  More than that, he saw before
+him--like a low bank of cloud--a strange coast lying on his starboard
+bow.  He could not tell where he wag got to, or what land that might
+be, but was sure it was not Greenland.  The land lay low, and was dark
+with woods.  The shore was sandy, with hummocks of blown sand upon it,
+covered with grass; the surf very heavy.  He coasted that country for
+two days and nights with a good wind off-shore, but would not try for a
+landing anywhere, being set upon Greenland and sure that he was not
+there.  Other lands he saw, and a great island covered with snow, and
+ice-mountains rising sheer out of the sea--but still he kept on his
+course.  After that he had a spell of heavy weather with green seas
+over him constantly; and last of all he saw another land, on his port
+bow, which he said was Greenland.
+
+A great ness ran out far into the sea, which he made with safety, and
+found smooth water, a town, an anchorage, and a man in a boat fishing.
+Biorn drew alongside, feeling for his anchorage, and laughed to himself
+when the man looked up from his fishing and presently raised his hand
+and sawed the air once or twice.  "Hail to you, father," said Biorn.
+"I thought you would be coming along," said his father.  "You have hit
+me off to a nicety."  Biorn said, "I don't know about the nicety of it.
+I have been seven weeks at sea since I left Iceland, and no man alive
+knows where I have been--least of all myself."  "Be careful of my
+lines," said his father.  "I am in the way to catch monsters, and have
+pots down and out all round me."  At that Biorn threw his head up and
+laughed till he cried.  "A scurvy on your monster pots," he said.
+"Here am I come from beating round the watery world to seek you, and
+you think only of pots."
+
+Gudrid was thrilled to hear of the new lands; but Orme, who knew
+Heriolf, Biorn's father, was tickled to death with the old man's
+quirks.  "That is Heriolf all over," he said.  "And to say that such a
+man could get on with Eric Red.  Greenland is not wide enough to hold
+those two."
+
+But Gudrid held Einar with the most beautiful pair of eyes in Iceland.
+"And what country was it that Biorn found first?" she asked.
+
+Einar said, "I can't tell you.  He must have drifted south of
+Greenland, south and by west.  I believe that he crossed the western
+ocean, which no man has ever yet done.  It is a notable deed--but a
+thousand pities that he made no landing."
+
+But Gudrid still gazed at him, and into him.  "And will you not go
+yourself, and seek out that new country?"
+
+Einar said, "I have often thought of it.  It would be a fine adventure.
+But just now I have another adventure in my mind, which may delay me.
+
+"And what adventure is that?"
+
+Einar said, "I cannot tell you at the moment.  It is not a settled
+thing by any means."
+
+Halldis looked at Orme, and Orme nodded his head.
+
+After that Einar saw much of Gudrid, and used to tell her tales of the
+sea.  He was busy, of course, most of the day, but found time in the
+evenings; and in the mornings, too, he had the habit of going to church
+at Mass-time and kneeling behind her.  She was pleased to find him
+there, and the first time showed it plainly.  After that she was more
+than pleased, but careful not to show it.  They used to walk home
+together, and sometimes did not go the straight road, but went round by
+the frith and looked at Einar's ship lying out at her moorings, swaying
+with the tide.
+
+One day, looking at the ship there, Gudrid asked him again what his
+adventure was, and whether anything was settled.  No, he said, nothing
+was settled; but he hoped it might be settled soon.  "It does not
+depend altogether upon me," he said.  "My mind was made up at once."
+
+"But," said Gudrid, "if that adventure were settled and done with,
+would you not then think of seeking the new country which Biorn saw?"
+
+"Well, I might do that," Einar replied.  "But a man tires of the sea
+after a time, and I have had plenty of it.  I am very well off, you
+must know.  I might set up my house-pillars, and find me a wife."
+
+"But you would not do that?"
+
+"Ah," said Einar, "but I am sure that I would."  She kept her gaze for
+the tide in the frith, feeling it would be indiscreet to say more.
+
+A little later on he told her what the adventure was on which his heart
+was set, and when she had heard it she gave him her hand.  But she told
+him that it did not rest with her--as he knew very well it did not.
+They sat together on the brae in the sun, and her hand remained in his
+keeping.  Presently she said, "If my father says that we may, we will
+go out to find the new country together."
+
+"We will go where you will," said Einar.  "It will be all one to me."
+
+Again she thought, with her face set towards the sea.  Then she turned
+suddenly and put her arms round his neck.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Einar spoke to Orme about the affair, and Orme put on a scared look,
+though he had been expecting something of the kind.  "You will find
+Thorbeorn hard to deal with," he said.
+
+Einar replied, "Hard or not, I intend to come at him, for I love
+Gudrid, and she loves me.  She is worth fighting for, being as good as
+she is fair."
+
+"She is so," said Orme; "but, to tell you the truth, I don't know how
+you will set about it."
+
+"I shall ask you to be my friend in it," Einar said.  "He will listen
+to you sooner than any one."
+
+Orme put his head on one side.  "I don't care much about your errand.
+You will get me into hot water with Thorbeorn.  Don't I tell you that
+he is a great man, an old settler and what-not?  He knows his
+forefathers back to Baldur the Beautiful."
+
+"You are telling me what I know already," said Einar, who was rather
+red, and showed a frown.  "My own birth is no such thing.  My father
+was a freedman.  Well, I couldn't help that."
+
+"If I am telling you stale news, neighbour," said Orme, "it is only
+that you may see what I have to tell Thorbeorn."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," Einar said.  "He is a man of rank, and I no such
+thing.  I grant it.  But I have money, do you see?  I am well off both
+in ships and credit; my name stands well in the world.  And I am young,
+and he is old.  I think I could be useful to Thorbeorn, if he would
+allow it--and I need not tell you I set no bounds in reason upon what I
+would put down for the sake of the match."
+
+"Well," said Orme, "I will go and see him."
+
+
+Gudrid could hear nothing of this until the morning; but then Einar
+told her what he had arranged with Orme.  She now considered herself as
+pledged to Einar, though she was nothing of the kind.  Loyalty to him
+persuaded her of it, and he found that very sweet, and was touched.
+They sat close together on the brae; she allowed him her hand, and
+rested her cheek on his shoulder.  Einar, who was an honest young man,
+began to fear that he was doing wrong to allow it.  But he could not
+resist a word or two for himself.  He told her of his birth, saying
+that his father, Thorgar, of Thorgar's Fell, had been a freedman, but
+had done well since.  "It is right you should know these things," he
+said.
+
+Gudrid said that it was nothing to her; but Einar warned her that it
+might be much to her father.  He went on: "To you perhaps it is enough
+that I love you dearly--and to me it is enough.  But who knows?  Maybe
+I shall not have the right to talk to you after to-morrow or next day.
+Now I wish to say this to you, that I shall never look at another
+woman, and will bind myself to you if you will accept it of me."
+
+She sat erect at that and looked gravely at him.  "You ought not to
+bind yourself," she said, "since I cannot."
+
+"You cannot.  I know that," he said.  "But I both can and will."
+
+Thereupon he brought out a handful of money from his breast and chose a
+gold coin of thin soft gold, with the head of a ragged old king on it.
+He told her where it came from, and how he had had it from a dead man
+after a battle in the mouth of a great river in Russia.  Then he bit it
+in the middle with his teeth, and indented it fairly.  He bent it to
+and fro until it was broken in half; and next he bored a hole in each
+portion, and gave one to Gudrid.
+
+"Now I have tokened myself to you, my love," he said.  "Do you wear
+that upon a chain which I will give you presently, and remember when
+you look at it, or take it in your hands, that I wear the fellow.  If
+ever you want me, you have only to let that half-moon of gold come into
+Orme's hands, and sooner or later you will see me again.  And so let it
+be between us from henceforward if you will."
+
+She took the coin, and closed her hand upon it until he should give her
+the chain, but having it, she could not be to him as she had been
+before.  She sat up straight and looked at the sea.  Her hand was free
+for him; but he did not take it, and she felt sure he would not.
+
+A constraint fell upon them; neither could find anything to say.  Fate
+was between them.
+
+So it was until Orme came back with his news.
+
+
+He had nothing good to report.  Thorbeorn had heard him with
+impatience, and as soon as he had ended put himself into a rage.  His
+thin neck stiffened, his faded eyes showed fire.  "Do you offer for my
+daughter on behalf of a thrall's son?  Well for him he put you forward
+instead of a smaller man.  But I take it ill coming from you whom I
+have always treated as a friend."
+
+Orme had excused himself on the score of Einar's merits--for which he
+could answer, he said--and well-being.  "He has two ships at sea in the
+Norway trade.  His credit stands high on each side the water.  There's
+many a worse man than he well married--and he loves your Gudrid beyond
+price.  There is nothing he will not put down for her."
+
+But that had wounded Thorbeorn in his most sensitive part.  He knew
+that he was ruined and could not bear that other men should know it
+also.  "It is hard that his money should tempt you to insult a poor
+man," he said.  "I am what I am, and that is a man not so poor but he
+can keep his honour clear.  You must think me poor indeed in other
+things than goods when you ask me to trade my own flesh and blood.  Let
+me hear no more of it for fear I may get angry.  It is the case, I see,
+that I rate my daughter's marriage more highly than you seem able to
+conceive of.  I made a great mistake when I left her in your charge
+precisely to avoid what you have brought upon me.  Now she shall come
+home, where she can be valued at the worth of her name and person.
+That is what I have to say to you, Orme."  With that he had looked Orme
+straight in the face, and there had been no more to urge.
+
+
+Einar heard it from Orme, but it was Halldis who told Gudrid the news.
+Gudrid received it in silence, but put her hand up and laid it over the
+token which fluttered in her bosom.  "My pretty one," said Halldis, "I
+blame myself."
+
+"No, no," Gudrid said, "you must not do that.  Nobody is at fault."
+But Halldis thought Einar had been much to blame.  She would have
+comforted Gudrid and made much of her if she had been able--but Gudrid
+would not have that.  She served the table as before, and sat by
+Halldis afterwards while the men talked and passed the mead about.  She
+was pale and silent, but did not give way, nor leave them till her
+usual time.  When she was in her bed she sobbed, and buried her hot
+face in the bolster; but even then she did not cry.  She was always
+impatient of deeds which led nowhere--and crying is a great deed.
+
+In the morning they parted.  "I shall sail as soon as may be now," he
+told her.  "Iceland will be hateful to me if it hold us two apart."
+
+"Maybe you will seek out the new country," she said, with a bleak smile.
+
+"Maybe," he said.  "But it may be you who see it first."  She shook her
+head sadly.
+
+"We do foolishly when we talk of my fate," she said, and then there was
+a silence which was like a winter fog.  She broke it by throwing
+herself into his arms.
+
+"Listen," she said with passion, "listen.  They will give me to another
+man, but I shall be yours all the while.  They might give me to two
+men, one on the heels of another, but it would be nothing.  Do you
+believe it?  You must believe it, you must."
+
+"I believe it," said Einar; "but it is dreadful to talk about."
+
+"No, it is not dreadful, because I tell you it is nothing," she said.
+"You are free to do what you will, and you offer me yourself.  I did
+not like to accept it, because I thought I could give you nothing.  But
+now I know I can.  Tell me that you believe me, and then I must go."
+
+He told her as he kissed her that he believed her--but it was not true.
+He did not believe her because he could not.
+
+Then they parted.  She went back to Orme's house, and he went his way
+along the shore of the frith.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Gudrid did not see Einar again.  Kettle, the reeve of Bathbrink, came
+down to fetch her away, and by now she was behind him on his pad, while
+Einar was far into the fells.  He did not return until late, and then
+he told Orme that he should sail with the first tide.  "Whither will
+you go?"  He said that he must go back to Norway to discharge, and
+after that did not know what he should do.  "I am in heavy trouble over
+the way this has turned out.  At such times a man cares little what may
+become of him."
+
+"Yes, but men get over it," Orme said.
+
+"I think that I shall not.  There is that in her which will prevent me."
+
+"She is like all women, I fancy," Orme said; "very tender where they
+are loved.  They set more store upon love than men do, and whosoever
+offers it to them, it is a valuable thing, and enhances the offerer."
+
+"That is not Gudrid's way," said Einar.
+
+Orme felt sorry for him.
+
+"Thorbeorn will make a marriage for Gudrid, you may be sure," he said.
+"And I dare swear she will be a good wife to the man who gets her."
+
+"It is certain," said Einar.
+
+Early next day he weighed his anchor and went down the frith.  Now he
+leaves the tale.
+
+
+But he did not leave Gudrid's mind, who now had little else to think
+of.  Her father said nothing to her of the reason which had brought her
+home.  He was stately and remote.  Nor did he mention his difficulties,
+which were gathering so close about his house.  But they were common
+knowledge at Bathbrink, and Gudrid heard of little else from morning
+till night.  There was scarcity there, not of provision, but of guests.
+No young men came about the house, or filled the great table in the
+hall.  Other men came, who wanted money, and went grumbling away, with
+voices which rose higher in complaint as they went further from the
+house.  Thorbeorn himself was often away, and used to come back more
+silent and proud than he had gone out.  The winter set in with wind and
+drifting snow.  Darkness drew closer about the country; the sky was
+lemon colour, the fells were black.  It was the time of great fires,
+and long festivals within-doors; but Thorbeorn's hall remained empty.
+
+In the face of such manifest misery the love she had given to Einar and
+received from him shone far off like a winter star, which had no warmth
+for the blood.  She used to look fondly at her token and try to make
+herself believe that his strong teeth had bitten the deep gauffres into
+its edge.  When she succeeded the scene came back to her, she felt
+again as she had when he had been standing there beside her on the brae
+overlooking the racing water.  Her eyes grew misty as she looked away
+into the dark, holding her relic clenched in her hand.  But it was not
+real; these were only dreams of him.
+
+So the winter came upon Bathbrink and lapped it in snow, and love grew
+numb with cold.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Towards winter's end Thorbeorn roused himself.  He had made up his mind
+to face his troubles, and now saw a way of doing so with nobility.  He
+would break up his homestead, sell his estates, pay his debts, and go
+abroad.  That would be at once just and of good appearance in the world.
+
+But he would not go east where he would find a life ready made for him,
+with the same state to maintain, and be no better off than he had been
+at home.  It was for Greenland he intended, a new country with but few
+settlers in it yet.  An old friend of his, one Eric Red, had gone out
+there for good reasons some years ago, and had often sent him messages
+begging him to join his colony.  Now he would do it.  The thought
+warmed him.
+
+He set the business afoot at once, and sold the whole of his estate for
+a good price.  When he had paid his creditors, which he did very
+particularly and with a great air, he had a good sum over and above the
+cost of his ship.  His spirits rose, his taste for splendid hospitality
+revived.  He resolved to give a great feast to all his friends and
+acquaintances, such a feast as should make men say that nobody had ever
+confronted misfortune more gallantly than Thorbeorn of Bathbrink.
+
+It was a noble feast, lasting three days and nights; the greatest there
+had been made within the memory of men.  Everybody came, for enmities
+were all forgotten.  Orme was there from Erne Pillar, and Halldis was
+with him.  Good Halldis embraced Gudrid, kissed her on both cheeks, and
+held her closely, very ready to revive memories.  "And what have you to
+say to it?  And how will you face the hardships of the strange land?"
+Gudrid was very guarded in her answers.  "I shall like to see
+Greenland," she said; "we used to talk about it at Erne Pillar."  It
+was true, Einar had told them of it, and of his friend Biorn who had
+found his father out there after seven weeks at sea.
+
+"And you go out there without a husband?" said Halldis, with sympathy
+ready and waiting in her kindly eyes.
+
+Gudrid said, "Why not?  It is not I who have the wedding of myself."
+She would not meet Halldis half-way, nor any part of the way.  Halldis
+felt the chill.
+
+But Gudrid and her maidens did the last hospitalities of Bathbrink
+sweetly and diligently.  They say that the qualities of the mistress
+are reflected in the maids.  Gudrid was owned a beauty on all hands,
+but it was agreed that her manners enhanced her good looks, as a fair
+setting will show off a jewel.  To see her at her service, you would
+have thought her without a care in the world.  She could laugh and talk
+with one and all, she could be grave with the grave and gentle with
+those who mourned.  But she would not let any know that she mourned
+herself.  Any hint towards Einar turned her to smooth stone.  She had
+that kind of pride from her father, the kind that is tender of itself.
+
+As for Thorbeorn, he was splendid, and the more splendid he was the
+more he felt himself to be so.  On the last night of his feast, when
+the hall was full, the horns nearly empty, and the torchlight getting
+low, he thumped the high table with the hilt of his dagger, and stood
+up in a dead silence.
+
+"Neighbours," he said, "it is time I should bid you farewell.  In this
+good land, where my fathers have lived before me, I too have lived my
+life out, and kept my customs, and good faith with all men; and have
+made many friends, and no enemies that I know of.  As I have served
+mankind, so has mankind served me.  To you, friends and guests, I say
+that we have proved each other and seen good days.  But now, so it is
+that I at least must see some doubtful days.  I have been pinched and
+straitened in many ways.  I have had to consider whether I should stay
+on here in a mean way of life or move out into freer quarters.  Old as
+I am, I choose to go abroad; nor do I think you will blame me if I can
+go away honourably, leaving no man the worse for my departure.  Now my
+good friend Eric Red has asked me to share quarters with him in
+Greenland, where he has a settlement and keeps a great train--and
+thither I intend to go.  And I shall go this very summer, if all turn
+out as I expect, and take, as I hope, your friendship with me.  In any
+case let this feast stand to you as a token of my goodwill to every man
+here."
+
+He stood for a moment looking forth upon the crowded tables, and at the
+women clustered about the doors.  He was much moved by the force and
+plainness of his own words, and for a while every one kept silence,
+thinking that he had more to say.  But he had not, and presently sat
+down in his seat.  That was the signal for uproar.  The men stood on
+the benches and shouted "Hail" to him; they helped the women up, too,
+who waved their hands or scarves, or whatever came handy.  Gudrid saw
+Orme's hand held out to her, and took it, standing with the rest, with
+Orme's arm round her.  In the excitement of everybody the emotions get
+loose.  Orme held Gudrid closely to him and whispered in her ear, "If
+he would let you stay with us, Gudrid, how happy we should be!"  She
+turned him her pale face, smiling into his; but Fate held her fast, and
+she did not even answer him.  "Shall I have at him again, for Einar's
+sake?" said the good Orme, eager to procure happiness for somebody.  At
+that she shook her head.  "He would not have it.  I am sure of that."
+So was Orme in his sober mind.
+
+Meantime the neighbours were thronging about Thorbeorn, pledging him in
+horns of mead and ale.  Many of them offered him stock or provision for
+the voyage; many cried that they would go with him to the new
+settlement.  They would never thole a new master, they said, and fully
+believed it.  Some thirty souls did actually go on the voyage.  This
+was the greatest day of Thorbeorn's life so far.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Thorbeorn's ship lay ready for him in Rawnhaven; but there was much to
+do, what with hay and corn harvest, to get in, before he could leave.
+He sailed, then, fully late in the year--himself and his household,
+thirty or more of his friends beside, his house-pillars and all the
+stock he had left beside.  He was burning to be off, the old adventurer
+that he was, but Gudrid was not of his way of feeling about it.  The
+Icelanders were a race of stoics.  What was to be held them spellbound.
+Far from hindering adventure, it promoted it; for you never knew but
+what Fate intended you to succeed.  But Gudrid had seen how she might
+have been happy, and could not understand how otherwise she could be.
+The last night at home, so she fondly called Iceland, was spent with
+Orme and Halldis, to whose kindness she thawed at last.  She cried upon
+Halldis's broad bosom, and revealed herself.  "You see how it is with
+me now," she said.  "If I never meet him again I shall never love
+another man.  And I see no way of meeting him--and so I must be
+wretched."  Then she fairly wailed: "I might have been so happy--I
+might have been!" till it was pity to hear her.
+
+Presently she took out her token and showed it to Halldis.  "That is
+all I have of Einar's," she said.  Halldis said that she had the girdle
+he had given her.  "Yes," she said, "but this has his teeth-marks in
+it."  Then she sat up on Halldis's lap and looked shyly at her, saying,
+"I am going to ask you something."
+
+"Ask, my child."
+
+"If it should happen ever that I come home again, and want to see
+Einar, will you give him this from me?  He will know then what to do."
+
+Halldis promised.  "He is mostly here every year," she said.  "But
+there's no saying how it may find him."
+
+"It will find him waiting for me," Gudrid said.  "He promised me that."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear," cried Halldis, "to be sure he did!  What else
+could he say or feel at such a time?"  But Gudrid held to her opinion,
+and to her token too.  She said that she should always wear it; and
+Halldis had not the heart to exclaim.
+
+They sailed with a fair wind, having waited for it, and were soon out
+of sight of land; but it did not hold.  Bad weather overtook them,
+contrary winds, driving rain, fog--that overhanging curse of Greenland.
+They ran far out of their course and had to beat back again; cattle
+died, provision ran short; to crown all a sickness broke out among the
+company, whereof near half died.  Thorbeorn kept hale and hearty
+throughout; and Gudrid took no harm.  The wet, the clinging cold, the
+wild weather did not prevent her attending the sick, or doing the work
+which they should have done, had they been able.  She had no time to be
+happy or unhappy, and was never afraid of anything.
+
+It was hard upon the winter; the days were short, the nights bitter
+cold.  The fog, thick and white like a fleece, seemed incapable of
+lifting.  The wind came in short spells, the sea was lumpy.  But one
+day as they were labouring and rolling, the ship straining and cordage
+creaking, Thorbeorn lifted his head, and bore hard upon the helm.
+"Breakers!" he shouted, and the crew sprang to the rail.  A dark form
+seemed to lift out of the fog, like a core of blackness, and clouds of
+sea-birds wheeled overhead with harsh clamour.  They were come unawares
+to Greenland the White, and within an ace of breaking up against her
+cliffs.
+
+None on board knew what headland this might be; but Thorbeorn knew it
+was not Ericsfrith, which he had intended to make.  They rounded it,
+however, without mishap, and had a fair wind when they were beyond it.
+At last they could see a shore with a rough breakwater of stones; and
+presently upon that shore some men standing together.  They cast anchor
+and let down their sails, and before all was shipshape a boat came
+rowing out to them, with a man in the stern in a blue cloak.  The boat
+came alongside, and they were hailed.  "Who and whence are you?"
+
+Thorbeorn told his name and port of origin.  "I hoped to make
+Ericsfrith," he said.
+
+"You have made a poor business of it," said the master of the boat.
+"This is Heriolfsness, a good ten hours' sailing from the frith; and I
+am Heriolf at your service."
+
+Gudrid's heart leapt.  This was the father of Biorn, of whom Einar had
+told her in the days of her happiness.  That seemed for a moment to
+bring Einar within touching distance.
+
+Meantime Heriolf came on board and greeted Thorbeorn fairly.  He was a
+hale old man, with white hair and beard, and twinkling blue eyes.  "You
+will do well," he said, "to stay with me through the winter.  This is
+an unchancy country in winter time, what with fog and scurvy and one
+thing and another.  In Iceland you do better, because you have the
+wind--but here the fog smothers everything.  If my son Biorn were at
+home he could tell you of a new country, my word!  But he's away, and
+no telling when he will be here again.  Now, if you are willing, we
+will be going.  My people will see to the housing of yours, and the
+stock shall be looked after as if it was my own.  But you and your girl
+here will be happy to be by a hearth again."
+
+So it was done.  They found Heriolf a good host, his house well built
+and well stored.  He had a comely wife, too, who took kindly to Gudrid.
+"That's a paragon of a girl you have there," Heriolf said.  "If my son
+were at home I don't know how it would turn out."
+
+"She's not for every one," said Thorbeorn, on his dignity at once.
+
+"But my son Biorn is some one, let me tell you," said Heriolf.  "He is
+a traveller who has seen more of the world than any man living, I dare
+say.  And here in Greenland, you must know, a woman is a precious piece
+of goods.  There was a woman brought in here last summer with a sick
+man who died before he had been a week in bed.  Before he was buried
+there were six men fighting who should be her next.  And two of them
+were killed outright; but none of them got her."
+
+"Would she have none of them?" Thorbeorn asked, though he was not at
+all interested.
+
+"She had no opportunity," said Heriolf.  "For another man came and took
+her away before they had done fighting."
+
+Thorbeorn held his head stiffly.  "But my daughter is greatly
+descended," he said.  "And Eric Red is of my friends."
+
+"All that may be," said Heriolf, "but your daughter is a woman, and
+Eric Red himself no more than a man.  In this country you have to deal
+with people as God made them.  But there is a wise woman in the town,
+and maybe she will tell us what is written in the book of life."
+
+"My daughter is a Christian," said Thorbeorn, but old Heriolf's mouth
+twitched.
+
+"I dare swear she will be wanting to know what the book of life says,
+for all that.  Let me tell you that a marriage is not over when the
+priest has said his say.  No, nor yet begun, maybe."
+
+Nobody could have been more easy to quarrel with than Heriolf upon the
+subject of his son, except Thorbeorn upon that of his daughter; yet
+there was no quarrel.  It may be that Thorbeorn was too happy to
+stretch his thin legs towards a driftwood fire again, or again, that he
+recognised the sweet kernel of his host under the cruddled husk.
+However it was, he let the talk of wise women and the Book of Fate
+float over his head as the spume of the sea passes over the tangle far
+below.  The spume creams and surges, then disparts; but the sea-tangle
+sways to the deep currents of the tide undisturbed.  All well and
+good--but there was a Wise Woman.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Thorberg was the Wise Woman's name.  She was the last alive of a family
+of nine, all women and all wise in the art of reading the days to come.
+It was supposed that she had come from Iceland, but nobody remembered
+to have brought her, nor knew of her origin.  In these days she lived
+by herself in a hut of the Settlement at the Ness, and crouched over a
+peat fire all the winter, singing songs to herself which nobody could
+understand.  In the summer she was often seen about among the pastures
+below the hills, but always by herself.  When she was asked she might
+go out and show herself at men's houses where there was a feast going
+on; if she was treated according to her fancy she might foretell the
+fortune of the householder or of some guest of his, or the upshot of
+the coming harvest, whether of the sea or of the land.  But everything
+must be exactly as she pleased.  There was no telling what she would do
+or say.
+
+Heriolf was the greatest man at the Ness, and kept the best table.  He
+seldom lacked of guests during the dark months.  He was a most
+hospitable man--loving, as he said, everything on two legs.  He had
+never accepted the new religion, and stood well with Thorberg, but had
+such respect for her that he would never ask her to come to a feast
+unless the entertainment were what he thought worthy of her.  This
+year, with Thorbeorn and Gudrid in the house, he felt that she ought to
+be asked up, so sent a man out to invite her, naming the day when the
+feast would be ready.  Thorberg returned word that she would come, but
+made no promises of what she would say.
+
+Immediately, Heriolf set about his preparations and, immediately, there
+was trouble with Thorbeorn.  He did not like it at all.  He took it ill
+that there should be such a fuss.  Thorberg, it seemed, must have a
+high seat; she must be escorted to the feast; she must have her
+particular food, dressed just so; she must be treated with great
+respect, let alone, never crossed, never importuned.  And he a
+Christian!  "Heathen customs!" he said.  "Friend, you shall have me
+excused.  These things smell of brimstone.  I could not be present by
+any means, and don't desire that Gudrid should be involved."
+
+But Heriolf scouted him.  "Hey," he said, "please yourself!  But as for
+Gudrid, let her alone.  Why should she not hear what the world has to
+say to her?  What harm can come to a good girl?  All kinds make this
+world."
+
+Gudrid, whose hair he pulled, as he spoke, in a very friendly way,
+seeing his eyes twinkling and his lips twitching, coloured, but said
+that she should like to be at the feast.  It was true, but apart from
+the truth, she would not hurt Heriolf's feelings.
+
+"Of course you would like it," said Heriolf, greatly pleased.  "I never
+knew a handsome girl yet who did not like to be told about it.
+Thorberg thinks a deal of handsome persons.  You will find that she has
+a wonder-deal to tell about you.  And perhaps we shall learn what my
+son Biorn means to do with himself when he comes home here, and finds a
+flower in the garth."  Gudrid coloured more than ever at this; but she
+liked it.  Thorbeorn waved his hand before him as though to brush
+gossamer from his path, and stalked away with his chin in the air, and
+his beard jutting out like a willow in the wind.  He kept his word,
+though; and took himself to bed when the feast began.
+
+These were the preparations made for Thorberg's visit.  A high seat was
+set for her at the right hand of Heriolf's own, and upon it a cushion
+worked with runes and dragons in knots, stuffed with hen's feathers.
+That had to be wherever she went.  Then she must sit in the chief place
+at the table, beside the giver of the feast, and her food must be seen
+to.  First she must have a mess of oats seethed in kids' milk; then,
+for her meat, a dish made of the hearts of animals.  Gizzards, too, of
+birds, and their livers, must be in it.  There were to be set for her a
+brass spoon, and an ivory-hilted knife with rings of bronze upon the
+handle.  She had a great horn for a beaker, adorned with silver; and
+then her drink was to be hot mead, with spices and apples floating in
+it.  Heriolf saw to everything.
+
+When all was ready, and the guests expected, a man was sent out to her
+house to bring Thorberg to the feast; and when all the guests were
+gathered, but by no means before, in she came.  She was a tall fair
+woman, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered and of large presence.  She had a
+wild, rich, comely face.  She was dressed in a black robe which gleamed
+and reflected light.  It clung to her as if she had been dipped in
+water.  Silver clasps held it under the bosom, and from neck to foot it
+was set with large blue stones.  Round her neck she had a string of
+beads, of red amber, as large as seagulls' eggs.  She walked with a
+staff, knotted with amber; on her head was a hood of black lambskin,
+lined with white.  There was a girdle round her loins made of dried
+puff-balls strung together, and a fishskin pouch hung from that, in
+which were the charms she used in her prophesying.  Her shoes were
+calfskin with the hair outside, and were bound to her ankles with broad
+leather thongs.  She had gloves on when she came in--catskin gloves
+with the hair turned inwards.  So dressed, holding herself high and
+queenly, she stood in the doorway, and said, "Hail to this house," in a
+deep voice, like a bell.  Then she took off her hood and gloves and
+gave them to him who attended upon her, while Heriolf came up to her,
+took her hands and kissed them, saying, "Sibyl, you are welcome."
+
+After Heriolf all the company came crowding about her and saluted her
+as if she were a princess.  To some she was gracious, at some she
+stared as if she could see through them to the wall beyond, at some she
+muttered with her lips and looked about, as if she were uneasy till
+they were gone.  All the women curtseyed and kissed her hand, and
+presently Heriolf brought Gudrid to her.  Gudrid did not kiss her hand,
+but curtseyed and spoke her fairly.  Thorberg frowned, not unkindly.
+
+"And who art thou, my child?"
+
+Gudrid said, "I am a stranger, not long come to Greenland.  I am
+Thorbeorn's daughter, of Bathbrink in Iceland."
+
+"You have a good face, and a fair one," said Thorberg, "and yet you
+will not kiss my hands."  Gudrid coloured and looked down.  "Perhaps
+the day will come when you will kiss them," Thorberg said.  "It would
+be no shame to you to do it."
+
+Gudrid then said, "I will do it now if you will let me."  But Thorberg
+patted her cheek and said, "By and by."  The people thought that Gudrid
+had shown good manners by offering and that Thorberg was pleased with
+her.
+
+They spread the table for the feast, and Gudrid served the guests with
+the other girls of the house.  Thorberg sat by Heriolf, and said very
+little, which was all to the good, since it made men treasure what she
+did say, and find more in it than may have been there.  Then, when the
+tables had been cleared, Heriolf stood up and asked her if she had been
+well-treated.  Thorberg said, "You have given me your best, Franklin.
+No one can look for more."
+
+"Would it please you, then, to reveal certain things to the company?"
+
+She stared before her.  "What do you desire to know?"
+
+"Why," said Heriolf, "we should like to know how it stands with this
+house, and with those who are in it, and those who are of it; and how
+long these plagues of sickness and death are to oppress us; and other
+things which you may read out of the dark, and be moved to tell us."
+
+She thought for a while, looking down the hall above the heads of those
+who stood to hear her.  Just below the dais Gudrid was standing with
+the house-girls.
+
+After a time Thorberg said, "Set me the spell-seat," and remained
+abstracted while it was being done.
+
+Heriolf set up the spell-seat, and then Thorberg opened her pouch of
+magic and took out certain small flat stones covered with writing, and
+some tufts of feathers, a lump of brown amber, a ring of jet, and some
+teeth of a great sea-beast.  All these she laid round the seat in a
+circle, except the ring of jet, which she kept in her hand.  Then she
+sat upon the spell-seat, and said to Heriolf, "Bring me the woman who
+is to sing the Ward-locks."  Those were the charms which had to be
+sung, not so much to invoke the spirits with whom she was familiar as
+to keep away those who were adverse.
+
+Every man looked at his neighbour; the women whispered together, but
+all shook their heads.  In and out among his guests Heriolf ran in a
+great taking.  "Heard any one the like of this, that I should think of
+everything, and fail for one?"  But nobody knew the songs.  In his
+naked bed behind the wall lay old Thorbeorn with the blanket up to his
+nose, and jerked his thin legs, losing not one tittle of all this.
+
+Presently, with Heriolf hot and flustered and at his wits' end, with
+women scouring the kitchen and the bower to find some one not counted
+yet, Gudrid turned round about to face the Wise Woman.  She was pale,
+but her eyes were bright.  "Whisht now," Thorberg cried in her deep
+tones; "heed the fair girl."  The hush then was dreadful, but Gudrid
+said what was in her.  "I am not a sorceress, and know nothing of
+magic, but Halldis my foster-mother taught me some songs which she said
+were Ward-locks and charms."  Heriolf clapped his hands, and Thorberg
+smiled and said, "I believed thee wise when I saw thee first.  And now
+perhaps it is for me to kiss thy hands, or even for the most of this
+company, for thou art timely as well as wise."
+
+But Gudrid looked troubled.  She did not at all wish to sing.  "The
+songs," she said, "were sung idly at home while we sat at needlework.
+They did not mean anything to me.  I thought no harm of them."
+
+"Nor is there harm, my child," said Thorberg.
+
+Gudrid said, "But this is a rite, and the song is part of it.  I think
+I ought not to sing, because I am a Christian."
+
+Thorberg was still smiling, but her eyes glittered.  "It may be that
+thou canst serve the company here, and do no harm to thyself.  Who
+should think the worse of thee?  Certainly not I.  But this is for our
+host to see about.  It is he who made me sit here."
+
+Now it was Heriolf's turn, and he pressed Gudrid hard.  The girls too,
+and all the women who were there, were closely about her, asking with
+eyes and voices.  Gudrid could not resist them, though she knew
+Thorbeorn would be angry, and believed herself that she ought not to
+have anything to do in magic.  But she promised.  The women made a
+circle about her; she thought for a little while, then lifted her head,
+and sang loud and clear--
+
+  "To Vala sang Vrind,
+  The first charm I wind--
+  What evil thou meetest
+  Let drop it behind.
+  Thyself for guide,
+  The ghost is defied--
+  Look forth
+  To what thou shalt find.
+
+  Next charm I call--
+  If despair thee befall
+  As thou goest thy journey,
+  May the Good Folk wall
+  With wings, with wings
+  Thy wayfarings--
+  Look forth,
+  Fear not at all.
+
+  This third charm I make--
+  If the dark thee take
+  On the road thou goest
+  For this man's sake,
+  May the hags of night
+  Do thee no spite.
+  Look forth,
+  My heart is awake.
+
+  The fourth charm I tell
+  Is the loosing spell--
+  Though they bind thee in fetters
+  And cast thee in cell,
+  No walls shall clip thee,
+  The irons shall slip thee--
+  Look forth,
+  All shall go well."
+
+
+The song was to a strange wild air, very beautiful, known to many, of
+whom many had tears in their eyes to hear it again, and sung so well.
+Thorberg sat with her eyes closed, and nodded her head to the beats of
+it.  It made a great effect, and Gudrid was praised by everybody.  When
+it was over, Thorberg, being squarely on the spell-seat, said to her:
+"I thank you for the song, and for the good heart which was in it.  I
+tell you that many beings besides those whom you see have been drawn in
+by the sound of your voice, beings who without it would have passed
+over our heads and paid no heed to us and our concerns.  They have been
+here, they are here now all about us, and by their means I see many
+things clearly.  And first, you, Heriolf, need not fear the death nor
+the sickness which are rife at this time.  They will pass with the
+winter, and return again with another winter; and for a long time the
+winter will be hard upon you men in Greenland."
+
+So much she said to Heriolf, but she had not ended her soothsay.  Her
+eyes returned to Gudrid, who stood just below her.
+
+"As for you, my daughter," she said, "I can read what is in store for
+you as if it was written in a book.  You will have three husbands here
+in Greenland, and shall not go far to get them.  All will be honourable
+men.  One will be a famous man, and one an ugly man; but he will be
+kind.  With all of them you will go great journeys over sea, but they
+will not all last long.  One journey you will go, to a country far from
+here, which will be of the greatest length, and have hardships in it,
+and wonders, and a good gift for you.  But all your ways lead to
+Iceland, and thither you will return.  Out of you will come a great
+race of men, and you shall end your life-days in the way that pleases
+you best."  Then her eyes grew less blank, and seemed able to see more
+clearly.  She held out her hand towards Gudrid, who stood rooted,
+staring up with great eyes.  "Farewell, daughter, and I give you hail,"
+she said.  Gudrid ran up the steps and kissed her hand.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Gudrid's fortune was envied by the girls of the house, who expressed
+themselves freely about it.  "With your looks," they said, "it was to
+be expected she would take notice of you.  But to see so much, and to
+tell you all!"  The poor girl herself, however, took it very hard, and
+saw herself punished for impiety.  She felt as if she was branded for
+ever--the girl who was to kill two men, and perhaps a third.  In her
+mind's eye she could see that doomed first husband of hers, the shadow
+coldly upon him, herself looking sorrowfully at him, seeing him in the
+shadow but not able to speak of it.  Her heart gave a leap of gratitude
+that Einar had been sent away by her father.  It might have been he in
+the shadow.  But would he be the second?  Ah, no, she vowed he should
+not.  Or would he be the third?  Not if the third was to be an ugly
+man.  Then there was the promise of the end: "Your ways tend to Iceland
+. . . thither you will return . . . you shall end your life-days in the
+way that pleases you best."  Could that mean that Einar----?  But after
+three honourable men had received death at her hand!  She shuddered and
+hugged herself against the cold.  Not even the promise of Einar seemed
+fortification enough for that.  Nevertheless, there was comfort in the
+last days.  She told her bedfellow stoutly that she did not believe a
+word of it, but the girl merely stared at her.  Then she said: "I know
+who your first husband will be if he can persuade Thorbeorn.  It is
+Skeggi of Whitewaterstrand."  After that Gudrid had to be told all
+about it.
+
+She told her father too--but not so stoutly--that she did not believe
+it; but in her heart she felt that it must be true.  As for Thorbeorn,
+who had heard it all through the wall, whatever he may have thought, he
+was very indignant, and angry with her too.  "Put such mummery out of
+your head.  We are not Christians for nothing, I should hope.  A
+scandalous hag with her bell-wether voice and airs of a great lady!
+What has she to do with good women, well brought up?  A woman's duty is
+to leave match-making to her parents, and the future to God and His
+Angels.  Who can foretell his end?  Can the priest?  Can the bishop?
+No.  And who would wish to know it?  Ask yourself.  I am vexed that we
+should have fallen upon a heathen house, and much more that you should
+have lent yourself to its wicked customs."
+
+Gudrid excused herself.  "I couldn't help myself.  They are kind
+people.  It would have been ungracious.  And I did know the songs.  How
+could I have said I did not?"
+
+"And who taught you such songs?"
+
+"Halldis sang them," she said; "I learnt them of her."
+
+He had to allow for much that she urged.  "Well, think no more of it,"
+he bade her.
+
+"No, I must not," she said.
+
+"When the time comes, when we are settled by Eric Red, I shall find a
+good husband for you, beyond a doubt."
+
+"Yes," said Gudrid.
+
+"Then we shall have the laugh of these mystery-mongers."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"As for me, I never heard such nonsense in my days."
+
+"No," said Gudrid, looking about for a way of escape.  She could
+neither put it out of her head, nor believe it nonsense.  Fate hung
+heavy on her like a pall of smoke.
+
+She had Skeggi of Whitewaterstrand pointed out to her by her room-mate,
+and recognised him as a young man she had often seen at the house.  Now
+immediately she looked upon him with tenderness, and received his
+advances to acquaintance with such kindness that he conceived high
+hopes and went about with his chest swelling with pride.  But all the
+time he was talking to her, or at her, rather, with the other girls,
+her heart was calling to him, "Do not marry me, do not, do not----"
+which he, unfortunately, interpreted in the opposite sense.
+
+Oddly enough, though every one in the Settlement had heard the
+soothsay, and nobody doubted it, she was the only person concerned who
+took it closely to heart.  Young Skeggi was earnest to have her to
+wife, and asked Heriolf to put his case forward to Thorbeorn.
+Thorbeorn, however, would have nothing to say to him.  Skeggi
+disappeared, and Gudrid had a moment's ease.
+
+The first things foretold by Thorberg came about with the quickening of
+the year.  With the first blowing of the warm wet wind of the west, the
+fogs began to roll away off the land and pile themselves upon the
+flanks of the mountains.  Then, when the earth had warmth enough in her
+body to thaw the iron mail about her ribs, the sickness in the
+Settlement abated.  Men felt the light, and saw whence it came.  The
+sun showed himself, first like a silver coin, then with sensible heat.
+The cattle were put out to pasture, the sheep could move and nibble
+about the foothills.  Hens began to lay, cows to give milk, sheep to
+drop lambs.  Thorbeorn made ready to sail to Ericsfrith, and Gudrid was
+able to forget that she was marked with a curse.
+
+So the day for sailing came, a bright spring day with a soft wind,
+which crisped the waters of the bay and heaped froth upon the stones.
+At parting, old Heriolf twinkled his kind and frosty eyes upon Gudrid.
+"Farewell, my child," he said; "you are a notable woman who will do
+great things."  She smiled, but sadly.  "It seems I am to bring
+unhappiness to many," she said.  "No, no, that's not how I look at it,"
+said Heriolf.  "Men must die, we all know.  But more than one are to
+have your love and kindness while they live--and that is more than they
+ought to expect.  If I were not so old, or my son Biorn were at home,
+we would keep you in the family.  Who wants a long life?  Not I, though
+I have had it.  But who wants a good wife?  Who does not?"
+
+Gudrid said, "To be good is the least I can do.  It seems very easy.
+But to be happy is difficult."
+
+"I never found it so," said old Heriolf.  And so they parted, she
+whither Fate beckoned her, and he to go fishing.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Eric Red, who lived at Brattalithe in Ericsfrith, had been a notable
+man all his life, and a man of mettle.  In Earl Hakon's day in Norway
+he had been a Viking, had made a few friends and many enemies; then he
+had gone out to Iceland and founded a family in the west country, which
+might have endured to this day if it had not been for his headstrong
+way of doing.  But, as before, he made more enemies than friends; and
+when he killed the son of Thorgest the Old, and was pursued for the
+slaughter at the Thing, he found that there was more feeling against
+him than he had reckoned on, and that Iceland could not hold him much
+longer.  By what shifts a ship was hidden for him among the islands,
+and how his friends got him down by night, and rowed him aboard, and
+how he slipped his cable and escaped pursuit, cannot be told here.
+Enough to say that he found his way to Greenland, and chose out a fair
+haven for himself and his company.  When he was settled in, and had his
+town of Ericshaven marked out, and his house built, he felt himself
+like a king and cast about for alliances.  He sent out messengers to
+Iceland calling upon all men who had been his friends to rally about
+him.  Many came, and by the time his friend Thorbeorn had decided to
+join him there was a strong settlement at Ericshaven.
+
+Eric was now grown old, and was very fat.  He thought himself that his
+work was over, but had hopes to see it continued in his sons.  He had
+three sons by his wife Theodhild; the eldest was Leif, who was abroad
+at this time, supposed to be in Orkney.  Leif was a fine tall man who
+took after his mother, and had none of Eric's fiery colour; the second
+son was Thorstan, who was as red as a fox; the third was Thorwald, and
+resembled Leif, but was of slighter build.  Then there was a
+tempestuous daughter, named Freydis, a strongly made, fierce girl, who
+was fated to do terrible things.  She was married to one of Eric's
+vassals, a man called Thorward of Garth, but treated him with great
+contempt and did just what she pleased.  As for Theodhild, Eric's wife,
+she was a Christian at this time, and had taken herself out of
+Brattalithe for religion's sake.  She had built a church in Ericshaven
+and found a priest to serve it; and now she lived in a small house hard
+by and practised austerities.  She was a very stately woman, and held
+in great estimation all over the settled country.  Eric Red was uneasy
+with her, because he believed that she scorned him; but her sons used
+to go to see her.  She had quarrelled with Freydis irrevocably, and if
+she met her anywhere would never take any notice.
+
+
+Thorbeorn was made welcome at Brattalithe and great attention shown to
+his fair daughter.  Women were scarce in Greenland.  Eric's two sons,
+Thorstan and Thorwald, immediately wanted her; but Thorstan was the
+elder and stronger, and soon came to terms with Thorwald.  "My mind,"
+he said, "is set upon Gudrid, and I am older than you by a good deal.
+I advise you to be my friend in the affair, otherwise no one knows how
+it may turn out."  Thorwald said that that was fair enough: "But I
+advise you to be sharp about it."  "Why so?" said Thorstan.  Thorwald
+told him that he would be only one of many.  He named one or two, and
+Thorstan frowned.  Thorstan was a very honest man; he was a good poet
+and a great man for dreams, but slow and heavy minded.  "A man must not
+be driven in such a matter," he said.  "A man should not need it,"
+Thorwald replied.  "As you have spoken to me, so do you speak to
+Gudrid's old iron father.  Hammer him smartly; knock sparks out of him.
+If you do not, some one else will, and I shall have wasted benevolence
+upon you.  If you are not to be the lucky man, why am I to be thrown
+aside?"
+
+This was in the very early days, before Thorbeorn had taken up lands in
+the Settlement.  He was all that summer the guest of Eric at
+Brattalithe, and there was a great deal to do.  Eric and Thorbeorn rode
+about the country, talking of this land and that.  Gudrid fell into the
+ways of the house and made herself useful.  She was taken to see
+Theodhild, and became friends with the stern, lonely woman.  Theodhild
+spent much of her time in the little dark church she had had built.
+Until Gudrid came, she and the priest had had it pretty much to
+themselves, for the people in the Settlement stood by Eric, their great
+man.  But Gudrid went to church with Theodhild, and renewed her
+emotions.  She seemed to escape from her shadow in there.  One little
+twinkling light before the altar shone to her through the fog and bade
+her still to hope.
+
+Then there was Freydis.  Oddly enough Freydis took to her, though she
+pretended to despise her.  "You are one of those women whom men go mad
+about--one of the meek, still women who madden men," she said.  "But I
+am one whom men madden rather; for I hate them and detest their ways,
+and yet cannot get on without them."  Gudrid denied her maddening
+qualities, and denied that she was meek or still.  She assured Freydis
+that she herself could get on very well without marriage.  "I used not
+to think about it at all until I came to this country where, it seems
+to me, nobody thinks of anything else.  The first thing that happened
+to me was dreadful.  It is no wonder if I think about it now."
+
+Freydis wished to hear what dreadful thing it was, and with a little
+pressing Gudrid told her what Thorberg had prophesied.  Freydis stared.
+"Is that all?  You have only to live in Greenland and live to be a
+hundred and you might have as many husbands.  People die here in the
+winter like tadpoles in a dry summer.  Three!  Her moderation alarms
+me."
+
+"But I must be sure of the death of two men!" said poor Gudrid.
+
+"You must be sure of the death of every man in the world," said
+Freydis.  "It may be that you will be glad enough to be sure of it
+before you have done with them.  I am sure that I should be."
+
+That was all the comfort she got out of Freydis; but happily she had a
+diversion of her thoughts.  Biorn Heriolfsson, who had come round the
+Ness soon after Thorbeorn sailed, now came up to see Eric Red.
+
+He was a brisk, vivacious man, with a good conceit of himself, and had
+much that was interesting to say of the new countries he had visited.
+Gudrid was rapt in attention, for every word he said seemed to make
+Einar visible to her, with his bright eyes, his ear-rings, his soft
+eager voice and his white teeth.  Einar now stood for all sorts of
+things besides himself to Gudrid.  He stood for home; he stood for
+Halldis and Orme who had loved her well; and he stood for the days when
+no heavy fate hung between her and the blue sky.  He stood to her as to
+us the song of a lark may stand, when we are shut up within the walls
+of a town.  She would have married him gladly, but for the Fate; but
+she no longer thought of him as a lover.
+
+Therefore on account of all that he stood for--home, freedom,
+loving-kindness, hopefulness--she was enthralled by Biorn's talk, and
+could not hear enough of the new countries which he had seen.  Einar's
+account of what he had done and where been was quite true.  A fair wind
+took him out from Reekness, and he sailed before it until he had lost
+the land for two days.  Two more days it held, then veered to the
+northward and blew down upon them the dense Greenland fog.  He was now
+helpless, and for a week or more had no knowledge of his course; but he
+observed that a strong current was bearing him, as he thought,
+westward.  That might be all to the good, he judged, forgetting how far
+south he had run before the thick weather caught him; anyhow, there was
+nothing to be done except to keep a sharp look-out for land
+a-starboard.  He passed several icebergs and had a touch-and-go
+business with some of them, he said.
+
+At last the fog lifted a little, and a light and fitful wind began to
+blow--from what quarter they had no means of knowing, but it was a
+chill wind.  Biorn guessed it was northerly.  He saw the stars before
+he saw the sun, and got his bearings.  Next day it was fair.  The sun
+rose out of the sea.  The ship was heading nor'-nor'-west.  He hoisted
+all sail, and made brave work of it.  In the course of that day they
+saw land ahead, a long low line of dark, like a bank of rain-cloud.
+Biorn ran on, heading straight for it, but he had his doubts from the
+first, and when they could make out the country better he said to his
+mate, "That's never Greenland."
+
+Sounding carefully, they came within two miles of the land, and could
+hear the thunder of the surf, and see it too.  The sea was like a hilly
+country with troughs between the rollers like broad ghylls, Biorn said.
+He would be a bold man who tried to land there from a boat.
+
+The country looked to be low-lying, with a sandy shore blown into small
+pointed hills.  Behind those, so far as the eye could reach, there was
+a dense woodland--most of it black, or looking so, but with patches and
+belts of red and rose-colour; like flames, said Biorn.  No mountains,
+no snow at all, though by now it was winter in Iceland.  Biorn said, "I
+knew very little about it, to be sure, but knew it was not Greenland
+the White."
+
+Eric asked him why he had not landed.  "How should I land in a surf
+like that?  And what was I to do in the country with my Norway
+merchandise still aboard, and my father God knew where?  I knew he was
+not there--and that was enough for me."
+
+"But, Biorn," said Gudrid, flushed and eager, "that was a new country
+you had found.  How could you pass it by?"
+
+"All very well," said Biorn, "but I'll trouble you to remember that
+Greenland was a new country to me--and my father in it moreover.  And
+one new country at a time is enough, I suppose."
+
+He went on to say that he coasted those flat wooded shores for the
+better part of two days and nights, keeping the land on his port bow,
+but when, as it seemed to him, the coast-line turned westward as if to
+make a great bay, thinking he would cut across it, he held on his
+course.  It was another two-three days before they made land again, and
+then it was the same thing as before--woods, swamps, sand, driving
+rain, or good sunshine; and still no snow.  Now he had trouble with his
+crew, who were for running into the land.  They wanted wood and water,
+they said; but Biorn wouldn't have it.  "I wanted my father," he said,
+"and besides there was abundance of water."
+
+"What you wanted your father for beats me," said Eric, and Gudrid's
+bright eyes sparkled their approval of his judgment.
+
+"A man may want to see his father more than a foreign country, I
+suppose," said Biorn.  "You forget that I have seen a deal of foreign
+countries--Russia, Sweden, Dantzick and what-not."
+
+Well, then they sailed for three days and nights before a spanking
+breeze from the southwest, and ran into the true winter cold, and
+presently saw land for the third time--snow mountains wreathed with
+cloud, snow upon the sea-beach itself.  Biorn said it was an unchancy,
+inhospitable kind of country where his father would never choose to
+live.  It was deep water so that they could come close in.  There were
+no signs of habitancy; but there were white bears to be seen, in
+plenty.  That was an island, he said.  They held on their course, which
+was N.E. by E., the breeze stiffened into a gale; and then it came on
+to blow hard.  They had more than enough of it under shortened sail,
+and shipping green seas every fourth wave.  Then, for the fourth time,
+they sighted land, and a great ness which ran far out into the sea.
+"Greenland!" said Biorn; and Greenland it was.  On the lee side of that
+ness was the very town about his father's house; and the very first man
+he saw was his father, with lobster-pots all round him.
+
+That, he said, was how it had been, and anybody was welcome to the
+news.  As for himself, he was a trader, and had no mind for fancy
+voyages.  Eric said that he might take the adventure up himself, but at
+any rate his son Leif would take it up.  Thorwald said that he intended
+to go if Leif would take him.  "I want to see that country where there
+is no winter.  That's the place for me.  Will you come too, Thorstan?"
+
+But Thorstan was looking at Gudrid and did not hear him.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+Biorn stayed on some time longer with Eric Red, and had some talk with
+Gudrid.  He had had his eye on her from the beginning, with curious,
+considering looks.  After several attempts, swallowed down by himself
+with abrupt decision, he did manage to speak out.  "It was of you that
+Thorberg prophesied at the Ness, I expect," he said.
+
+"Yes, it was," said rueful Gudrid.
+
+He tossed his foot from the knee, and looked at it swinging.  "Such
+things as that make a man thoughtful."
+
+Gudrid bent over her needlework.  "You may be sure that she made me
+thoughtful."
+
+"Well," said Biorn, "it is a glory to a woman to hear the like of that.
+But it makes a man think twice.  Now, I daresay my father spoke to you
+about me, with a nod and wink, as we say?  He is fond of me, is my
+father."
+
+"And you, certainly, of him," Gudrid said.  "You seem to be a loving
+couple."
+
+"He spoke to me about you," Biorn went on, pursuing his own thoughts.
+"He was much taken with you, and seemed to think you were singled out
+for great honour.  And clearly you are.  But I value my life--and so I
+told my father.  And then he spoke scornfully to me, and hurt my
+feelings."  Gudrid found something to smile at in this.
+
+But while she scared Biorn she attracted the brothers at Brattalithe,
+and others besides them.  Thorstan Ericsson was exceedingly shy, and
+would never go into the bower to talk to the girls, nor into kitchen or
+wash-house when they were working there if he could help it.  So he saw
+very little of Gudrid, and had nothing to say to her when he did see
+her.  Yet he loved her deeply within himself, in an honourable way of
+worship, with no jealousy about it.  Thorwald, his younger brother, was
+always in and out of the women's quarters, teasing the girls, getting
+in their way, and making them laugh.  He was often outrageous, but they
+all liked him, and Thorstan trusted in his loyalty.  He told Gudrid
+that Thorstan thought a great deal about her; but she knew that
+already.  She used to sing in the evenings when the hall was full, and
+everybody praised her except Thorstan; yet she knew that he was more
+affected than any one.  She felt his heavy eyes on her, and used to
+think of songs which would please him.
+
+But Thorstan was dumb, and others were not.  One day in the spring
+Gudrid was sent for.  She was in the wash-house, up to the elbows in
+lather and foam, in no state for company.  All the girls stopped work,
+and one said, "A wooer for Gudrid," and another, "Thorstan has found
+his voice."  But they all helped her to make herself tidy, and wished
+her joy.  She went out with all her colours flying.  Her father was by
+the fire in the hall; Eric Red with him; and another man was standing
+there, tall and heavily made, in a red cloak.  She had not seen him
+before.  He was a dark-hued man, with bent brows, rather shaggy, and
+had a black beard.  He kept his head bent, and his hands behind his
+back, but looked at her as she came in.  So did Eric, in a kindly way.
+Thorbeorn only looked at the fire.
+
+She went up to her father and put her hand on his shoulder.  There was
+a short silence--but not enough time for her to collect her thoughts.
+Indeed, she had no thoughts.
+
+"Gudrid," said Thorbeorn, "we think it is time for you to be settled,
+and have here an honourable man who has asked for you.  He is our
+friend, Thore Easterling.  He is well-descended and of good estimation
+with our host.  His family is of Ramfirth in Iceland, and he has a fine
+estate here in Ericshaven.  He has the new faith which we believe to be
+the true faith.  Now we think you ought to feel yourself happy, being
+sure that you have every reason to be so.  It will be a good marriage
+for you."
+
+Gudrid said nothing, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground.  Presently
+she removed her hand from her father's shoulder, let it fall to her
+side, and stood alone.  It was a painful pause, felt to be so by all
+four, and broken presently by Thore himself.  "Lady," he said, "I hope
+to have your good will in this.  I have few pretentions to a lady's
+liking, but believe I am an honest and friendly man.  If you will
+accept of my love and service I am content to trust myself to win
+yours."
+
+Gudrid's throat was dry.  She had difficulty in speaking.  "I shall do
+my duty," she said.  And then, "I shall obey my father in all things,
+as I ought."
+
+Eric went over to her and took her hand.  "I won't deny I shall be
+sorry to see you leave Brattalithe," he said.  "I tell Thore here that
+if my Leif had been at home there's no saying what might have
+happened--but as it is, he's the lucky one.  He will have a sweet wife,
+and owe it to us that she is as happy as she is good."  She gave him a
+swift and searching look, a flash of gratitude in it for his humanity,
+but resumed her searching of the floor.  Thorbeorn rose from his chair
+and said to Eric that they had better leave the pair together--but then
+Gudrid looked wild.  "May I not go now?  Must I stay here?"  Her eyes
+asked so of Eric, but he only smiled.  She caught at her father's
+sleeve.  Then Thorbeorn kissed her forehead and said a few words of
+blessing.  He and Eric went out together.
+
+When they were gone Thore went over to Gudrid and put his arm firmly
+round her.  "I see, my dear, that you are upset by this news of ours.
+Be sure that I understand it.  My belief is, that you will be happy
+with me.  I have a good house, warm and dry.  You will see company, you
+will have your maids to see after; and when we have settled down
+together--maybe before the end of the summer, we will take ship to
+Iceland and pay a visit to my old mother who is in charge of my
+property out there.  Now let me hear your voice.  I know how sweetly
+you can talk--for I've heard you.  And your singing makes me younger: a
+dreamer of dreams."
+
+He seemed kind; his arm was strong and temperate.  She imagined him
+much older than he was.  But she didn't in the least know what to say
+to him.  He waited for her, still holding her close, but she said
+nothing.  So then: "Come, come," he said, "just a word or two"; and
+when she looked up and saw him laughing, she laughed too; and then he
+kissed her.  "There," he said, "that is better," and drew her closer.
+
+"You seem kind," she said.
+
+"Ah," said Thore, "you will find me so.  The fonder I grow the kinder I
+shall be."  He gave her a very friendly squeeze, and she began at once
+to be sorry for this strong, gentle-hearted man as she thought him.
+
+Her face was now against his shoulder, his black beard brushed and
+tickled her forehead.  She was rather breathless, but quite determined
+to tell him her trouble.  "There is something which I ought to tell
+you."
+
+"Is there, indeed?  I thought that you might find your tongue perhaps,
+if I gave you time."
+
+"But I should have found it before," she said, "if it had not been for
+my trouble."
+
+"Well," he said, "and now for your trouble.  Mind you, I've seen a good
+deal of the world, and don't expect miracles out of the church.  So if
+you have had a sweetheart or two, think no more about it.  Bless
+you--do you think I don't know?"
+
+"No," she said, "it's not that.  But it is that I have heard prophecies
+about myself.  I am not a fortunate woman at all."
+
+"Hum," he said.  "Perhaps we had better clear up that.  Now, you come
+and sit on my knee by the fire, and let me hear all about it."  She did
+not decline that seat, but still she chose another.  He sat in Eric's
+great chair, and she brought up a stool.  He noticed that, and approved
+of it.  "This is a girl who is not for the mere asking," he thought.
+
+When she had told him all about Thorberg, he did not scoff, nor laugh,
+nor take it seriously either.  He just considered it, with one large
+hand grasping his beard.  "Well," he said, "some people have the gift,
+there's no doubt, and if your Thorberg had it not, all her mummeries
+would avail her nothing.  You set them up for a deal, I fancy, but they
+are little to me.  I am willing to believe her story, but what then?
+So long as I am the first husband you have you may have twenty when I
+am gone.  Likely enough that you will see to the burying of me.  I must
+be twice your age.  So much for your trouble, my dear."
+
+"It was horrible to me," said Gudrid; "I have been unhappy ever since.
+It seemed to me that I was accursed, and that no man ought to look at
+me."
+
+"But how can they help looking at you, foolish girl, and you like a
+rose!"  That gave her roses indeed, and a good deal more too.
+
+"You are certainly very kind," she said, and he replied that if that
+was kindness, there need be no end to it.
+
+She went away after a time, so free of her shadowy load that she sang
+as soon as she was out of the hall.  She accepted the exuberant
+greeting of the girls with evident pleasure.  Her colour was clear, her
+eyes shone like stars.  They had plenty to tell her of Thore.  He was
+very rich, they said, and a widower.  He had had a querulous and sick
+wife, and had always treated her well.  He was not exactly "near," but
+thought twice about what he spent.  He had a stone-built house up the
+country.  A just man, and one who did not bend his knee to any one.
+Eric Red had often quarrelled with him.  Except Theodhild he was the
+only Christian among the great men.  It was a pity he was so much
+older, with such a great beard.  They wanted to know if it scratched
+you, but Gudrid wouldn't say.
+
+It was all very pleasant, except for one small matter.  Thorstan
+immediately went away, and stopped away for ten days or a fortnight.
+No one knew exactly where he was except Thorwald his brother.  He was
+teasing about it, when Gudrid asked him where Thorstan was.  "I shall
+tell him you asked me," he said.  That made her sorry she had asked,
+but she did not like to say tell him by all means, nor beg him not to
+tell.  It turned out that Thorwald did tell him.
+
+Freydis said, "If you must marry, that is the man you should choose.
+Not a half-skald like my brother Thorstan, nor a pranking pie like
+Thorwald.  You will have a master in Thore, and most women like that.
+He might beat you."
+
+"I think he will not," said Gudrid.  Freydis looked at her with
+narrowed eyes.
+
+"And I think that you are right.  You know how to make yourself
+respected, I believe.  But many women like to be beaten.  I know that I
+should love the man who could beat me.  But he would have to fight with
+me first.  My husband is as timid as a Norway rat.  You don't see him
+here often."  Gudrid had never seen him.  "He comes when I send for
+him," said Freydis.
+
+After that she saw Theodhild at Mass, and went home with her to her
+hermitage and told her the news.  Theodhild said little, but one thing
+she said struck Gudrid.  She said: "You will have much trouble, and
+give more of yourself than you can afford.  But you will leave
+something to give to God at the end--more than I have left."  Gudrid
+said: "It is foretold of me that I shall have three husbands, then go
+to Iceland and live as pleases me best."  "It may well be so," said
+Theodhild.  "Love is all to women, but if they can love God they are
+happiest.  Love of man is more sorrow than joy.  Love of God is pure
+joy.  You will find it so."
+
+Gudrid was young enough to wonder if that was true.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+Thore was very good to her, as he had promised, but he had to be
+obeyed.  Directly he saw the token which she wore, he wanted to know
+about it.
+
+"What is that which you wear round your neck?  It looks to be gold."
+
+She said it was a token.  "A token!  And what kind of a token?"  She
+said she had had it when she was a child.
+
+"Let me look at it," said he.  He held it near to the light.
+
+"Rats have been at this," he said.  "Here are teeth-marks.  Hungry
+rats, too, they must have been.  And that was a good coin of England
+once--and valueless now.  There's the half of a king for you.  That was
+Knut King of England--a rare man I have heard my father say.  And rats
+have bitten him in half.  Take it off, my girl.  You don't want such
+things now."  She thought that reasonable, and took it off, to be laid
+aside.  She had not much feeling about it now, and yet could not bear
+it should be lost.  She put it carefully away in her chest next day.
+
+By and by she told Thore that she had not spoken the truth.  She had
+not been really a child when it was given her.
+
+"I never thought so," said Thore.
+
+"And it was not rats that bit it."
+
+"Rats, indeed!  Never in the world."
+
+Then she told him the whole story, which he took very good-humouredly.
+"So that's it, is it?  And when I take you to Iceland I suppose you
+will call him up with that?"
+
+"Not unless I want to see him," she said.
+
+"Not unless _I_ want to see him, you would say?"
+
+"I think you will be as pleased with him as I shall be," said Gudrid.
+So all went well except for Einar perhaps, whose prospects certainly
+were not enhanced by being talked about.  The stronghold of a lover is
+to be so deeply hid that he is never talked of.
+
+It was the fact that Gudrid was happy with her blunt blackbeard of a
+man.  He was easy to live with, always much the same, and did not ask
+for more than he was able to give.  He was very thrifty, and taught her
+to be so, for she was anxious to please.  He was never jealous, though
+Thorstan had a way of coming to the house.  At the same time, he told
+her one night that he wouldn't have him there when he himself was away.
+He was often from home two and three days together.  "It has a bad
+look," he said.  "The neighbours look pityingly at a man.  I won't have
+that.  Not that there is any harm in Thorstan.  He is the son of a
+friend of mine, and a very honest young man, though I call him dull.  A
+man ought to be able to talk.  I think him hot-tempered, too.  He
+killed a lover of his sister Freydis once, and might as well have left
+it alone.  She could have looked after herself.  Besides, we are not so
+handy with our weapons as our fathers were in Iceland.  Life is hard
+enough in this country without cold steel.  Now remember--" and he
+pinched her cheek--"no men here when I am away."
+
+Certainly she did not love Thore as she believed she had loved Einar
+the sailor.  Thore never made her heart beat, or brought mist over her
+eyes.  But she was happy and proud of her great house and many maids
+and young men.  And she was happy enough to be sorry for Thorstan, who
+followed her about with a dog's patient eyes, and evidently worshipped
+her shadow.  He told her that he went down to Heriolfsness when he
+heard that she was promised to Thore.  When there he had gone to see
+Thorberg.  What did she tell him?  Gudrid wanted to know; but he
+wouldn't answer.  He said, however, that she had told him that he
+himself had the sight.  "I had thought as much," he said, "and now I
+know that I have."
+
+Gudrid became very much interested, but not enough to dare probe any
+further.  Indeed, she asked him not to tell her what he had seen.
+Thorstan looked away.  "I would not tell you even if I knew anything,"
+he said; "I would die sooner."  She felt that she might become very
+fond of this moody and melancholy Thorstan, as a woman readily will of
+a man who, through no fault of his own, seems marked out for
+misfortune.  She could not find that he had any faults.  While very
+manly, and of great strength and courage--for he was untiring at
+hunting, could swim like a seal, and was believed to be afraid of
+nothing--with all this he was as gentle as a woman.  She knew that he
+was a poet, though he would not sing her any of the verses he made.
+She thought to herself, "I could make him if I cared"; and the thought
+gave her joy.  She told herself that if ever she loved a man again, as
+she had once understood love, it would be this man.  And upon the heels
+of that thought came another, which she instantly put away, What and if
+Thorstan was to be her second husband?  She put that out of her mind
+for Thore's sake--Thore's, who had freed her and made her happy.  It
+was odd that Thore, whom she could never love, had made her happy,
+while Thorstan whom she could have loved, it was certain, would never
+do that.
+
+
+In the course of that year the great event was the home-coming of Leif,
+Eric Red's eldest son.  He sailed up the frith in the early morning of
+a June day, and when Eric came out of doors, there was Leif's fine ship
+in the anchorage, and many boats about it.
+
+He had been away more than two years, adventuring greatly; but those
+adventures of his do not belong to this tale.  He had been in Orkney
+for some time, and had fallen in love with a high lady whose name was
+Thorgunna.  He knew her to be of great descent, and that she had the
+gift.  He was much taken with her and she with him, and they set no
+bounds upon their intercourse, it is understood.  When it came to the
+day before he sailed, Thorgunna said that she would go with him.  Leif
+said that could not be, because her kindred would never allow it.
+"Maybe my people are as good as yours," he said, "but yours would not
+believe it, and I have to make my way in the world."  "Think nothing of
+my people," she said, "but take me."  But Leif would not.  So then she
+told him the truth, that she was with child, and the child his.  "If
+that's the case, then I stay here till the child is born.  Him I will
+take, for it is the best thing for you."  But Thorgunna said that she
+would bring up the child, and send him out to Greenland as soon as he
+was old enough.  "I will accept him," Leif said.
+
+He sailed, then, as he had intended, and went to Norway.  There he fell
+in with King Olaf Tryggvasson, and was made a Christian.  The King put
+great trust in him, and when he heard that he was going home to
+Greenland, gave it in his charge to change the people's religion.  Leif
+said that would be a hard matter.  "My mother is a Christian, I know;
+but my father is not, and never will be, and my brothers are of no
+account."  But King Olaf was in earnest about it, and Leif promised
+that it should be as he wished.
+
+Thore and Gudrid went to Brattalithe to see Leif.  Gudrid thought that
+she had never seen so fine-looking a man.  He was about thirty-five
+years old, and six feet four inches high.  He looked as broad as a
+bull.  He had golden hair and beard, and blue eyes.  His face was
+burned to a hot brown colour.  He was frank and open in speech, and
+full of fun and jokes.  No secret was made of his intentions towards
+the religion of the people in Greenland.  He told his father what he
+had undertaken; and he set about it at once.  Theodhild, his mother,
+helped him, and Gudrid made Thore give money to increase the church.
+Thorstan and Thorwald were among the first to be sprinkled, but Freydis
+would have nothing to do with it, and Eric Red said that he was too old
+to change.  Leif took that good-humouredly and laughed at his father.
+"If I were to tell you where was a great store of gold and silver
+coins, to be had for a little cold water on your back, you would strip
+to the skin in midwinter.  But you will believe in no treasure which
+you cannot handle and run through your hands.  Where do you expect to
+go when you die, with all that wickedness on your shoulders?  You will
+come to a bad end, and ask me then to help you.  I know how it will be.
+But go your way."
+
+He spent that summer preaching to the people in the Settlement up and
+down the frith.  Most of the people accepted what he told them, because
+it was he who told it.  Others said that if the King of Norway was of
+that way of thinking it was more likely to be the right than the wrong
+way.
+
+There was another matter very much in Leif's mind, and that was the
+voyage of Biorn Heriolfsson.  He had to hear all about that, and he
+heard it first from Gudrid.  Her face glowed and her eyes showed fire
+as she spoke of it.  Leif watched her and thought her a lovely woman.
+"If you and I were to go out there together," he said, "we should never
+come back again.  But your good man would take it in bad part."  Gudrid
+said, "Yes, he would.  But to go with us would seem to him still worse.
+Yet you will go."  Leif considered.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I shall go, and as soon as may be.  But first I must
+know what course Biorn took, and next I must have his ship to go in.  I
+would not take my own--she is neither roomy enough, nor strong enough
+built for such great seas."
+
+Gudrid had by heart the figures and bearings of Biorn's voyage, for
+first Einar had drawn them on Orme's table, then Heriolf on his own,
+and then Biorn on Eric's table.  She fetched a charcoal from the
+kitchen and drew the map, with all the company crowded about her.  Leif
+was absorbed in it and her eager explanations.  "I see just what he
+did," he said.  "He drifted far south of Greenland, and didn't know it.
+Then when he got a wind he sailed south-south-west, and made that
+low-lying forest country.  Then he steered north with a wind off the
+land, and came into the winter which we have here.  He followed the
+coast along, and then, when it came on to blow from the south-west, he
+ran before it, and made Greenland.  That's what he did.  And that's
+what I will do."
+
+"It is what I would do if I were a man," said Gudrid.
+
+"Good for me that you are not a man," said Thore, who sat by the wall.
+
+
+Before that summer was over Thore told Gudrid that he should take her
+to Iceland, as he had business there.  They would go almost at once.
+
+"How long shall we be there?" she asked him.
+
+He said that there was no telling.  "A year and more, I expect."
+
+Her face fell.  "Then we shall miss Leif's sailing."
+
+"No harm in that," said Thore.  "What have you to do with Leif and his
+affairs?  Enough for you that you have made him go."  He was not angry
+with her; but he thought Leif altogether too fine-looking a man.  That
+was a man's reason--no woman would have reasoned so.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Leif bought Biorn's ship from him that winter, and busied himself
+stocking her with tools, weapons and spare gear for his voyage.  As
+soon as the weather was open he was ready, and then it was a question
+whether Eric Red would go with him.  Eric was in two minds about it,
+old as he was, and extremely fat.  He had been a great traveller in his
+youth, and was averse from exertion in these latter days, but he was
+uncomfortable at home, with no wife in the house, and all his sons
+holding the new faith.  So he wavered until the last minute, and then
+said that he would not go at all.  Leif was not sorry.
+
+He had a crew of five-and-thirty with him, and sailed his ship as near
+to S.S.W. as might be.  She ran for six days before a fair wind, and on
+the afternoon of the sixth they made land on the starboard bow.  There
+were mountains with snow upon them, and much fog; but Leif said that he
+would land in the morning, whatever kind of country it was.  "It shall
+never be said against me, as it has been against Biorn, that I travel
+six days over the sea and leave the land I reach because it is not
+Greenland," he said.
+
+They found a good anchorage, waited the night through, and then rowed
+off in their boat and ran her up on to the beach.  It was a naked
+country of broken rock and shale.  No grass was to be seen, and hardly
+any trees, except a few stunted silver birch.  They walked inland for a
+mile or more to where the snow began, and then saw, as it were, one
+vast unwrinkled sheet of snow stretching upwards into a bank of cloud.
+The ground was all scree of slate and shaly rock.  They saw no signs of
+habitancy, and few tracks of animals.  Then presently they looked at
+each other, and Leif laughed.  "I think there is something to be said
+for Biorn; but although this is a barren land there is no reason why it
+should not have a name.  I will call it Helloland, for such it is." [1]
+Then they returned to their ship, and up-anchor, and away along the
+coast, so far as that allowed, but always keeping a straight course.
+
+They came to another land, lying low in the sea, and sailed in towards
+it.  Here also they landed, but on a shore of fine white sand, very
+level towards the sea, but blown into hummocks, whereon grass grew,
+towards the land.  That was a flat country, and swampy, with trees so
+far as they could see, in some places dense and in others more open;
+but where the country lay open there were the swamps.  "This country
+pleases me more than the last," Leif said.  "The least it deserves is
+to be named.  We will name it after its quality, and call it Markland,"
+he said.[2]
+
+But nobody wanted to stay there very long, and there seemed nothing
+better to do than to get back to the ship again and sail.  Leif
+considered the timber that he saw of little worth to them.  It was
+mostly small wood, and soft or of open texture.
+
+They sailed, then, once more, with a fresh north-easterly wind blowing
+off the shore, and were two days at sea without sight of land.  But
+then they made an island in the sea, and south of that saw the
+mainland, and a great frith striking up into it.  There was no snow
+hereabouts, and the air was balmy and scented, blowing from the island.
+"Here," said Leif, "is a land worth visiting, I believe.  Let us cast
+anchor in the lew of the island for the night; and to-morrow we will
+row up the frith yonder and see what we shall see."  They found good
+holding-ground under the island, and then, as the light was good for
+several hours yet, launched the boat and rowed to the shore.  The place
+lay peaceful in the level afternoon light, with trees softly rustling,
+and birds calling to each other from thickets.  They wandered about,
+singing as they went, or calling to each other to see some new thing.
+Gradually the sun sank and the light began to draw in.  One of them by
+chance stooped down and felt the grass.  There was dew upon it.  He put
+his finger into his mouth; and then he said, "This is a holy place.
+The dew tastes sweet."  They all tried it that were there, and believed
+it.  This filled them with wonder, and some of them walked about on
+tiptoe, as if they had no business to be there.
+
+They slept on board ship, and in the morning very early found that the
+tide had gone down and that she lay on her side, high and dry.  The
+tide went back so far that it was possible to walk from the island to
+the mainland.  As for the frith, it had shrunk to a dribble of water.
+But all this made no matter, so eager were they to savour the country
+which was heralded by so fair an island.  They jumped off the ship's
+side on to the sand, which was firm and white, and ran to shore, and up
+the frith, where the going was easy for a mile or two.  They found that
+it issued from a great lake, many miles in length, and many in width.
+It was shallow at the edges, but in the midst looked to be deep enough.
+On the shores of this lake were fine trees growing, of such wood as
+none of them had ever seen before; flowers, shrubs, birds were alike
+new to them.  In the pools of the river left by the tide they saw great
+fish lying, which Leif thought were salmon.
+
+They wandered about all the forenoon, and when it was time to eat
+something and they went back to the shore, the river was filling fast,
+and their ship was afloat.  They hailed her, and saw one of the hands
+row off for them in the boat.  Leif then said that they would tow up
+the river and cast anchor in the lake, and that was done when they had
+made their meal.  They found good anchorage there and a snug berth out
+of all troubles of wind or water.  Next day they took off all their
+stores, and pitched tents for themselves in a glade, for it was Leif's
+meaning that they should pass a winter there.  He was very much in love
+with the country, and said that in all his travels he had never been in
+a place so little likely to be vexed by cruel weather.  "In my belief,"
+he said, "we should have no need to store fodder for the stock against
+the winter.  It seems to me that there should be grazing here the year
+through--but we will prove that, if you are willing."  Everybody agreed.
+
+In a little time they had established order in their camp, for Leif was
+a strong and wise leader, a tall and fine man of wisdom and good
+manners, and all obeyed him cheerfully.  Duties were assigned to the
+men in order; some were to fish, some to hunt--for they found deer as
+well as birds in plenty--and some to explore.  Leif made a rule that no
+more than half his party should be away at one time, and that none
+should wander so far as that he could not win back by nightfall, nor
+separate himself from hail of the others who were with him.  So the
+time wore on and the seasons changed.  A mellow autumn gave way to a
+mild winter in which came no iron frost, and very little snow.  If they
+had had cattle with them, as Leif had foretold, they could have kept
+them out all the winter.  They found the light very different from
+Iceland or Greenland.  On the shortest day they saw the sun between the
+afternoon meal and the day-meal.  What puzzled Leif very much was this,
+that in so fair a country there was no sign of habitancy.  They saw no
+men, nor any traces of men--and yet it was hardly to be believed that
+such a country was empty.
+
+It was late in the autumn when a great discovery was made.
+
+
+
+[1] York Powell and Vigfussen translate this as Shale or Slate-land;
+and Laing says that it is believed to have been Newfoundland.
+
+[2] That is, Bush or Scrubland.  Believed to be Nova Scotia, according
+to Laing.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+It happened one day that Leif had not gone out with the exploring
+party, but was by the tents expecting it to come home.  When the men
+returned late in the evening he saw at once that a man was missing, and
+a man, too, of whom he was very fond.  His name was Dirk, and he came
+from the south--that is, from beyond the Baltic Sea, from some distant
+part of Germany which no Icelander had seen.  Eric Red had found him in
+his younger days in Bremen and shipped him for a voyage.  Dirk had made
+himself useful, and desired to remain in Iceland.  When it became
+necessary for Eric to leave home, Dirk went with him to Greenland.  So
+it was that Leif had known him since he was a boy, and that there was
+much love between them.  Dirk was as ugly a man as there could well be
+in the world, short, bandy and mis-shapen, with a small flat face, high
+forehead, little eyes, no nose to speak of; but yet he was active and
+clever with his hands and feet.  The men told Leif that they had not
+missed him before the call had gone about to assemble for the return.
+They had looked all ways for him--but no Dirk.  They had called--no
+answer.  There was nothing for it, since it was growing dark, but to go
+home.
+
+Leif was troubled.  "You are good men all," he said, "and yet I will
+tell you that I would rather have missed any two of you than Dirk.  I
+have known him all my life, and grown up, as you may say, between his
+knees.  It shall go hard with me but I find him before another sunset."
+With that they took their meal, and turned in for the night, all but
+Leif.  He had Dirk in his mind and no way of thinking of sleep.
+Instead, he wandered up the shore of the lake in the moonlight, and
+presently was aware of a whooping sound among the trees, as it might be
+of a coursing owl.  As he listened, it seemed to waver from place to
+place, now high, now low; and then in the pause he heard something like
+a chuckling noise; and then last of all a great guffaw.  "There is
+Dirk, as I live," he said to himself, and plunged into the woodland to
+find him.  He had not far to go.  Some bowshot within the forest, in a
+glade, he saw Dirk plainly under the moon, dancing and waving his arms,
+curtseying to his own shadow.
+
+"Ho, Dirk!" he cried out sharply, and Dirk stopped short and looked
+about him.  Leif watched him.
+
+Dirk stared into the dark, then shook his head.  "I made sure somebody
+called Dirk," he said, and then--"But I don't care," and fell to his
+dancing and whooping again.
+
+Leif stepped into the moonlight, and Dirk saw him, but without ceasing
+to caper.  "Dancing," he said, and went on.
+
+Leif went to him and clapped him on the shoulder.  "Are you drunk,
+then?"
+
+Dirk nodded.  "I am very drunk.  That is just what I am."
+
+"Come you with me," said Leif, "and you shall be no more drunk."  Then
+it was that Dirk said, "Let us sit down.  I'll tell you where I've
+been."  So they sat down together in the moonlight.
+
+Then Dirk told him that he had outwalked the others and passed out of
+the forest belt and reached a ridge of low hills.  When he came to them
+he found that they were a tangle of wild vines.  "And I know what vines
+are very well," he stopped to say, "for in my country there is no lack
+of them."  Now these vines, he said, were loaded with grapes, some
+still ripe, but mostly over-ripe and fallen; and in a hollow of the
+rocks he had come to a pool of water wherein the grapes had fallen and
+fermented.  "There," said he, "was my wine-vat, and there was I.  The
+rest, master, you know."
+
+"Can you take me to that place to-morrow?" Leif asked him.  Dirk said
+that he could.
+
+"Well," Leif said, "here is our work then.  We will collect what we can
+of your grapes, and load our ship with timber.  That will fill up the
+winter for us; and in the spring we will go home."
+
+And that was the way of it.  The timber which they got was fine wood,
+and fit for building.  They stored what grapes they could, and having a
+good-sized meal-tub on board, they made wine in it.  They had samples
+of self-sown grain, too, and the skins of animals which they had
+trapped or shot with bows.  When the spring came, they loaded their
+ship and sailed out of the lake into the open sea; but they left on
+shore the huts which they had made, meaning to return.  At parting Leif
+said: "That country deserves a good name, and shall have one.  I call
+it Wineland the Good."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Leif in after days had his name of The Lucky, not for the great country
+which he had explored, nor for what he brought back from it, nor for
+the good passage home which he made, but for another reason altogether.
+It was the fact that the wind never failed them from the day they set
+out until that one on which they first saw plainly in the sea the snow
+mountains of Greenland.  Everybody on board was in high spirits.  Leif
+himself at the helm, and the look-out man was waiting for the first
+view of the great headland beyond which Ericsfrith with its two rocks
+would open up, and a straight course for the haven.  And then,
+suddenly, Leif put down the helm, hard, and the ship veered several
+points off the land.
+
+"What will you do, master?" one asked him, and Leif replied, "Look out
+and see what I will do.  Do you see nothing on the water?"
+
+The man said that he saw nothing out of the common.  "Well," said Leif,
+"look again.  I see a rock, or else a ship--and if a ship, then a ship
+on a rock."
+
+They all saw the rock now.  "Yes," said Leif, "and there's a ship too,
+or a piece of a ship; for there are men on the rock."
+
+That was true too, but before they were near enough to count the
+survivors of a wreck, pieces of the wreck itself, and baulks of timber,
+which they supposed her cargo, came drifting by them; and then
+presently a drowned man with a white face turned upwards.
+
+Leif ran on, as near to the rock as he dared, near enough at least to
+see the men huddled on the ridge of it, and their hands up signalling
+to them.  There, too, were the bows of a good ship rising high into the
+air like a seal.  The rock was a sort of shelf in the sea, and stood
+out some ten furlongs from the great headland.
+
+Leif brought up his ship and cast anchor.  He had the boat out, and
+himself rowed out to the wreck.  "They can do us no harm, whoever they
+are," he said; "but I think they are friends of ours."  Some fifteen
+men were huddled together, and apart from them was a woman in a blue
+cloak, with a man lying beside her, his head on her lap, and a cloth
+over his face.  She did not move as the boat drew in, but all the
+others came scrambling down the shelf to the water's edge.
+
+Leif shouted.  "Who are ye?  And of what country?"
+
+"Thore's people--from Ramfirth."
+
+"Where is Thore?"  They pointed to the woman.
+
+"Yonder he lies hurt.  That is his wife."
+
+"And you are for Ericshaven?"
+
+They said that they were.  "Then you are well met," said Leif, and
+stepped on to the rock.
+
+Gudrid's eyes were great and serious.  Leif came to her and took her
+hands.  "I little thought we should meet again like this."
+
+"We must have died without you," she said.
+
+Then he asked to look at poor Thore.  He was unconscious, and had a
+great wound in his temple, cut open almost to the bone.  Gudrid told
+him that when they struck, Thore, who had been at the helm, was thrown
+out upon the edge of the rock.  One of his men, thrown out also, had
+pulled him up out of the sea.  Gudrid herself had been below, sleeping.
+She did not know how she had been saved.  She awoke at the shock to
+find herself in water.  Then Leif saw that she was wet through and
+almost rigid with cold.  He did not believe Thore was dead, nor did
+she.  "No, no, he won't die so.  He will die in my arms."  So Gudrid
+said.
+
+They took off the sick man first, and Gudrid with him.  Both of them
+were put to bed, where Gudrid, who was now in a fever, soon became
+light-headed.  Leif attended to her like a woman.  It was wonderful to
+see so big a man so gentle and light in the hand.
+
+
+He brought them all in safely, and Thore and Gudrid were taken up to
+Brattalithe, to lodge with Eric until one at least of them was well
+again.  Gudrid very soon recovered, and seemed none the worse, but in
+all her glow of beauty and health.  Thore was much slower.  His wound
+pained him a great deal.  Cold had got into it and inflamed it.  The
+pain made him fretful; he seemed much older than a year and a half's
+absence could account for, and was anxious to get home.
+
+Gudrid wished to go also.  Everybody was very kind to her at
+Brattalithe.  She was a great favourite with Eric Red, who used to tell
+her that she ought to have married one of his sons.  "Then I should
+have been sure that things would go right here when I am out of the
+way."  Gudrid once replied to that that none had asked her, whereupon
+the old man looked slyly about him, and then said: "There was one at
+least was thinking of you--and so he is now."
+
+She knew that too well.  Thorstan was consumed by love, and must always
+be with her if he could.  She was gentle with him, as she was with
+everybody, and had to own to herself that it was Thorstan who now
+possessed her thoughts.  That may have been going by contraries, for if
+Leif paid her nothing but the good-humoured civility he had ready for
+everybody, Thorstan, on his part, seemed afraid of her, and was
+speechless in her company.  But there's all the difference in the world
+between a man completely easy in your company and one completely
+uneasy.  Leif was a young giant, the best-tempered giant in the world;
+but it was clear to Gudrid that he had other things to think about
+besides love.  He was full of the exploration he had made, determined
+to get more of the good timber over, and with more than half a mind to
+go out and settle in Wineland.  Dirk made wine of the grapes which they
+had brought back.  There was a great feast, and everybody got very
+drunk.  If Eric Red had not died and left the Greenland settlement on
+his hands there is little doubt but Leif would have colonised Wineland.
+
+Meantime, Thorwald, the third of the brothers, was on fire with the
+thought of going.  He said that he should go out next spring if Leif
+would let him have his boat.  Thore--to the surprise of all--said that
+he would go too, but nobody seemed to want him.  Leif said: "I don't
+think you a lucky man, Thore.  And I don't think your wife will care
+about so long and rough a voyage, seeing what you made of her last."
+The laugh went against Thore.
+
+"Gudrid shall stay with her father," said he; but Gudrid said, "I shall
+go if you do."  Thorstan's face fell, and Eric Red burst into a great
+shout of laughter.  "Oh, sour face," he cried out, "let us hear what
+you have to say about all this."
+
+Thorstan was very hot, but he answered his father.  "I think that
+Gudrid should not go, nor Thore either"--which made Eric chuckle.
+
+When he was with her the next day, after a long time of brooding,
+Thorstan said that he hoped she would not go to Wineland.
+
+"I must go if Thore goes," she said over her needlework.
+
+"If Thore goes, I shall go myself," Thorstan said after a pause.
+Gudrid looked up, but said nothing.
+
+"He is not a lucky man--that is to be seen," Thorstan said then.  "And
+he has no great knowledge of the sea, and is moreover infirm.  It would
+come to this, that he would hurt himself, and you would have the care
+of him as you did upon the rock out beyond the head."
+
+She answered him gravely.  "It may be as you say, that he is not lucky.
+Indeed, I know it too well.  For it was told me before ever I saw or
+heard of him, that he would die before me."
+
+Thorstan was now strongly moved.  He wrung his hands together.  "I beg
+you to tell me just what was said about that."
+
+She coloured deeply.  "No, I cannot tell you."
+
+But Thorstan said: "I know what it was.  It was said that you would
+have two husbands.  Was it not so?"
+
+She could not tell him the truth; so she said, "Yes."  Then Thorstan
+said in a voice which did not sound like his, "That is another reason
+why I must go."  And then they looked at each other for a measurable
+space of time--and then Thorstan got up and left her.
+
+When they met again he was as he had always been before; but Gudrid was
+frightened, and insisted on going home to Stockness.  It was hard to
+persuade Eric Red to let her leave him.  He had grown very fond of her,
+and the more so because he hated his own daughter Freydis.  But Gudrid
+held to her determination, and won her own way.  At parting old Eric
+took her in his arms.  "I am loth to let thee go, dear child," he said,
+"and afraid lest I lose thee altogether.  But thou art between two old
+men who love thee, and Thore has the first claim.  Promise me this,
+that if he die before me thou wilt come back to Brattalithe and be a
+daughter to me."
+
+"Yes," Gudrid said, "I promise you that."
+
+"Right," said old Eric.  "Then I shall live to see thee again."  With
+that he kissed her and let her go.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+Thorwald told Leif that he had been too faint-hearted in his
+explorations of Wineland.  "You were bolder than Biorn, I grant you,"
+he said; "but you only nibbled at the rind after all.  I promise you I
+will dig down deeper into the meat."
+
+"Dig," said Leif, "dig by all means.  But look that you don't dig your
+grave.  I saw no men the length and breadth of the land; and yet it is
+unreasonable to think that no men have been engendered to live in such
+a fine and fruitful country.  If our father were not so old and hard to
+move, I tell you I should be for cutting adrift from Greenland and
+settling out there.  But then I would go in a larger way than you
+intend.  I would take a wife first of all----"
+
+"So would Thorstan, our brother, if he could get her," said Thorwald.
+
+"But he cannot get her," Leif said, and then Thorwald, "He won't move
+from her until he does get her."
+
+Leif said: "He will go if Thore takes her out with you.  But never mind
+all that.  You will need a stock of cattle if you are for settling, and
+a strong body of men.  It is not the way of our people to live in tents
+and eat only of the beasts that we chance to take.  We are too fond of
+the earth to care to live without what she can give us.  And if by
+incessant toil you win a sustenance out of this frozen land, consider
+what you could do in Wineland, where there is no frost, and but a
+sprinkling of snow, and where the soil is four feet deep, or double
+that for all I know."
+
+"You are talking of one thing, and I thinking of another," Thorwald
+said.  "Time enough to settle when I have discovered the country for
+you.  That's what I mean to do."
+
+
+Leif helped his brother with a ship and good advice; and Thorwald
+sailed west in the spring with a sufficient crew.  Thore did not go;
+for that winter there had been a great deal of sickness, and old
+Thorbeorn took it badly, and died of it.  Thore himself had the
+sickness, and Gudrid nursed him through it; but he was not fit for a
+long voyage.  And Thorstan would not go either, though he kept away
+from Stockness, and saw nothing of Gudrid.  Thorwald would have been
+glad of his help, for Thorstan was very strong and a man who could be
+depended upon; but he saw the trouble in his eyes and forbore to urge
+him.  It came to this, then, that Thorwald was in sole command.  He was
+young and full of spirit; he did not doubt himself the least in the
+world: but Leif doubted him, and threw away much sound advice upon him.
+
+They sailed out of the frith one fine afternoon, and were lost to
+sight.  They had a prosperous voyage throughout, and no trouble in
+picking up the Island of Sweet Dew, the river and the lake.  There, in
+a glade of the forest and in full view of the lake, they saw the booths
+still standing, which Lief and his men had set up.  They were intact,
+the bolts seemingly not drawn, and not much the matter with the goods
+within, but what fresh air and sunlight could amend it.  They spent the
+better part of six weeks in and about those shores, but then, leaving a
+garrison at the booths, Thorwald and the rest of the crew went far and
+wide over the land, travelling mainly by boat up the great river which
+fed the lake on the west.  They did not return till late in the autumn.
+
+They reported to their friends that so far as they had been the forest
+land extended, with timber in it of incredible size and height.  It
+increased in density the further they went, and the country all level,
+with no mountains to be seen.  In the river were many shallows, and
+islands too; the shores were white sand and firm to walk upon.  They
+had met with few animals, and no signs of men at all.  Thorwald, who
+was unaccustomed to a forest country, said that he should never settle
+there, and that he should go further north, where a man might perhaps
+see where he was going.  But they stayed out the winter where they were.
+
+In the spring they made their preparations to depart.  They sailed east
+in the first place, but always north of the land, but encountered rough
+weather off a great headland which drove them on to the beach and broke
+the ship's back.  That gave them a great deal of work, and involved a
+long stay while they mended her.  There was abundance of timber, and of
+good quality, and they were well stocked with tools; but there was much
+building to be done before they could get at their work, and it took
+them the best part of the summer.  But they were away about the time of
+harvest, and still sailing north, and being east of the mainland, the
+country appeared to grow more open, the trees were sparse, and they
+could see hills to the far west of them.  So presently, when there
+opened out to them the mouth of a great frith, Thorwald sailed up it
+some distance till he came to a place where there were bluffs standing
+up sheer in the water, and beyond a headland a broad bay.  Thereabouts,
+standing close inshore he berthed his ship, and was able to run out
+gangways and walk from ship to land.  He himself with a party went into
+the country to look about them.  It was fine open land, with a good
+deal of wood growing on it, but well-watered and with pasture of fine
+quality.  "This country suits me," Thorwald said.  "I shall stay here
+and make a homestead in it."  As it turned out he spoke more truly than
+he thought for.
+
+On their way back to the ship they struck the frith nearer to the mouth
+than where the anchorage was.  They jumped down the cliffs to the
+beach, and in the very act to jump Thorwald saw something move between
+two hummocks of sand.  He collected his men together and advanced
+quietly.  There behind the hummocks they saw men.  Three hide-boats lay
+at the water's edge.  There were three men to each.
+
+Thorwald said, "We must rush upon them suddenly.  Let each of us make
+sure of one man."  There were twelve men with Thorwald, counting
+himself.
+
+The men, who were short and very dark, with black hair, in which were
+feathers, had bows with them; but Thorwald gave them no chance of using
+them.  At a signal his party sprang with cries from behind the
+hummocks, and fell upon them.  Three fell at once; the others took to
+the water and were slain there, all but one.  He, as he went, slid out
+a boat, and scrambling in, made off at a great pace, and was soon out
+of sight behind the cliffs.  Thorwald took the hide-boats and the
+weapons, but left the dead men where they lay.  Then he went back to
+the ship, uneasy, thinking what he had better do.
+
+It was everybody's advice that they should seek an anchorage further
+from the shore--and that they did.  Setting a watch, they went to bed.
+Nothing disturbed them until the grey hour of the morning; but then the
+watchman called loudly to Thorwald: "Thorwald, Thorwald, arm yourself,
+and come up!"  Thorwald leapt to his feet and ran out to look.  The
+water was very smooth and still, but listening intently, he could hear
+countless paddle-strokes; and by and by in the mist the water appeared
+to be moving, so many and close together were the boats, and so
+shadowy-grey the men in them.
+
+"Out with your war-wall," Thorwald cried, and all the crew, now wide
+awake, obeyed him.  The war-wall was run up and made fast.  Every man
+took spear and shield and stood behind it, ready for the worst.
+
+The natives came within easy shooting range and rained showers of
+arrows at the ship.  They did not venture to get at closer quarters,
+but held on until they had shot all their arrows; then made off with
+cries.  The Icelanders looked at each other, and Thorwald, who was very
+pale, said, "Is any man here wounded?"  They told him No.  Then
+Thorwald, smiling rather queerly, said: "There slipped in an arrow
+between the rails of the board and my shield and struck me under the
+arm.  You shall take it out, one of you, but I declare it my
+death-wound.  I feel the venom working in me; and now I see how wisely
+I spoke when I said that my homestead should be out yonder.  So it will
+be, but a smaller one than I thought to have put up.  Now," he said,
+lying down upon a skin which they had spread for him, "pull me out this
+accursed dart, and listen to what I say.  You shall bury me there where
+my homestead is to be, and put up a Cross over me.  For though I am not
+long christened I know that I belong to the true faith.  Call that
+place Crossness in memory of me, and when you go home tell my people
+where I lie, in case any of them come out and are minded to see if I
+need anything."
+
+He bore the pulling out of the dart with great cheerfulness, and
+composed himself for his end.  The poison worked swiftly.  He was soon
+discoloured, and rambled much in his talk.  Towards the end they had to
+hold him, and at sunset he died.
+
+Everything was done as he had ordered it.  They dug him a grave, rather
+than piled a cairn about him as the custom had always been; but sat him
+up in it with his weapons, thinking that more honourable.  There were
+no Christians among them to say any prayer over the grave; but they
+made a great Cross and carved runes upon it.  Then they went back to
+the ship and got the anchor up, being ill-disposed to stay there
+another day.  The night passed without attack, and by daylight they
+rowed out of the frith, and out to sea.  They beat their way back to
+Eric's booths in Wineland and found them unmolested.  There they
+remained for the autumn and winter following; and then went home to
+tell Eric Red and Lief the fate of young Thorwald.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Thorbeorn of Stockness died of the winter sickness the winter before
+Thorwald sailed for Wineland.  Thore himself had been very sick too,
+but he recovered and was almost himself that summer.  Not altogether
+so, for he had lost his lightness of heart, and with that his decision
+and blunt common sense.  Gudrid, who had fought, as it seemed to her,
+against fate, and prevailed, was unhappy that he should care so little
+to be with her.  She did not know that he avoided her.  But it was so.
+He spent most of his time at Brattalithe, where he had taken a great
+fancy for Thorstan.  He did not tell her, and Gudrid did not know, what
+he and Thorstan could have to say to each other--but the two were great
+friends.  The fact of the matter was that Thore had now got it into his
+head that Gudrid had cast a spell upon both himself and Thorstan, and
+that the prediction concerning her was less prophecy than a gift of
+magic power.  He found that Thorstan would let him talk about his hard
+fate by the hour together--nay, more, he found that Thorstan did not at
+all avoid being cast in the same lot.  Thorstan, indeed, was quite open
+about it.  "I have so much love in me for Gudrid," he said, "that you
+may say whatever you please about her to me, and I shall hear you
+gladly.  Talk evil of her, sooner than not talk at all.  I shall never
+believe you, but I shall hear her name, and name her myself.  That will
+be enough for me."  So Thore grumbled away about his troubles, and
+Thorstan listened to him.
+
+He himself saw Gudrid seldom, because he believed that it made her
+uneasy to have him there.  Nevertheless he prevailed upon Thore to
+bring her to Brattalithe very often; and when she was there he would
+take himself off cheerfully to work about the estate.  Eric Red always
+made much of her, and even Freydis liked her well enough.  She was the
+only woman for whom Freydis had a civil word.  Freydis used to frown
+upon her, with her arms folded under her bosom.  "You have soft ways,"
+she said, "and can make men do as you want; but all that is nothing to
+me.  I see that you are made of steel underneath, for all that.  I see
+that you are no fool, and no doll.  One of these days you will fall in
+with a man worthy of you, and then I should like to see the pair of you
+at work."
+
+Another time she said, "Good for you, Gudrid, that you have no child."
+
+Gudrid said, "That is not my opinion.  I wish with all my heart I had."
+
+"Wait," said Freydis, "until you have a man for a mate."  But that made
+Gudrid's eyes bright.
+
+"You must not scorn my husband to my face," she said.
+
+"Pooh!" said Freydis; "he's not here for long."  Then Gudrid turned
+pale, and grew very grave.
+
+"You know that, then?"
+
+"Why," said Freydis, "it is common knowledge.  We have all had to do
+with Thorberg.  She has the second sight."
+
+"That is dreadful to me," Gudrid said, but Freydis took it easily.
+
+"You are woman enough to bear what you must bear," she said.  "One of
+you must die before the other.  I hope you don't want to share graves
+with such an old man as Thore?  Well, then, suppose it had been you
+that were to die first--do you suppose that Thore would have left you
+for some other girl?  What do you take him for?  Not he.  He's man
+enough to have his pleasure.  Trust him for that."
+
+Such was Freydis, who treated her own husband with a high hand, and
+sent for him when she wanted him.
+
+Freydis spoke of the marriage of Thorstan and Gudrid as of an appointed
+thing.  "You will suit each other," she said.  "There is good mettle in
+Thorstan."
+
+Gudrid could say nothing to that.  The fate hung heavy upon her.  She
+felt that she was killing Thore, and had the knife in readiness with
+which to kill--not Thorstan but herself.  For she knew that she had
+given Thorstan her heart, and that his death would be more certainly
+her own.
+
+Meantime, with a dreadful fascination, she watched the doom settling
+like a storm about her husband Thore.  She only saw it; he himself, now
+that he was better, was unconscious of anything impending.  He talked
+hopefully of what he should do when Thorwald came home with news of
+Wineland, having forgotten his dark commerce with Thorstan.  But
+Thorstan had not forgotten, and seemed to be waiting, like a raven on a
+rock, until he should be dead.  Gudrid, who was fanciful, saw herself
+and him in that guise--silent and watchful, each on a rock, made
+patient by certainty.  All this was terrible to her, and made her old
+before her time.  She was not more than three-and-twenty even now.
+Thorstan avoided her, which made matters no better, but worse, rather;
+for she knew why he did it, and felt spotted, and longed to see him,
+and felt that she was accursed.
+
+So life drew along for that summer and autumn; and then the long
+Greenland winter began, with the dark and the clinging, frozen fog.
+Thore seemed to make no stand against it, but took to his bed, from
+which Gudrid knew he would never rise.  She waited on him hand and
+foot; he lay there watching her with his aching eyes, and wounded her
+to the heart.  He hardly ever spoke, and seldom asked for anything.
+Thorstan used to come up most days to ask how he did.  Gudrid knew
+quite well when he was on the road, and would tell Thore.  "Here is
+Thorstan Ericsson coming.  Will you not see him?"
+
+"Nay, nay, not yet," was Thore's answer.
+
+Then there came a day when, being very ill, and nearly blind with
+fever, Thore asked to see Thorstan.  So Gudrid opened the door to him,
+and her colour came back to her when she said, "Thore has asked for
+you.  Come in, then."
+
+Thorstan, glowing in his health and strength, came into the hall.
+Gudrid took his furs from him to dry them by the fire, for the fog was
+frozen thick upon them.
+
+Thorstan sat on the edge of the bed, and asked Thore how he did.  "I do
+badly," said Thore, "but before long it will be better with me."
+Gudrid was turning away when he said to her, "Nay, do you stop here.  I
+shall need you."  So she stood where she was, a little way from the
+bed, half dreading and half glorying in what was to come.
+
+Thore shut his eyes and seemed to wander in sleep.  They heard him
+talking very fast to himself--counting the same things over and over
+again, and always failing at a certain number.  They thought he was
+counting sheep--but it was salmon in a net.  Thorstan watched him
+attentively, while Gudrid stood in a spell; but presently Thorstan got
+up and fetched a stool for her to sit upon.  She could not look at him
+to thank him.  So the time passed in silence, broken only by the
+feverish whispering of the sick man.  The thoughts of the man were
+deeply upon the woman, and the joy of her nearness made his heart beat.
+As for her thoughts, if there was no joy in them, there was great
+content, and a sense of peace which she had not known for a long while.
+She thought that a word from him might have broken down her peace.
+"What need of speech between us two?" she thought.  "I would live with
+him and know all his thoughts, and tell him all mine without speech at
+all."
+
+Presently Thore woke up with a start and asked what time it was.  "It
+is late," Gudrid said.  "I will bring you your broth, and maybe you
+will sleep a little."  She turned away to the fire, but Thore said
+sharply, "Stay; there is no need for broth now."  Then he said, "Are
+you there, Thorstan?  I cannot see you."  Thorstan said, "Here I am."
+
+Thore spoke again.  "Take the hand of Gudrid, and tell me that you have
+it."  He faltered for a moment, but then looked at Gudrid, and called
+her with that look.  She went over and gave him her hand.
+
+"Is it done?" said Thore.
+
+"Yes, it is done," he was told.
+
+"Her father was too quick when he married her to me, and you, maybe,
+were over-slow," Thore said.  "She would have married you at first if
+you had asked her.  Now you must make the most of your time, for it
+won't be long.  And I knew what the matter was between you from the
+first, but in those days I loved her dearly and could not let her go.
+Now do you two be married soon, and take it not amiss with me that I
+have outstayed my time."
+
+"You do wrong to speak so," Thorstan said.  "Gudrid has been faithful
+and loving to you; and it is no fault of hers that she knew how it
+would turn out."
+
+"No, no," said Thore.  "She has been good to me."
+
+"Now I will tell you," said Thorstan, "that I have the second sight
+myself, and know what my fate is, and that she must take a third
+husband.  But if it were my fate to die the day after my wedding with
+Gudrid, I would wed her if she would take me.  You, Thore, are dying a
+Christian.  See to it, then, that you do not die with hard judgments of
+Gudrid in your heart."
+
+Thore lay still, breathing very short.  They believed he was struggling
+with his thoughts.
+
+Presently he called her, and she went to him, and kneeled by the
+bedhead, and put her cheek against his.  He lay very still, and she
+remained patiently waiting.  So then he had a great convulsion, and
+struggled in it; and then turned violently in his bed and sat up.  He
+saw Gudrid kneeling, and smiled at her.  It was as if he had newly
+awoken out of sleep, and was himself again as she had first known him.
+She, as if knowing his mind, leaned towards him.  He kissed her
+forehead, and lay down again.  In a few moments more he was dead.
+
+When they had laid him out, and lighted tapers about him, Thorstan
+said: "Do you now go and sleep, and I will sit up with him."  She asked
+with the eyes that she might stay, but he would not have it.  So she
+went away and made a bed by the fire, and slept long.  He did not touch
+her, would not look at her.  They neither kissed when they parted, nor
+at all until Thore was buried.  But after that, when she was at
+Brattalithe, and he found her there, he took her in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+There were many things about her marriage with Thorstan which she did
+not understand at the time--Thorstan's urgency for it was one, a kind
+of feverish haste about getting through with preliminaries; and another
+was his opposition to living anywhere but at Brattalithe.  He would not
+go to her father's house, nor to that which had been Thore's, and which
+was now hers for life.  He put a reeve in each of them and took her to
+Brattalithe.  Afterwards she understood everything, and was confounded
+by her former blindness; but it is the truth that Thorstan's love for
+her was of a sort to forbid thinking.  She was carried off her feet and
+out of her common sense by his passion.  He, so dumb and still a man,
+was by the touch of passion set on fire.  And fire caught fire.  The
+pair of them lived in each other, and the world seemed empty of all
+other men and women.
+
+As for Thorstan himself, knowing what he knew, it is not wonderful that
+his love burned at white heat.  Passion with him was in a trap and
+fighting for an hour of life.  What is wonderful is, that he never
+betrayed in any other way that he had the end in sight from the
+beginning.  It was "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" with
+him.  But Gudrid did not see it.  She was too happy to see it.  Her
+doom was flooded out by sunlight, as it were.
+
+He made songs for her from the time of Thore's death onwards, and in
+these his secret might have been revealed if she had been able to read
+below the surface.  He sang her one night as she lay in his arms the
+terrible Song of Helgi and Sigrun.  Certainly Death and Love embrace in
+that.
+
+
+Helgi was a Wolfing, the son of Sigmund and Borghild.  He was forecast
+a hero by the Norns, and at fifteen slew Hunding, who had slain his
+father.  The sons of Hunding gathered themselves--Alf and Eywolf,
+Hiorward and Haward--and the hosts met in the plain under Lowfell.
+There was war in heaven while those armies made it on earth.  Out of
+the lightning flare came the Valkyrs, daughters of Odin, choosers of
+the slain.  They rode grey horses; they wore helms and coats of mail;
+their spear-heads gleamed like fire.  Helgi sat by the Eagle Rock and
+cried out to them to stay.  And one--it was Hogni's daughter,
+Sigrun--turned him her fire-hued face and answered: "Other business
+have we in hand than to pledge you in horns.  My father has plight me
+to King Hodbrord, whom I hold no better than the son of a cat.  Yet he
+will come for me soon unless you deliver me."  Then love grew between
+them as they looked at each other; and Helgi said: "Fear not Hodbrord,
+for I will meet him unless I am dead."
+
+King Hodbrord called up his levies and mustered a host.  The ships
+flocked about Brandey, but still he waited, and warriors came to him,
+hundreds of them, from Hedinsey and other islands.  Then said Helgi to
+Hiorleif, "Is the host called?"  And Hiorleif nodded his head and
+pointed them out over sea, high-beaked ships, hemmed with shields,
+thick on the water like wild swans.  They fought in a storm, and the
+waves played their part in the battle.  The waters drank as much blood
+as the swords; from on high Sigrun the Valkyr guided the warriors of
+Helgi.
+
+Now King Hodbrord stood in the gate of his house, hooded and helmed,
+his spear in his hands.  He saw far off in the valley horsemen riding
+with speed, whose cloaks flew out in the wind they made.  Who come
+here?  Whose is the host?  And Godmund, his housewife, told him of the
+sea-fight, and that the Wolfings were coming against his house.  Then
+looking, he saw the helm-bright Valkyrs coursing the air, keeping pace
+with the horsemen below.  They met in a crash by the Wolf rock; the
+swords flamed, the spears were like flying stars.  Over the dead
+Hodbrord Sigrun the Valkyr cried in triumph, "Never for your arms is
+Sigrun of Sevafell," and as she spoke the arm of Helgi the hero held
+her fast.
+
+Their love was fierce, but it was short.  Helgi is dead of countless
+wounds, and laid in his barrow with his weapons beside him.  Sigrun of
+Sevafell keeps the house; she sits by the fire; her eyes are hard.  She
+says to herself--
+
+  "Now had been here
+  Had he been minded
+  Sigmund's son,
+  The hero Helgi,
+  Out of the halls of Odin;
+  But the eagles roost
+  On the high ash-boughs,
+  All the household
+  Falleth to dreams--
+  Faint is my hope of him now."
+
+
+But her handmaid at the window sees a man riding in armour.  He rides a
+grey horse, his face is pale and streaked with blood.  She speaks to
+herself, and then to the dead--
+
+  "What wraith rideth?
+  Is Doomsday come?
+  Shall dead men ride,
+  Shall they drive spurs in?
+  Ho, pale rider,
+  Hast thou leave homeward to fare?"
+
+
+It is Helgi who answers her as he rides by upon a noiseless horse--
+
+  "This is no wraith,
+  This is not World's Doom
+  Though a dead man rides,
+  Though he pricks with spurs,
+  Leave I have homeward to fare."
+
+
+And then he cries aloud, so that Sigrun hears him, and looks up,
+listening--
+
+  "Ha, come thou forth, Sigrun of Sevafell!
+  Here is thy lord
+  If thou wouldst see him;
+  The cairn is open,
+  Helgi is here
+  With the sword-wounds bleeding--staunch thou the blood!
+
+  For I must ride soon
+  The reddening roads,
+  My good horse climb
+  The ways of the air;
+  West of the sky-bridge
+  Needs I must be
+  Before the grey cock cry to the sun."
+
+
+Sigrun is up now, and at the door.  She pants as she pulls at the
+bobbin of the latch.  Her eyes are on fire with eagerness.  But the
+maid cries to her--
+
+  "Go not, go not,
+  Sigrun of Sevafell,
+  Sister of kings,
+  Seek not the house of the dead!
+  For the night is abroad
+  When the dead are mighty;
+  Await bright dawn, thou shalt be stronger."
+
+
+But Sigrun is out in the moonlight, and Helgi is upon his feet.  Now
+she has him in her arms; now she holds his pale face between her hands
+and speaks to him close--
+
+  "The hawks of Odin
+  Greet not the Storm-lord,
+  Scenting the slain, their smoking quarry,
+  Not more eagerly
+  Cry they the dawn dew
+  Than I cry thee, dead King Helgi.
+
+  Now I kiss thee, dead King Helgi,
+  Ere thou castest
+  Thy blood-clutter'd mail-shirt.
+  Bloody the dew
+  On thy dauntless body,
+  Heavy the rime
+  On thy raven love-locks;
+  Cold are thy hands, Helgi, my king's son,
+  How shall I loose thee, lover and lord?"
+
+
+But Helgi puts her hands away from his face and holds her apart--
+
+  "The death-dew is dank on me,
+  Sigrun of Sevafell,
+  This is thy doing, O sun-fraught lady,
+  Golden woman, the tears thou sheddest
+  Upon thy bed stay not beside thee;
+  Like blood they fall, cold and deathly,
+  Like sobs they stab me
+  Through the breast!"
+
+
+Then, seeing her despair, he throws up his white face towards the moon
+and laughs without joy--
+
+  "Ho, let us drink
+  Deep draughts of joy,
+  We that have lost
+  Land and life!
+  Let no man keen us,
+  Let no man pity
+  The wounds shining upon my body."
+
+
+He clasps her close in his arms, and speaks as it were between his
+teeth.
+
+  "Now is a queen,
+  Sigrun of Sevafell,
+  Now is a queen
+  Shut in the cairn,
+  Living and warm with the cold dead."
+
+
+But she strains him to her and cries aloud--
+  "Helgi, Helgi, here is thy bed made,
+  Thou son of Wolfings, a warm bed, a gentle--
+  Fast in arms, Helgi, enfold me;
+  As when thou livedst
+  Clip me in death sleep."
+
+
+And then the maid sees the cairn open, and Sigrun lying in it in the
+dead man's arms.  Helgi lifts up his face to the moonlight, and sings--
+
+  "Never on Sevafell
+  A great marvel--
+  No more wondrous
+  That hill of magic--
+  For Hogni's white daughter
+  Lies with a dead man;
+  A king's daughter
+  Alive in the arms of the dead."
+
+
+There is no more terrible song than that, nor one in which love is
+brought so close to death.  When she remembered it after-wards Gudrid
+saw well that she had indeed been lying with a dead man when that song
+was sung to her.  For if she could have had the wits she would have
+felt at the time the death-dew on his face.  But love had then bereft
+her of all wits.
+
+She called that year afterwards the Little Summer, as well because of
+the glory and promise of it as for the few days it held.  By the end of
+June she knew herself with child.  Thorstan gave a sort of sobbing gasp
+when she told him and pressed her to his heart.  She felt the wet from
+his eyes upon her cheek, looked at him and saw tears.  "You weep at my
+news?"  "It is because I am happy, my love."  She herself was softly
+elated by the gift she was to be enabled to make him, but not
+otherwise.  All her love was centred in him just then.
+
+
+But in July the ship came home from Wineland the Good without Thorwald,
+and with the heavy news.  Eric, who had been ageing, was very much cast
+down by it.  He wished Lief to go out and fetch back the body; but Lief
+did not seem inclined to move.  He told Thorstan his reason.  "If we
+can move out, house and homestead, gear and cattle, man, woman and
+child, well and good.  It is a finer country than this.  I will settle
+there gladly.  But you see how it is with our father.  He won't last
+long, and you will see he will refuse to move.  This is his Settlement;
+he has made it for himself.  He is king of all this country, and he
+feels it.  Now if we go and leave him here, he will die--and what then?
+The end of Eric's kingdom.  No, I shall stay here and take up the
+government after him.  But I think that you should go--you and Gudrid."
+
+Thorstan said: "I think so too.  I will speak to Gudrid.  But I shall
+wait till after harvest."
+
+He told Gudrid what he thought.  "They have buried him heathenwise,
+sitting with his weapons, looking out to sea, and heaped the stones
+over him.  True, they have set up a cross atop.  But he should have the
+rites.  I must see to that.  We will go, my love, if you are
+willing--but maybe we shall not come back."
+
+She looked at him fondly.  "I will go wherever you bid me.  But we
+shall come back."  It is wonderful that she did not remember what had
+been predicted of her; but she did not.
+
+Thorstan did not meet her eyes.  "We will go, then.  But not till after
+harvest."
+
+"Harvest!" said she.  "You will not go in the winter?"
+
+"No, no," he said.  "The harvest will not be done."  Then she knew that
+he did not speak of the corn-harvest, but of their own.
+
+The year sped quickly, as happy years will do; the harvest of the earth
+was gathered, the winter fell, the clinging mists, the still and deadly
+cold.  But they were a happy household at Brattalithe, for Gudrid was
+found to be a solvent of much domestic ferment.  Her sweet manners drew
+even Theodhild to come in and out of the house, and hushed the storms
+which periodically swept over Freydis the Wild.  At Yule there was a
+feast of many days, singing, eating and drinking, and games in the snow
+for the young men.  Gudrid sat apart and watched it, Thorstan never far
+away from her.  Still she didn't guess what lent such fervour to their
+loves.  Foolish with happiness, she thought it was the first of many
+Yules--whether here in this frost-locked country or in the forests of
+Wineland mattered little to her.  She saw them all in years to come as
+they were now and felt her heart high in her breast.
+
+And then at the end of March, when men began to talk again of the ice
+breaking up, and the thawing of the passages, her child was born.  It
+was a girl, and christened Walgerd.  And now Thorstan looked about him
+at the still sheeted lands and knew that his hour was at hand.  He told
+nobody, he never betrayed himself; but went to work silently and
+methodically.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+It was the end of summer again before they were ready to sail.  The
+ship which brought home Thorwald's crew had gone a voyage to Iceland
+and not come back.  It was necessary to find and furnish another; no
+crew would ship until the harvest was over; and though Gudrid was
+willing to follow Thorstan at a word, Eric had not wanted her to leave
+him yet; so she saw one more high summer.
+
+
+They fared badly from the start, with heavy weather as soon as they
+were off the land.  After a week of blustering south-west gales and
+rain the wind went round to the north.  Then from the N.N.W. there
+began a storm the like of which none of them had ever known, and for
+week after week they were buried in it, not knowing where they were.
+They lost men, tackle, stores; there was not a dry rag on the ship;
+every day Thorstan expected the snow.  Instead of that, after a few
+days of sunny weather, the wind dropped in a clear sky; it began to
+freeze, and then came the white blanket to cling about sheets and
+spars, and hold them close, a blur drifting upon a sea like oil.
+Gudrid sat like a ghost in the after deckhouse, nursing her baby and
+trying to keep it warm.  It did not thrive and could not be expected to
+thrive.  She was sure it would die.  And so it did--died in its sleep
+while she was suckling it.  She felt the cold upon its legs; and then
+it grew heavy.  She looked down--its eyelids were blue.  But she did
+not move.
+
+Thorstan came down to see her.  He knew at once.  He went to her and
+covered her breast in the blanket.  He said nothing, but was very
+gentle.
+
+"Oh, husband, speak to me!  Our little baby----"
+
+"Hush, my dear one--it is better.  She is not cold now."  He made her
+lie down, with a hot stone for her feet and another for her arms to
+hold instead of her Walgerd.  When she was asleep he said a prayer over
+the child and sank it in the sea.  Then he comforted her as only he
+could have done it.
+
+There was a good deal of sickness on board and plenty for Gudrid to do.
+The wind blew gaps in the fog, and as it stiffened tore it into flying
+shreds and rags.  The ship heaved and lurched in water now inky-black.
+They got steerage way, and ran before a gale which they judged came
+from the south-west; they held this course for many days, hoping to get
+a sight of land.  And land was nearer than they thought, for one
+morning Thorstan saw a darkening in the fog, a kind of shape, and then,
+quick as the thought, he put the ship about.  She came round slowly,
+and at that moment the spars and rigging seemed alive with sea-birds.
+As the ship went round a huge black wall reared itself a-starboard, and
+he heard the waves at its foot.  As nearly as might be he had broken up
+his ship on the rocks.
+
+Thorstan ran out to sea for half a mile or more and stood off until the
+weather cleared a little.  When it did they all saw the crags and
+headlands of an iron coast.  The only thing to do was to keep within
+hail of it until they found some sort of haven.  Thorstan said he would
+spend the winter there, whatever country it might be.  Already it was
+cold, and wherever the land stooped low enough there was snow to be
+seen lying.
+
+An opening in the land was reported next day, and as they drew near
+they could make out a firth and a muffled ship lying at anchor within
+it.  The tide serving, Thorstan ran in between low hills all smothered
+in snow.  A settlement of white, muffled houses lay on the shore of a
+bay, a deserted quay, a few boats drawn up on the beach: not a soul was
+to be seen; the winter swoon was over all.
+
+He drew up within hail of the silent ship and anchored in that black
+water.  The rattling of the chain and splash of the anchor echoed among
+the hills, but awoke no man.  "Are we, dying, come to a city of the
+dead?" he thought.  The chill lay on his heart like lead; the thought
+of Gudrid gave him a dull ache; even the passion of desire to save her
+was dead within him.  He did what came up before him to be done, but
+could not provide nor foresee.
+
+"Here we must see the winter out," he said, and had the boat out so
+that he might go ashore and seek quarters.  First he went below to see
+Gudrid.
+
+He found her in the bed, rigid with cold, almost too cold to shiver.
+He leaned over her in an agony of pity.  "Oh my heart!  Oh my poor
+heart!"  She looked up at him and smiled in his face.  She was not able
+to speak.
+
+"I shall see the winter out here," he told her.  "I must find out where
+we are--I believe that we have beaten back to Greenland.  If that be
+so, then we may be able to reach home; but if that is not possible,
+then we stay here.  I will get quarters for the men, and for ourselves,
+please God.  My love, trust me to do for the best--and wait for me
+here."
+
+She nodded her head two or three times, but her eyes were shut and she
+did not look at him again.  He dared not kiss her for fear of finding
+out how cold she was.  How could it be that men were allowed to suffer
+so?  He found some more covering for her bed before he left her.
+
+The boat took him ashore; he went to the nearest house he saw and
+thumped on the door.  There was no light to be seen, and for long there
+was no sound to be heard inside; but at last he heard the bolts drawn
+back.  A white-faced woman peered at him through a crack.
+
+"Let me in, for the love of God," said Thorstan.  Then she beckoned him
+in.
+
+A sick man lay muttering in a bed; children huddled about a turf fire.
+The place was very nearly dark, but he made out some six souls to be
+there.  He found out that he was come to Lucefrith in West Greenland;
+the winter sickness was heavy on the place.  The woman did not refuse
+to take one of his men, and did not agree.  She seemed stupid with
+misery.  He told her that he should send her a man, and went out.  In
+every house in the Settlement was much the same story.  Sickness and
+death on all hands, but no refusals.  At the end of his rounds he had
+managed to place out all hands.  There remained himself and Gudrid.
+There was no place for them--not room enough to die in.  He had asked
+if there were no headman in Lucefrith, and was told of one Thorstan
+Black; but he, it seemed, lived far off--over the hills, they said--and
+no way of getting at him through the snow.
+
+Then he went back to the ship and told his men to get ready to go
+ashore.  He took them off by companies in the boat, and saw them all
+indoors before he left them.  The last man under cover, he rowed back
+alone to the ship.  At this extremity, with frozen death and silence
+all about him, he felt a strange uplifting of the heart in the thought
+that he and Gudrid were now alone indeed--they two and Love.  And what
+if Death were a fourth in the party?  Ah, he was welcome too.  But
+before Death came Love should be there.  He rowed gaily, fiercely, that
+he might be with her the sooner.
+
+He was warmed by his exercise when he was on deck again, and wildly
+happy in the thought which possessed him.
+
+He went below and saw his love watching for him.  "My heart, I am
+coming to you," he said.  He took off his furs and most of his clothes
+and got into the bed with her.  He held her close to him, with a
+passion which despair may have quickened into flame.  Wildly as he had
+loved her since she had given him herself, he never loved her as he did
+now, when the end seemed close upon them.
+
+For a week they lived so, the supreme week of Thorstan's and Gudrid's
+lives.  They were utterly alone, and they never left each other's arms,
+but when Thorstan was busy mending the brasier fire, or getting food.
+They cherished each other, the fire in them at least never went out;
+they loved and slept, they loved again and slept.  It was the last leap
+of their fire, it was the swan-song of their love maybe; but it was
+beautiful, and as strong as if they were breasting a great flight
+through space.  Thorstan sang to Gudrid, he told her tales of lovers,
+he put their joint lives into verses; but he had not a word to say of
+the future.  Here fate was too heavy for either love or religion.  Fate
+stood with stretched-out arms holding a black curtain over what was to
+come.  Thorstan had seen behind it.  He knew.  But Gudrid had
+forgotten, and he would not tell her.  As for Gudrid herself, the glory
+was to have Thorstan find her so lovely, and her love so full, was
+enough for her.  She lived on his needs.  To fill them was her utmost
+desire, and to be to him a never-failing well was a crown of stars.
+She seldom spoke; she was as silent as the earth below the rains and
+heats of heaven, and as receptive.  She neither asked nor pondered what
+was to be the end of this rapturous dream.  If she had, her utmost
+desire would have been that they should die together in some nuptial
+sleep, and lie still, folded under the snow.
+
+But Fate ordered it otherwise.  The day came when they heard the
+knocking of oars, and then while they lay clasped, listening, a great
+voice hailing the ship.  They looked at each other.  "The dream is
+over," Thorstan said.  "My love, the world is about us again."  She
+clung to him.  "Let us stay here--let nobody forbid us that."  "Nay,
+but I must go out and see who is coming."
+
+He dressed and went on deck.  A large man muffled to the eyes in a
+bearskin was below him in a boat, standing up in it holding on to the
+side.  He pulled open his hood and showed a red face, black beard and a
+pair of merry eyes.
+
+The two hailed each other, and then the new-comer said, "They told me
+in the Settlement that you were under the weather here.  It will have
+gone hard with you, I doubt.  And your lady with you!  Now I make known
+to you that I am Thorstan of this place, called commonly Thorstan
+Black, and at your service."
+
+Thorstan said: "Then I must be Thorstan Red, for Thorstan is my name,
+and the red is of Nature's doing, and my father's.  I am Eric's son of
+Ericsfrith.  I was making the western voyage, but was driven out of my
+course in a gale, and forced to beat up here against my will.  My men
+are in the Settlement, but I and the good wife could find no better
+quarters than these."
+
+"I will show you better," said Thorstan Black.  "I knew nothing of your
+coming till last night when a man came up asking for fuel.  You shall
+come off with me now if you will.  In a week's time you will be able to
+walk ashore.  My mistress will be glad of your company, and so shall I
+be."
+
+"Thank you for that," said Thorstan.  "We take your offer gladly."  He
+asked him up, but Thorstan Black said he was very well where he was.
+
+Gudrid was dressed when he came down for her.  The dream was broken,
+and neither of them spoke of it.  Their preparations were soon made,
+and then they left the ship.
+
+Thorstan Black rowed them ashore with strong and leisurely strokes.  He
+told them that he lived over the ridge beyond the Settlement.  He had a
+sleigh of dogs waiting for him, packed up Gudrid, put Thorstan one side
+of her and himself the other, cracked a great whip, uttered a harsh
+cry; and they were off.  The dogs panted and strained at the ropes;
+sometimes one yelped in his excitement.  And so they came to a
+broad-eaved house, and were welcomed by the good wife, whose name was
+Grimhild.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+The winter fell upon them in bitter earnest within the next fortnight.
+The snow was up to the top of the windows, and being there, froze hard,
+and had to be cut away with an axe.  That was how they made a road to
+the byres where the stock were, and where they must be fed.  The two
+Thorstans worked hard at this and at fuel-getting, and hewing of wood.
+Gurth the reeve helped them, but he was ailing already with the
+sickness, and not much use.
+
+Grimhild, a strong-faced, huge woman, managed all the house, but Gudrid
+helped her now willingly.  There were no maids there.  In the evenings
+they sat by the fire and told tales.  It was as merry as might be, and
+with Thorstan Black there was always some fun to be had.  He was the
+lightest-hearted man and the happiest whom Gudrid had seen in
+Greenland, where mostly, it seemed, men had to fight with life at too
+long odds to have any heart left over for pastime.  Thorstan Black
+owned to it.  "There is no people but ours of Iceland, I do believe,
+who would hold out against this white death," he said.  "So fast as we
+come we die of it.  Then come others, and so the game goes on.  It is
+the fighting we love; we were always fighters--what with horses, or our
+young men.  But here we fight with the earth, sea and sky, and do
+little slaughter of our own kind."
+
+"It is the fog that kills us," said Grimhild; and Gurth smothered his
+cough and hugged himself over the fire.
+
+Gudrid said: "Why should you stay here?  I think it is a terrible
+country.  We shall go to Wineland as soon as the spring comes."  Then
+she told them of that good country--of the tall trees, and the clear
+sky, of the dew which was sweet to the taste, of the vines tumbling
+over the hot rocks, the birds' voices in the forest, and the strange
+stars at night.  Grimhild was moved by the recital.
+
+"Ay," she said, "I have heard tell of such lands, and you may see them,
+being young.  But this place has made me old, and almost broken my
+heart.  In a little while I shall ask no better than to be laid in the
+snow."
+
+Thorstan Black patted her on the back.
+
+"Courage, old lass," he said.  "You and I have seen the worst of it.  I
+think it may be better hereafter.  As for your land of summer all round
+the year, I know not that it would suit Icelanders.  If you take our
+hardihood from us, what have we left?  That which swills and eats
+heavily, and plays the mischief.  Nay, give me a dark ghyll in Iceland,
+with a river racing down its length, and the sea never far off.  That
+means more to me than your vines and soft winters.  As for this
+stricken land, we shall beat the sickness yet.  A man tempers himself.
+There should be a fine race here one day, of them who have got through."
+
+Gurth turned up the whites of his eyes.  He was very sick.
+
+
+By and by they had news from the Settlement, where things were going
+badly.  The sickness was very rife.  Many of Thorstan's men from
+Ericsfrith were dead of it.  They took down stores in the sleigh, and
+were much concerned at what they saw and heard.  The strangers from the
+east were all sick; six were dead, and could only be buried in the
+snow.  Thorstan promised that he would take all the bodies back to
+Ericsfrith if he had to heap the ship with dead men.  When they
+returned to the homestead the first thing they heard was that Gurth was
+dead.
+
+Gradually, as the winter thickened, gloom began to fall upon the
+housemates.  The hall grew cold; it was as if there were no heat in the
+burning coals; as if the cold was become master of the fire.  Grimhild
+grew strange in her ways.  She was always listening, waiting for
+something.  She said she expected a visitor, but would never say who it
+was.  She became very silent, and tried to avoid the others.  Thorstan
+Black told Thorstan Red that he feared the worst.  "The trustiest
+woman!" he said.  "She has stood by me in sickness and health for
+twenty years--and now she turns her back on me--hunches her poor
+shoulders and will take no comfort from me.  That's a sure sign of the
+sickness.  You distrust your old friends first."  "Is that the way of
+it?" said our Thorstan, with fear in his heart.
+
+Grimhild grew more and more remote, but remained on terms with Thorstan
+Red, in whom she confided some of her growing fancies.  "The dead are
+unquiet," she told him when she had him out of range of the others,
+"and how should I be quiet?  They are all about us.  So soon as it
+grows dusk they come out of the snow.  I hear them quarrelling,
+murmuring, and some of them grieve.  I shall be with them soon--and
+perhaps you will see me there.  It has been bad enough other winters,
+but none so bad as this.  There are strangers here--that's how it is.
+We shall never quiet them till we have burned the bodies.  That's the
+only way."
+
+"They shall be burned, mistress," said Thorstan.  "I will see to it."
+
+She looked at him queerly, with one eyebrow arching into her hair.
+"You?" she said, then turned away her face.  "Well, well--Christ have
+mercy on us."
+
+When the fever took her and seemed to stretch her skin to
+cracking-point, she would not go to bed, and nobody could persuade her.
+She huddled by the fire, rocking herself, until the evening; but
+directly it was dusk she was restless.  The wind used to moan about the
+house, and she heard in it the voices of the dead.  She thought she
+could distinguish one from the other.  "Gurth is railing--hark to
+him. . . .  That was Wigfus answering, and that deep one is Kettleneb.
+Oh, let me rest--have done!"  She wandered forth and back, but was
+mostly in the kitchen, listening at the door.  Thorstan Black grieved
+for her and used to try to coax her back to the fire.  She scowled at
+him as if he were a stranger, and would not let him touch her.  Gudrid
+was afraid to go near her.
+
+Once when she was out there on a wild moon-lit night, the others by the
+fire heard her cry aloud; and then she called on Thorstan.  The two
+Thorstans looked at each other.  Thorstan Black said, "It's you she
+wants.  Go and talk to her."  Thorstan Red went out.
+
+Grimhild had the kitchen door open; dry snow was sweeping in upon her;
+the front of her gown was white with it.  "Look at them there," she
+said; "look at them.  Gurth is whipping them round the garth.  See how
+they huddle--heed their crying.  There, there--and there go I among
+them, wringing my hands."  She clutched his arm.  "Hush--and there go
+you."
+
+Thorstan's heart jumped, and then fell quiet.  "Do you see me there,
+mistress?"
+
+"You are standing there in the shadow of the byre.  He will not touch
+you.  Round and round.  No rest in the snow."  Then she turned to him
+and screamed: "Don't let him touch me!"  She caught at him and he tried
+to draw her into the house; but she struggled fiercely, and before he
+could stop her she was outdoors racing through the snow.  Thorstan
+shouted to his host, who came to him in a hurry.  "She's gone," said
+Thorstan Red.  Thorstan Black and he went out together, but by now she
+had passed through the garth and was deep in the snow beyond.  They got
+her home at last, but she was quite mad and fought against them all the
+way.
+
+They put her to bed and kept her there by main force until she was
+exhausted.  They were up with her all night, and she died in the small
+hours of the morning.  There was nothing for it but to bury her in the
+snow.
+
+Gudrid laid her out while Thorstan and his host were making the coffin.
+She put candles at her head and feet in the Christian fashion, with a
+cross of wood between her hands.  Then she knelt by the bed to watch
+the corpse.  It was piercingly cold, and she grew numb with it, and
+then drowsy.  It is likely that she dropped off to sleep as she lay,
+for she came to herself with a start and saw the corpse sitting up,
+staring with open and glassy eyes.  Her heart stood still, she neither
+felt nor thought.  How long they were, the living and the dead, staring
+at each other, Gudrid could never have told--she was incapable of
+moving, being frozen with terror and cold.  Presently the dead woman's
+mouth opened, as if she were going to speak; and then her head fell
+forward and she dropped.  Gudrid staggered to her feet and ran out of
+the house.  She found the men in the outhouse, and caught Thorstan
+Black by the wrist.  Her face told her story; it was no longer that of
+a sane woman.  Thorstan went back with her.
+
+That night they buried Grimhild in the snow; and Thorstan Red took the
+sickness.  He told Gudrid of it when they were in bed.  He held her
+closely in his arms and spoke with passion: "My love, I am sick, and it
+may go hard with me.  Remember now what I say--that the thing which I
+may be is not I.  Be not afraid of it.  You have had the best I could
+be--and it was you who made me.  Remember what we have been, and think
+of me as dead already.  And when I am dead, take my body back to
+Ericsfrith."
+
+She clung to him, but not with tears.  Tears were denied her now.  The
+cold had mastered even them.  For now she knew what must come.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+The Greenland sickness took mainly the same course, varying with the
+patient's personal quality.  It began with a high fever, intense
+surface irritation; there ensued violent rheumatic pains, mental
+alienation, delirium, madness and death.  It was characteristic, as has
+been said, that the sufferer turned from his kind, and turned markedly
+from whom he knew best.
+
+Thorstan made his preparations carefully, and instructed Gudrid.  As a
+wife who may be allowed a last word with her husband condemned to die,
+she took and gave her kisses.  The time was too great for tears, the
+heart too faint for strong embraces.  All she could do she did.  She
+would obey him, she would not show herself; but she would be always at
+hand.  She sat mostly at the head of his bed in the wall, hidden by a
+curtain, but ready to fetch and carry; to bring him food which Thorstan
+Black could give him; hot stones for his feet, hot rags to ease the
+pain in his limbs.  He hardly opened his eyes, hardly ever groaned; but
+when the fever ran high he talked incessantly, in fierce and rapid
+whispers--and she heard told over again the week of rapture and dream
+under the snow in the empty ship.  She suffered greatly under this
+affliction, both by the memories it evoked and the knowledge that such
+things could never be again.  Her modesty might have been offended; but
+Thorstan Black was very kind to her.  He used to go gently away when
+the sufferer began to speak, and would contrive his returns so as not
+to intrude on any privacy.  Her heart was full of gratitude to the
+black-bearded giant, so huge and so gentle.
+
+The fever seemed to eat Thorstan up; he became so thin that his cheeks
+sank away into hollows, and his bones stuck out so sharply that the
+skin cracked.  Gudrid began to have horror of him.  She thought that
+her lover was dead, and that this was some terrible mock-image of him
+sent there to haunt her.  She seemed to become younger as he grew more
+like an old man.  She was afraid to be left alone with him.  Love had
+been frightened out of her, and even pity scarce dared to be there.
+She could not believe that this was the man who had so keenly loved and
+worshipped her body, and by his music had uplifted her soul.  She had
+seen Thore die and had been compassionate to the end.  She remembered
+how she had kissed him in the very article of death, and shuddered as
+she thought of kissing this living corpse.  Her eyes besought Thorstan
+Black not to leave her, and he rarely did--for by this time her
+husband's weakness was such that, whatever he may have said in his
+fever, he could hardly be heard.
+
+Towards the end--as Thorstan Black knew it must be--he persuaded Gudrid
+to lie down at night while he kept watch by the bed.  And so she did.
+The poor girl was worn out, and went to sleep almost at once.
+
+About midnight she was awakened.  Thorstan Black stood by the bed with
+a taper.  She gaped at him, cold to the bones.
+
+"Come, my dear," he said.  "He is asking for you."  She said nothing.
+Then in the silence she heard her husband's voice, calling "Gudrid,
+Gudrid, Gudrid."  She fell trembling, and knew not what she said.
+Thorstan Black put his cloak over her, and helped her out of bed.  Her
+knees shook.  "Is he dead?  Is he dead?  Oh, don't leave me.  I'm
+frightened--he looks so strange--don't leave me, Thorstan."
+
+"No, my dear, I won't leave you," he said, and put his arm round her,
+for she seemed about to fall.  "Come," he said, "I'll take you, and
+stay by you."
+
+She mastered her fear.  "Yes," she said, "I must go.  Oh, but you are
+so good to me."
+
+"Don't go if you are afraid," said Thorstan.  "He may be dead by now."
+
+"No, no," she said, "not yet.  I must hear what he says, for it may be
+he knows what the course of my life must be.  If God will help me, I
+will go.  But you will come too--you promised."
+
+Thorstan thereupon lifted her up in his arms, and carried her into the
+room where Thorstan Ericsson lay.  He went to the side of the bed and
+sat down, holding Gudrid on his knee.  So they waited fearfully for the
+dead man to speak.
+
+Thorstan Ericsson sat up in his bed; his eyes were so deep in his head
+that nothing showed of them but dark caves.  His mouth was open, as if
+his jaw had dropped.  But no sound came from him.
+
+Then Thorstan Black said: "My namesake, you called to Gudrid, and I
+have her here beside you.  What do you desire of her?"
+
+The dead man spoke.  "Gudrid, are you there?"
+
+"Yes, Thorstan," she said quaking.
+
+"I will tell you, my wife, that you need not grieve for me, nor fear
+me, for I shall never hurt you now--nor could I have the heart.  I am
+come to a good place, and am at peace.  Now you are to know that you
+will be married to an Icelander who will be kind to you, and give you
+what your heart desires.  But your life will be longer than his, and
+your end will be pious--and that, too, you will desire before you reach
+it.  And I pray you to take my body back to Ericsfrith and give me holy
+burial.  Farewell, Gudrid, and have no fear for me."
+
+Gudrid, cold as a stone, sat on Thorstan Black's knee as if she had
+been a child, and stared at the figure of her love.  She could not say
+anything to him, she dared not touch him.  His head sank forward, and
+he fell back in the bed and lay still.  Thorstan Black touched him.  He
+was stone cold.
+
+The good giant thought now of Gudrid only, and talked to her gently for
+a long while, comforting her.  He promised that he would never forsake
+her until he had brought her safely home to Ericsfrith.  He would take
+Thorstan Ericsson to his own ship, and all the bodies of the crew who
+were dead should be put with him there until such time as they could
+sail.  "And as for you, dear child," he said, "remember that you and
+that true man have had the best that life can give you--for than wedded
+love there is no more blessed thing.  Think of me, my child, who lived
+happily with my good wife a twenty years, and think that you are better
+off maybe than I.  For love such as yours is not a thing that can
+live--no, but it must needs change as it grows older.  You change, and
+the world comes in between; and so it changes too.  Now you have had
+love at the full--and it is ended at the full.  You should be thankful
+for that.  And be thankful too that he is at peace, and his fate
+rounded--and nothing for him now but folded hands and quiet sleep.
+Why, look at him now, Gudrid.  Even now he smiles quietly, as who
+should say, I have done with it all.  Look at him, and have no more
+fear of so gentle a thing."
+
+Gudrid turned her haunted eyes towards the dead man.  It was true.
+Thorstan smiled to himself wisely.  And now she could see that his eyes
+were shut.  She slipped off Thorstan Black's knee and knelt beside the
+bed.  She looked at her dead lover, and without remembering her fear or
+thinking what she did, she put his hair off his forehead and tidied it.
+Then she leaned over him, looking tenderly down at him, and stooped and
+put her lips to his forehead.
+
+Thorstan Black left her, and returned presently with candles and a
+cross which he had made.  So they laid out Thorstan Ericsson, and
+Thorstan Black watched him all the rest of the night.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+She stayed out the long and bitter winter alone in the house with
+Thorstan Black.  No man could have been kinder to her than he was.  She
+felt with him the happy relation which there is between a father and
+his married child, when you have the equality which comes of
+experiences shared and have not lost the old sense of degrees--but that
+lingers still like a scent which recalls times past.
+
+He was as good as his word, when the spring came.  The bodies of all
+the crew were redeemed from the snow and put aboard ship; the
+settlement at Lucefrith was broken up.  He gave the survivors their
+freedom, and free passage to Ericsfrith; for he himself intended to
+settle there when he had restored Gudrid to Brattalithe.  So they set
+sail, and made a good passage, and came into the frith on a day of
+fresh southerly wind and strong sunshine.  Gudrid, standing on the
+afterdeck, looked at the little town and the green fields about it, at
+the snow-peaks whose shapes she knew well, whereunder, as she felt, her
+life had been passed; and then she saw old Eric in his red cloak being
+helped into his boat, and Freydis, bareheaded, with her yellow hair
+flying in the wind, and her strong arms folded over her chest--and felt
+the comfort of home growing about her, and the dew of happy tears in
+her eyes.
+
+Eric's eyes looked anxiously up at her.  "Is all well, daughter?" he
+called out in a brave voice--but she could only answer with her own wet
+eyes.  He was hauled on ship-board, and soon had her in his arms.  Her
+hidden voice and shaking shoulders told him the rest.  "There then, my
+sweetheart, it is done.  Yet cry your fill.  I have a fine son
+left--and you into the bargain.  Come home now, and leave me no more."
+So said old Eric Red, a man not easily downed by fate.  He made
+Thorstan Black free of Brattalithe for as long as he would, and
+promised him the best land that he had.  So they all went ashore, and
+Freydis hailed Gudrid and made much of her.  Freydis was not changed at
+all.  She was very fond of Gudrid, and for her sake put up with her
+father and mother who, without Gudrid, would have fretted her to a rag.
+Leif came in that evening and embraced Gudrid like a sister.  He heard
+her dreadful story and shook his head over his brother's fate.
+"Thorstan was born to misfortune," he said.  "He had the second sight,
+and there is no worse gift for a man than that.  Brave as he was, that
+foreknowledge always baulked his effort.  But he was a fine man.  You
+have had the best of us, Gudrid."
+
+"I love you all so much," she said, "that I must have been happy with
+any one of you, since he would have made me free of the others.  I
+would not have my Thorstan back again.  He told me that he was at
+rest--and how can you look for rest in this life?"
+
+She went to see Theodhild in her hermitage.  To her only she told
+Thorstan's prediction, that she should be married yet again, and
+outlive her husband, and then find the life that she loved the best.
+Theodhild nodded her head.  "That was a true saying of my son's.  You
+will find the only rest there can be in this life."  Gudrid asked her
+more, but she would not tell her.  "I know, I see," said Theodhild,
+"but God will reveal it to you when the time comes."
+
+Gudrid, who had left Ericshaven still a girl in her bloom, had come
+back to it a woman, made so by pity and terror.  Her beauty was now
+ripe, and her mind in accord with it.  They held her at Brattalithe for
+the fairest and wisest of women.  She was rich, too, for she had her
+father's and Thore's estates, as well as her share of Eric's wealth
+which had been Thorstan's.  She sold her father's house and land to
+Thorstan Black, who settled down there, and came to great honour in
+Ericshaven, as he deserved to do.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+The spring and summer of that year passed quietly enough at
+Brattalithe, but after harvest a fine ship from Norway came into the
+haven and the owner came ashore.  Eric Red, Lief and Gudrid rode down
+to town to meet him and hear the news.  He soon explained himself, for
+he had a copious flow of speech.  He treated Gudrid with great
+deference, thinking her the lady of the land, and when it was explained
+to him that she was nobody's wife, but a widow, he smiled, saying, "So
+much the better," and continued to treat her as before.  He was a large
+man, broad-faced and broad-shouldered, with light-blue eyes, and much
+fun in them.  He looked at you when he spoke as if he wished to make
+you laugh, but hardly hoped it.
+
+His friends called him Karlsefne, which means "a proper man," and his
+real name was Thorfinn Thordsson.  "Thord of Head was my father," he
+told Gudrid, "and was called Horsehead, not without reason, for I will
+tell you that no man born could be more like a horse to look at than my
+father was.  He was the son of Snorre who was a Viking in Earl Hakon's
+day; and that Snorre was the son of Thord, the first of Head."  It
+seemed that he was well-to-do, and that he had on board his vessel,
+besides a crew of forty hands, a notable cargo of goods.  He offered
+Gudrid what she pleased to take of it.  "I do that," he told her, "to
+win your good will, for I see very well that you rule the roost
+here--and rightly enough.  I have never been to Greenland before, and
+tell you fairly that I never knew there was the like of yourself to be
+found here.  If I had known that I should have been here long ago--and
+then, who knows?  Maybe you would not be a widow this day."  He said it
+as if in joke, but yet he meant it.  He was greatly taken with her
+beauty.
+
+Eric offered him winter quarters at Brattalithe and he accepted it
+gladly.  His goods were landed, and stood in Eric's warehouse, his ship
+was laid up for the winter, his men boarded in Ericshaven.  As for
+himself, he was very soon at home in Brattalithe, and everybody liked
+him well.  He was a good poet, and sang his own songs; he told tales,
+he made jokes--but was always good-tempered.
+
+Towards Christmas Eric Red, who was now very much aged and apt to worry
+himself over trifles, became sad and depressed.  They thought that he
+was grieving for the two sons he had lost, but he would not talk to any
+of them of his troubles.  Karlsefne asked Gudrid what was the matter
+with his host.  He always talked to her when he had a chance.
+
+She told him what she thought: "He is an old man now, and cannot help
+remembering his two sons."
+
+"That is not like an Icelander," said Karlsefne.  "You yourself, lady,
+show the spirit of our people better.  You don't fret yourself vainly.
+You were wedded to a good man.  You were happy in him; he died.  Well,
+you have had what you have had, and if there is to be no more, you will
+wait your turn.  Is it not so?"
+
+"It may be," Gudrid said.  "I have learned not to build too high, by
+falling so far.  And I think my Thorstan is at rest.  He would not be
+if he were here now."
+
+"Very likely not," said Karlsefne, "if he was of a jealous turn.
+Moreover he was a poet, one who can always see in his mind a state much
+better than that he lives in.  That's no way to be happy.  But I will
+talk to Eric Red.  He is friendly to me."
+
+And so he did.  "What is it, host, which makes you so heavy?  Your
+friends say you brood over the past, but I tell them that is not
+likely."
+
+"No, no," said Eric, "that's not the way of it at all.  The present is
+bad enough."
+
+"You are treating me nobly," said Karlsefne.  "I should be a churl if I
+did not tell you so.  What else do you need?"
+
+Then Eric said that he was aware how his house was diminished by
+misfortune.  "I had a wife, but she has cut herself adrift; I have a
+daughter, but she has turned sour to me.  Two of my sons are dead, look
+you.  Now the time was when with a great houseful I could give a feast
+with the best.  A man is best judged by his children.  If they are free
+and high-hearted, he is judged a good man.  But now I must receive you
+with broken rites, and it hurts me to the heart that you shall sail
+away in the spring of the year, and say to your friends: 'Old Eric is
+down in the world.  A sadder Yule than that have I never spent.'  I do
+what I can, but that is heavy on my mind."
+
+"Nay, nay, friend," said Karlsefne, "that will never be the way of it.
+I am better off than I hoped for--you are treating me like an earl.
+Now if we are to do better and all be kings together, remember that I
+have a well-found ship out yonder, with stores of corn and meal, and
+malt for brewing; mead also, and smoked salmon are on board--whereof
+you shall make as free as you will, and provide such a feast as
+Greenland knows nothing of yet.  But what a man you are to be fretted
+by such a thing as that!"
+
+Eric said that he had lived in a great way all his life, and had not
+been used to stint his friends of hospitality.  He thanked Karlsefne
+heartily, shook hands with him, and said, "Ask of me what you will,
+friend, and it shall be agreed to."
+
+Karlsefne laughed.  "Maybe I shall ask a great thing of you before I go
+to sea."  He had made up his mind that he would have Gudrid from him if
+he could get her, but did not wish to precipitate matters and risk a
+refusal.  "That fair woman has a delicate mind," he thought, "and is
+very religious.  It will be well to make myself her friend before I
+offer to be her sweetheart."
+
+The talk at the feast turned again to Wineland, and Leif Ericsson was
+eloquent about the sweetness of the air, the fertility of the soil, and
+the open winter weather which he had found there.  Then Karlsefne asked
+Gudrid whether she would not like to go thither.
+
+She shook her head.  "Not now.  Thorstan and I were on our way when the
+fate turned against us, and he died.  It has brought us no luck yet.
+Two of Eric's sons have died for the sake of Wineland.  But you," she
+said, looking in his face, "you will go.  I think you are a lucky man.
+You have luck in your face."
+
+"Eh," said Karlsefne, "I have thought myself pretty lucky so far; but
+now I am not so sure.  I have been building on my luck since I came
+here.  But I may get a fall."
+
+She laughed.  "You are bold, I can see, but yet you are careful too.
+You do not build except on good footings."
+
+"If you think me bold, lady," he said, with raised brows, "you will
+think me too bold perhaps presently.  Remember, when that time comes,
+that if a man sees his profit within his reach he is a fool if he don't
+stretch out his hand."
+
+"He may be a fool," she said, "to think it so near."  Her colour was
+high, her eyes shone.  His own, narrowed and intense, held them.
+
+"Do you know the name I give you in my private mind?" he asked her.
+She shook her head.
+
+"I call you Constant-Kind."
+
+"And why do you call me that?  Do you think I am kind to every one?"
+
+"I think that you have been," said Karlsefne, "and I believe that you
+would not willingly deny a service if you could do it."
+
+"And what service do you ask of me?"
+
+"Ah, I ask none as yet.  But maybe I shall."
+
+
+Certainly she knew what he wanted, and wondered whether he was the man
+predicted.  Thorberg had prophesied an ugly man for one of her
+husbands.  That could not be said of Karlsefne.  He was not handsome by
+any means, but so full of fun that he would pass anywhere as
+well-looking.  She had no love to give him; all that was buried with
+her doomed Thorstan; and yet she could see life to be a very pleasant
+thing with him beside her--a warm, sheltered, pleasant thing.  She was
+rather of Freydis's opinion after an experience of two kinds of life,
+that a woman was happier in being loved than in loving.  She had not
+thought so when Thorstan was her lover.  Then her triumph and pride had
+been that she could give him inexhaustibly what he needed--but look how
+that had ended.  She said to herself: "He will be kind to me, because
+he is kind by nature.  I believe that is my nature too.  Therefore I
+can give him what he wants, and find some comfort in it.  I have known
+the highest, and that is enough for me.  That will never come again.
+Let the other suffice, if it will satisfy him."  With that she put the
+thought away in her heart, wishing to leave it there; yet she could not
+resist taking it out and looking at it now and again.  It was still
+good to be loved, good to be desired, good to be the centre of a man's
+thoughts.  Every time she looked at her hoard it seemed a little
+brighter.
+
+
+Karlsefne took his time.  It was close upon the spring when he asked
+her if she would have him.  She met his looks calmly, and told him what
+she felt about it.  "I am not very old yet," she said, "but I have had
+a great deal of experience.  I have been married twice, and loved
+deeply once.  That can never be again."
+
+"Nay," he said, "I don't ask impossibilities of you.  But I have love
+enough in my heart for the two of us.  Do you trust me?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "I do trust you."
+
+"Why then," said Karlsefne, "will you give yourself to me?"
+
+She thought.  "You shall ask Eric if he is willing," she told him.  "He
+loves me, and he is an old man.  Since my father died he has been
+father to me.  I have had nothing but love and kindness from him and
+his family.  I will not leave him now, if he needs me--for he knows,
+and I know, that if I leave him again it will be for the last time."
+
+Karlsefne drew near her and put his arm about her.  "I will ask
+him--but if he agrees you will come?"  She smiled and nodded her head.
+Then, "Will you kiss me?" he said.
+
+"Is that in the bargain?"
+
+He drew her close to him.  "Oh, Gudrid, kiss me once.  I'm on fire."
+So then she kissed him.
+
+
+Eric looked rather chap-fallen.  "You are asking me for the jewel on my
+breast," he said.
+
+"That I know very well," said Karlsefne.
+
+"She is not only a fair woman, but a wise and good woman.  She is
+sweet-mannered, and sweet-natured.  The soothsay about her is that she
+will rear a great race."
+
+"She shall, if I have anything to do with it," said Karlsefne.  "You
+know the name they give me."
+
+"I think highly of you," Eric allowed.  "Everything speaks well for
+you.  But I will tell you this.  If my son Leif were not entangled with
+a foreign woman, an earl's daughter by whom he has got a son, it would
+have been my joy to see him take Gudrid and rear that great race to my
+name.  But it may well be that she will fulfil her destiny with you
+rather."
+
+"I believe she will," said Karlsefne.  "The moment I clapped eyes on
+her I said to myself, 'There stands before you the sweetest woman that
+lightens the world.'  And I have had no other thought or desire since
+which has not drawn me to her.  If you will give her to me you will do
+me the utmost service one man can do another.  And she will come to me
+if you say the word.  I tell you that."
+
+Eric said it should be as he wished.  The last feast that fine old man
+was ever to see was that which he made for Gudrid's wedding with
+Karlsefne.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Directly he was married Karlsefne began to talk about the Wineland
+voyage, first to Gudrid, and then to the company at Brattalithe, where
+he still lived.  Gudrid was eager to go.  She had always wanted that;
+and when she found herself with child, that did not deter her--nor her
+husband either.  "I am a prosperous man," he said, "and bring good
+fortune with me.  If you are not afraid, why should I be?  Let us trust
+to our luck, my Gudrid."  She believed in him more than in any man she
+had had to do with yet.  He seemed to her a more fortunate man than
+Leif himself.  So it was agreed upon.
+
+Whether it was the lucky star of Karlsefne or not which prevailed,
+there was more stir about this expedition than had been about any.
+There were to be two ships fitted for it.  First of all, Freydis said
+that she intended for it--she and her husband Thorhall; then another
+Thorhall, him they called the Huntsman, offered himself--a tall,
+oldish, glum fellow, liked by nobody and trusted by few, but a man of
+great strength and courage, too able to be refused.  Then came up Biorn
+from Heriolfsness offering himself and his ship.  Altogether there were
+some hundred and forty people to be carried, of whom five only were
+women, and goods in proportion.
+
+Karlsefne, saying that you never knew how things would go, carried
+livestock in the holds of both ships.  He took ten head of cows, a
+score sheep, some goats, and a bull.  He took ducks and hens, a dog or
+two, and some ponies for the women to ride.  But he had some stranger
+stock yet, human stock, which Leif gave him.  They were two Scots, a
+male and a female, whom he had had from Thorgunna's father in Orkney
+and had kept ever since, hoping they would breed; but they did not.
+They were wild, small, shaggy creatures, about the same height--the man
+was called Hake, the woman Haekia.  They were said to be incredibly
+swift in running, and were certainly hardier than most human kinds.
+Summer and winter they wore but one garment, a long, sleeveless garment
+with a hood, which fell straight from the shoulders, and, being slit
+from the thighs, was fastened between their legs.  It had no sleeves;
+their arms were bare to the shoulder.  They called it in their own
+tongue _gioball_.  You never saw one of these creatures without the
+other; they were inseparable--and yet they were never seen to speak to
+each other, or to use any kind of endearments.  They would not eat if
+any one were looking at them, nor sleep except they were alone and in
+the dark.  Gudrid tried to make friends with them.  They sat still,
+looking down or beyond her; but never would meet her eyes.
+
+So much for the company which, when all preparations were done, sailed
+at mid-summer from Ericshaven, with Karlsefne as leader.  Gudrid shed
+tears at the parting with old Eric Red, knowing that she would never
+see him again.  "Farewell, sweetheart," he said to her; "you leave this
+world the better for having had you in it."  He rode his old white pony
+down to the quay, and sat there watching the ships go out with the
+tide.  His red cloak was the last she saw of the haven.
+
+The voyage was smooth, with a fair wind all the way.  First they went
+round to the West Settlement, and Gudrid looked out for Lucefrith where
+her darkest days had also been her brightest.  She could not have told
+it for herself, but Karlsefne showed it to her.  The black cliffs now
+looked warm grey in the sun, the sea was green, sparkling with light;
+the creek was smooth flowing water lipping on silver sands.  Karlsefne
+told her that nobody lived there now.  "Mariners run in there in
+summer-time for water, and see the green flats and the mountains in a
+haze of heat.  They say: 'This is a sweet and wholesome country.  We
+will dwell here and work and be happy.'  Then the winter comes upon
+them suddenly, white fogs, madness and death.  You, my child, know as
+much of that as you ought."  She shivered, and leaned her head against
+him.  There was great store of comfort in Karlsefne; she esteemed him,
+she trusted him, she believed in his star; but Thorstan Ericsson had
+given her wings, and she had shed them into his grave.  She would never
+fly again among the stars.
+
+They took in water from the West Settlement and then sailed to the Bear
+Islands--small rocky, flat lands lying low in the great western surges.
+Thence with a north wind they came into the ocean and were two days
+without sight of land.  But on the morning of the third day they saw
+land ahead, and came within reach of it, and cast anchor in a broad
+bay.  This was the country to which Leif had been before and called
+Helloland.[1]  Karlsefne had boats manned from either ship, and stayed
+a couple of days to explore.  It was a litter of rock, very barren, and
+full of white foxes.  They found plenty of fish, and laid in a good
+store; but that was no country in which to settle, so they left it,
+going south before a good northerly wind.
+
+In two days' sailing they made out a land ahead, full of trees and
+dense undergrowth.  That was certainly Leif's _Markland_.  South-east
+of it, at no great distance, there was a large island.  They saw a
+great bear prowling the shore, and gave his dwelling-place the name of
+Bear Island, out of compliment to him.  Karlsefne did not stay to
+explore it.
+
+They ran on still before the wind for another two days or three, saw
+land again, and made for it.  This was a headland running far out into
+the sea, which they made and passed, then ran in close to the shore and
+coasted for some days without finding any haven.  This was a very long
+strand, great stretches of white sand with nothing to break them up.
+Behind the dunes they could see the tops of great trees.  It was judged
+that the whole country was low-lying and probably swampy.  Ferly
+Strands was the name they gave to this interminable shore.
+
+But yet it was not interminable, for it broke up at last into bays and
+creeks, with many islands which had beautiful trees on them, and rich
+herbage down to the sea-line, Karlsefne said that they would run in
+hereabouts and live ashore for a while.  "We will send out our runners,
+to see what they can find out for us," he said.  That was agreed upon.
+
+
+
+[1] Believed to be Newfoundland.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+They landed on the mainland on hard white sand, but beyond that there
+was turf, with patches of tall waving grass, then a belt of timber, and
+beyond them, as they soon made out, an infinite rolling country of
+woods and clothed hills, with lakes here and there.  Gudrid was
+enchanted: the nimble and sweet air, trees taller than she had ever
+dreamed of, space, emptiness, silence: she stood with a finger to her
+lip, looking up and all about, and sometimes at her companions to see
+if they were not under the same spell as she.  But the men were too
+busy choosing a good place for the camp, and Freydis was with them.
+
+Karlsefne had no mind to be surprised by savages, so sent out men to
+cut wood.  He intended to have a stockade round his camp in which at
+least the women could be defended.  There were but five of them, it is
+true, but they were all married, and therefore precious.  The men who
+were not married always hoped that they might be.  Who could say what
+might be the lot of any adventurer?  Let a married man die by all
+means--but not a wife.  Tents were put up, a double stockade fixed
+round them; hammocks were slung.  Very soon they had a fire going, and
+a pot over it.  Gudrid, Freydis and the rest of the women saw to that.
+Karlsefne arranged for the watch.
+
+The ships were left well manned, and a company from the landing-party
+put into each boat, and each boat at a sufficient distance from its
+companion.  These crews were to be relieved by watches.  Sentries also
+were posted about the stockade.  They had found no signs of
+inhabitancy; but Karlsefne was very careful.
+
+They had their meal in the open under a clear sky.  The stars came
+out--larger, wetter stars, Gudrid said, than they had at home.  Far off
+in the forest they heard beasts bellowing, and supposed them wild
+cattle.  The bull from Karlsefne's ship thundered his answer to the
+challenge.  They heard wolves at dusk, a chorus of them, and the
+barking of wild dogs.  No sound of men came near them, nor were they
+disturbed in the night.  In the morning Karlsefne sent a boat over to
+fetch the Scots.
+
+They came, and fixed Karlsefne with intent blue eyes while he told them
+what they had to do.  He showed them the sun, and with a sweep of his
+arm drew his course into the south.  He made them understand that they
+were to run due south for three days, and then work back to the camp
+with whatever they could carry out of the country.  They followed every
+sign he made, they looked at each other and spoke together, fierce,
+curt speeches.  It was certain that they knew what they had to do, for
+without hesitation they began to do it at once.  They looked at each
+other, then set off at a trot towards the creek below the stockade.
+Arrived there, they stripped off their single garments, folded them and
+put them on their heads; they swam the creek, which was a good
+half-mile broad, clothed themselves on the further shore, and then
+began to run towards the south.  They ran like deer, incredibly fast,
+with high and short bounds, as if exulting in their legs, and very soon
+they were out of sight.
+
+They waited for them three full days which were spent by the men in
+hunting and fishing.  Game of all kinds was plenty.  Karlsefne had a
+pony out and put Gudrid upon it.  He took her a long way into the
+forest and made her happy.  She said to him: "You are kinder to me than
+I deserve, my friend."  His answer was: "It is not hard to be kind to
+you, for you answer to the touch like an instrument of music.  I win
+melody from you that way which enchants me."  She said: "Believe me to
+be grateful.  Believe that I give you in return all I have."  "My dear
+love," said Karlsefne, "I know that.  You have given me of your life.
+I never forget it."  And then it was her turn to say: "It is not hard
+to give you that."  So they were a happy couple.
+
+Freydis too was expecting a child, but took it hardly, as she did
+everything else.
+
+At sunset on the third day from starting the Scots came back.  Their
+faces and arms were glistening with sweat, but they breathed easily and
+were not at all distressed.  One of them carried a fine bunch of
+grapes, the other some ears of corn.  It was wheat, but redder than
+what they had in any country which Karlsefne or his friends knew about.
+They collected from the Scot that it was wild wheat, and that the
+country where it grew was fruitful and good.
+
+There was a debate about this expedition, the first of many.  Karlsefne
+was sure that the scouts had found Wineland where Leif had once been;
+Thorhall the Huntsman thought not.  Karlsefne was for going up the
+creek as far as a ship could go, and there to land their stock and
+spend the winter.  Biorn, who was afraid of attack by natives, desired
+to keep to the open sea.  It was compromised finally.  Biorn's ship
+would remain in her present anchorage, but Thorhall would go up with
+Karlsefne.  Thorhall was a man ill to deal with in any event.  Neither
+company wanted him, but Karlsefne's company wanted him least--therefore
+he chose for that.  Most of the stock and all the women but one were of
+that ship.  Gudrid's child should be born about Christmas time.  Her
+husband was keen to have a good harbourage for her, and all settled
+down before the time came.
+
+So for a while the two ships parted company, and Karlsefne, having all
+his party safe aboard, hauled up his anchor, spread his canvas, and
+sailed into the creek on a flowing tide.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+Right in the mouth of the creek there was an island which they named
+Streamsey, because the currents about it were so many and so strong.
+It fairly swarmed with sea-birds, which hung over it like a cloud.  It
+was very difficult to find a passage, but they managed that with hard
+rowing, and once past it, found plenty of water, and a noble country on
+either hand.  They went up three days sailing, and there, where the
+woods fell more sparse and there seemed plenty of herbage for cattle,
+Karlsefne decided to make his winter quarters.  The stock was
+disembarked; the stores, and the tents.  They built themselves a
+stockade all round the camp, and hoped to have a good winter of it.
+
+The winter came late, but was severe.  There was great scarcity of
+pasture, the fishing fell off; they had to kill some of their cattle,
+but dared not depend upon that.  There was trouble with some of the
+crew, begun by Thorhall the Huntsman, who began to preach heathenry to
+them, getting a few at a time in the woods and talking, and singing old
+songs.  Karlsefne was full of business all this time, with parties out
+exploring the country, and so did not see what was going on in and
+about the camp.  Then, one day, news was brought him that a whale had
+come into the creek and was stranded in shoal water.  The men, short as
+they were of food, were eager to get at it.  Karlsefne went out to see
+it--a huge beast, greyish and arched in the back.  He did not know what
+sort of a whale it was, but the men were set upon it, and Thorhall
+vehement.  "Get at it, get at it--what do you fear, man?  I tell you it
+is a godsend," he said.  He had been very queer in his ways for a week
+or more, and one day had been found upon a cliff overhanging the water,
+with his arms stiffly out, his chin towards the sky.  His eyes had been
+shut, his mouth open, his nostrils splayed out.  He had writhed and
+twisted about, talking in a strange tongue.  They were some time
+bringing him to his senses, and had no thanks from him for doing it;
+but they had fetched him home and put him to bed.  He had lain there
+with his head covered up until the news of the whale was brought in.
+That caused him to leap out of his bed.  He was the most eager of them
+all to cut up the great beast.
+
+Karlsefne gave the word, and they fell on the whale with hatchets and
+knives.  Soon the pots were bubbling and the steam filling their
+nostrils.  Karlsefne would not eat of it, and would not allow Gudrid
+any; but the rest made a feast.  It was rich and savoury, very fat;
+this was the hour of Thorhall's triumph.  He came and stood by the
+messes as they ate, with gleaming eyes.  "Does this not prove to you
+that Redbeard was your friend?  What had your white Christ brought you
+but death and misery?  Now by my incantations I have brought Thor round
+to look on you with favour again.  This is my doing, and your leader
+here thought I was mad and tied me down to a bed."
+
+Some men stopped eating as they heard him; some turned away and would
+not begin to eat.  Karlsefne, when he knew what was going on, came down
+like a flame of fire.  "What is this he says?  That this is his
+doing--with prayers to Thor?  And you of the new faith and the true
+faith, eat of what he offers to his idols!  Cast that beastliness to
+the sea, and be done with it."  Some of the eaters were ill already,
+and many were to be so; but Karlsefne was obeyed.  The cauldrons were
+emptied over the cliffs, and the birds gathered from all quarters.
+They went hungry, and suffered much that winter; but by leading the
+cattle far into the woods they managed to keep them alive, and Gudrid
+did not fail of milk.  Her boy was born on Christmas Eve, and
+christened by Karlsefne himself.  He named him Snorre after his own
+grandfather.
+
+After that things went better.  There came rain which broke up the ice
+and thinned off all the snow.  They began to get fish again; mild
+westerly winds enabled them to go farther afield.  Biorn came up from
+his anchorage to see Karlsefne, and debates about the future were
+renewed.
+
+Karlsefne was now bent on going south, and Biorn, with Thorhall,
+equally set upon the north.  It was clear that the two ships must part
+company; and so they did as soon as the spring weather was come.  The
+tale has little more to say of Biorn and his party.  It is supposed
+that they fell in with bad weather in the north, and that they were
+driven over the ocean.  Thorhall was heard of long afterwards in
+Ireland, as having fought and died there.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+But Karlsefne, the prosperous man, did well.  He sailed along the land
+in and out of beautiful wooded islands until he came to the mouth of a
+great river.[1]  He entered that on the flood and sailed up for many
+days.  It was a broad and noble river which came, as they discovered,
+out of a lake.  Here was such a land as they had never seen before, so
+beautiful, so fruitful that they had no desire to seek further.  They
+called this land Hope, for here was the utmost they had dreamed of.
+There were broad acres of wheat growing here, self-sown; upon the
+slopes of the hills wild vines were thick and full of bud; the streams
+were full of fish; there were deer in the woods, and everywhere in the
+early mornings the piping of birds.  Karlsefne said: "My Gudrid, we
+have found Wineland the Good.  Here we will stay awhile."  She was
+happy to be in so good a place.
+
+They made their camp on the shores of the lake, and built themselves
+houses of timber, with a stockade and trench about the whole
+Settlement.  There was abundance of food for the animals, abundance for
+themselves, with promise of a harvest both of corn and of wine.  No
+signs of human occupation had been found as yet.  They began to think
+that they had Wineland to themselves, and used to go far afield, even
+to being out for days together and sleeping in the open.  But Karlsefne
+kept his eyes wide for some possible attack, and was proved to be right.
+
+Early one morning when he went down to the lake shore he saw boats upon
+the quiet water.  He counted nine of them.  They kept close company and
+came on steadily.  He looked beyond them but could see no more.  "With
+no more than nine of them, this won't be a long affair," he thought to
+himself; but he went back to the Settlement and called out his men.
+Then he went into his own house and called Gudrid to come.  "Are you
+minded to see some of the Winelanders, my Gudrid?  Bring your baby with
+you, and I will show them to you.  I don't think they mean us any
+harm."  Gudrid went with him without question.
+
+By this time the settlers had lined the shore, and the hide-boats had
+drawn up within bowshot and were making signals.  A man stood up in
+each boat and waved a pole over his head.  He swept it round in
+circles, and moved it from east to west, following the course of the
+sun.  "What do they want with us?" says Karlsefne.  "Not war, I think.
+Now who will come out to meet them with me?  We will show them a white
+shield, but there shall be weapons at the bottom of the boat."  He soon
+had a crew, and was soon afloat.
+
+The native boats scattered out in a half-moon as the adventurers came
+on.  Karlsefne saw that he was being hemmed in, but having the notion
+fixed in his head that no harm was intended, he did not give orders to
+cease rowing, and stood up in the bows himself with his white shield
+displayed.  When he was within speaking distance he bade his men rest
+on their oars.  By and by, as he had expected, curiosity did his work
+for him.  The hide-boats came in and in, each of them holding five or
+six men.  In one at least he saw a woman with a baby.  "If they bring
+their babies out to see us, it's no more than I have done," Karlsefne
+said.  "They mean peace, and they shall have it."
+
+He invited them forward with open arms, and all signs of friendliness,
+and presently they were all crowded about.  Small people they were,
+very dark brown, very ugly, with flat faces, coarse black hair twisted
+and tortured into peaks and knots.  They had broad fat cheeks and
+enormous eyes.  Their talk was like the chattering of birds.
+
+Karlsefne invited them to shore, and very cautiously their boats
+followed his.  They landed and were induced to mingle with the large
+company they found there.  Gudrid and her baby were the great
+attractions.  The first man who saw her suckling it stared and jumped
+about.  He called shrilly to his friends behind, and a body of them
+came to join him.  They pushed forward the brown woman with her child.
+Gudrid, not at all put out or frightened, held out her hand.  The woman
+stared hard at her white breast, then opened her gown and showed her
+own.  She gave her baby suck and grinned community of nature in
+Gudrid's face.  Gudrid, with one of those happy motions of hers, looked
+round to see if Karlsefne was by, and finding that he was, put up her
+hand into his.
+
+That shot told.  There was much commotion among the brown people, much
+bickering and stirring; and presently they pushed one of their own men
+forward, and joined his hand with that of the mother.  Joyful
+murmurings arose.  Everybody understood.  Now it was Freydis's turn.
+She stood disdainfully apart, with folded arms, but her colouring and
+shape betrayed her.  Here was plainly to be another mother soon, as
+they did not fail to tell each other.  Then nothing would do but her
+husband must be found for her.  His friends dragged him out and put him
+beside her, no more willing to go than she was to have him.  "Handfast
+her, you dog," said Karlsefne.  "How else will they believe you?"  So
+that was done.  Freydis fumed and burned, as handsome and furious a
+young woman as you could have hoped to see.  All went so well that
+Karlsefne was moved to hospitality, sending a man off for milk and
+fish.  They crowded about for their share, and growing bold by degrees
+handled the women's gowns, the men's weapons, and were for spying into
+the stockade.  The bull, who was feeding in there, snorted and puffed
+up the dust; presently, wagging his head, he came towards them and sent
+them flying back.  Karlsefne, by signs, tried to make them understand
+that he was ready to barter if they were.  He touched the fur with
+which they were all clad, and pointed to the milk bowls.  When they saw
+what he would be at, they in turn fingered the weapons which every man
+had about him.  Clearly they had not the art of forging steel.  It was
+long before they would leave the shore, and when they did go it was
+with one consent, without any words passing.  Quite suddenly they
+turned about and ran down to the shore, launched their canoes and were
+out in the water like a horde of rats.  They rowed down the lake, as if
+towards the sea.
+
+Nothing more was seen of them for some time, but presently they began
+to come in numbers, always very friendly and willing to barter.  They
+brought furs with them--fox and marten, beaver, as well as coarser
+kinds, bear and wolf and elk.  Karlsefne would exchange no weapons; but
+milk he offered, and that they drank greedily and on the spot, and
+cloth too, of which he had a good store.  Red cloth took their fancy
+most; they seemed as if they must have it, it was a kind of lust.  The
+breadths he could spare them grew narrower and narrower; they pushed
+out their furs for it with no consideration of what they got in
+exchange.  At last it became a kind of madness, and Karlsefne said it
+had better stop.  "They take it like strong water; one of these days
+they will be killing men for it."  It was a prophecy on his part--for
+they came in greater and greater numbers, and when there was no more
+red cloth for them, they howled and chattered and looked dangerous.
+Karlsefne and the men with him faced them with the best heart they had,
+but he ordered a retreat to the stockade, and when he was pretty near
+the entrance bade a man go in and bring out the bull.  That answered.
+The great beast stood in the doorway pawing the ground and breathing
+hard.  When he saw what was in front of him, down went his head, and he
+charged.  The savages scattered all ways and saved themselves.  In a
+few moments the lake was black with canoes; it was, the tale says, as
+though the water was covered with floating charcoal.  Karlsefne did not
+like the look of things at all.  He doubled the watch on the ship and
+strengthened the stockade; but did not wish to frighten Gudrid, who was
+so happy with her child, and beginning, as he could see, to love
+himself.  He knew that she loved him, because at all sorts of times he
+found out that she had been looking at him while he moved about, busy
+over something or other.  He taxed her with it one day.  "I think that
+you love me, Gudrid."
+
+She put her head on one side.  "What makes you think so?"  He told her;
+so then she owned to it, and he wished to know why.  She said that she
+could not tell, but in such a way that he saw that she could, and
+wished him to know.  So then he pressed her.  "Tell me, Gudrid, why you
+love me."  She touched her child's head.  "Because you are strong, and
+good, and brave.  And because you gave me this.  A woman must love her
+child's father."
+
+"Ask Freydis that," said Karlsefne; and she answered him; "Freydis
+loves more than she chooses to say.  When Freydis has a child, you will
+see that she will love it."
+
+"But not her man on that account," he said.  "It is only a heart like
+yours, my Gudrid, that can love because it loves.  For I see very well
+that you love me because you love this boy, and did not until he came."
+
+She looked gently at him, half excusing herself.  "I liked you well,
+and was grateful."
+
+"Ah, yes, maybe," he said, "but that was not how you loved Thorstan
+Ericsson."
+
+She said: "I was younger then, and I loved him so much because our time
+was short.  But I love you better than I loved Thorstan, because of the
+peace you have put in my heart."
+
+
+
+[1] The Hudson River.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+There was no further visitation from the savages for some time.  The
+leaves fell, the nights grew short, and there came a spell of cold; but
+if this were winter it was one which no Greenlander could fear.  The
+sky was blue, the sun warm on the skin; there was no snow, and the
+frost a mere white rime which melted in an hour.  Their cattle never
+failed of feed, and as for themselves, they had so well harvested the
+wild wheat and the grapes that they had nothing to fear.
+
+The winter, to call it so, was well advanced before the savages came;
+but one day they were reported in large numbers on the lake, and
+Karlsefne gave orders how they were to be received.  None were to be
+let inside the stockade; all the men were to have their weapons; such
+stuff as they had for barter was to be held up from within the defences
+and thrown over in exchange.  He himself with a few of the best men
+should stand in the entry.
+
+Now while they were waiting for the savages and could still see some of
+them out on the water, while others were disembarking on the shore,
+Gudrid was sitting just inside the door of her house with her child
+asleep on her lap.  She sat full in the sun, and was quiet and happy,
+as she generally was.  Presently there passed a dark shadow across the
+open door.  Gudrid looked up quickly.  A woman stood there inside the
+pillars of the porch and looked fixedly at her.  She was dressed in
+black, drawn very tightly across her; she was about Gudrid's own
+height, and had a ribbon over her hair--which was of a light-brown
+colour, and not coarse as most of the savages' was.  She was a pale,
+grave woman, and had the biggest eyes Gudrid had ever seen.  They were
+wide open, grey, and had a world of sorrow in them.  Gudrid was not at
+all afraid, because she thought the woman looked too sad to be wicked
+or ill-disposed; besides, she did not believe that any one could be
+ill-disposed to her.  So she smiled up in her face and waited for her
+to speak.
+
+When she did speak it did not seem at all remarkable that she should be
+perfectly understood.  "What is your name?" she said plainly.
+
+Gudrid answered her simply, "My name is Gudrid.  And what is your name?"
+
+"My name is Gudrid," said the woman, and the real Gudrid laughed softly.
+
+"Come then, Gudrid, and sit by me," she said, and held out her hand.
+The woman stared mournfully at her, and seemed to have trouble in
+speaking again.  She turned her head about as if her throat hurt her.
+Then she said, "No, I cannot--I may not."  Again she struggled, as she
+said, "Go from here.  Do not stay."  There came a loud cry from the
+stockade, and Gudrid started and got up.  She went to the door and
+looked out.  The woman was not there.
+
+By that time she was very much frightened, and saw them fighting at the
+entry.  The outside of the fence seemed thick with savages, and
+presently some of them rushed the opening and came in.  Freydis was at
+the door of her hut and saw them.  Her face flamed.  "Have at you,
+devils!" she shouted, and snatched up a double-handed sword.  With this
+she went stumbling towards them, being so far on with child that she
+could scarcely walk.  She had the long sword in one hand, but needed
+two to swing it.  Her shift incommoded her, so she ripped it open and
+let it fall behind her.  Then bare-breasted she whirled the great sword
+over her head and began to lay about her like a man.  Her yellow hair
+flew out behind her like a flag; her face was flame-red, and her eyes
+glittering like ice.  The savages fell back before her, and at the
+entry were caught by Karlsefne, returning from chasing a horde of them,
+and all killed.  The others had gone or been driven off.  Two of the
+Icelanders had been killed, and many were hurt.
+
+After this they had a council what had best be done.  Gudrid told her
+story.  Nobody had seen the woman but she, and nobody could make
+anything of it.  Freydis thought that she was a ghost, but Gudrid was
+sure of her reality.  "I think myself," she said, "that she was a woman
+of our own people either stolen by the savages from a ship, or cast
+ashore from a wreck, or lost by some adventurers of a former day.  I
+never saw any woman with so much horror in her face.  I would do a
+great deal if I could find her again.  But the fighting began, and she
+went away without my seeing her go."
+
+"I should like more to know how she came in," said Karlsefne, "than how
+she went out.  But whether she lives or is dead she had a warning which
+we had best take heed of.  I am for going home myself."
+
+Freydis said that she should stay.  She liked the country and was
+minded to live in it.  Others were of her mind.  About a hundred chose
+to settle there with her and her husband.
+
+There arose then the question of a ship, and Karlsefne said that he
+could not go home and leave them there with no means of escape.  He
+said that he would go out in his own ship and look for the others, but
+Freydis would not have that.  "Leave us here; we shall do well enough,"
+she said.  "As for the ship that has Thorhall the Huntsman in it, I
+would far sooner have none than his, with him in it."
+
+"We have tools enough here, and timber enough," Karlsefne said.  "We
+will build you a ship as soon as look at you."  So it was settled they
+were to build a new ship before they left.  That night Freydis's child
+was born.  It was a girl, and she called it Walgerd.  That had been the
+name of Thorstan's daughter, who had not lived.  Gudrid wondered why
+she chose that name.  She could never understand Freydis--nobody could;
+yet she had been right about her in one thing.  Freydis loved the child
+more than life itself.  She was so jealous of it that she was uneasy
+when any one came in to see her, and used to lean right over it and
+hide it out of sight.  Her yellow hair fell over her face, her eyes
+showed fire.  She was like a wild beast guarding her young.  As for
+Thorhall, her husband, she warned him out of the house, and he never
+dared put his head inside the door.  She allowed Gudrid the entry,
+sulkily, it is true; but that was only her way of doing things.  She
+was glad of her in her heart.  "I am even with you now," she said, with
+her face to the wall.
+
+"I am glad of it," Gudrid said.  "I always wished you happy."
+
+"I have never been so, since I became a woman," said Freydis, and
+Gudrid did not know what she meant.
+
+"I was happy enough," she went on, in a grumbling, even voice--as even
+it was as the constant running of water in a drain--"when I was a
+child, running and sporting with the boys.  I loved all the things that
+they loved--I could swim as well as any, and ride, and fight with
+stones.  But when they began to find me a girl, and to hold me and try
+to be alone with me, I had horror.  They made me ashamed.  And worse
+was to come--and I almost killed a young man for it--and after that I
+hated men, as I do still."
+
+"They mean no harm," said Gudrid.  "They do after their kind."
+
+"But their kind is not mine.  To be held in a man's arm is horrible to
+me."
+
+"It is good to me, sometimes," said Gudrid.
+
+"But when I saw you with Thorstan's child about to be born--and saw how
+rich and sedate you walked the ways, and how peace sat upon your
+forehead like a wreath, then I grudged you."  Freydis turned round in
+the bed and showed her burning face.  "And I said, 'This woman has a
+secret joy, and for all she is so quiet and still she is stronger than
+I.'  And when the child died I was glad.  I said, 'Now we are level
+again, but I will be better than you, for I will have a child which
+shall live and be strong like me.'  But you have had yours first, and
+it is a boy.  So you are better than me still."  Then her eyes filled
+with hot tears, which made her eyelids blink.
+
+"Oh, Freydis," Gudrid said, "you don't grudge me my boy?"
+
+"No, no, it is not that.  It is that I am ashamed.  You are good, and I
+am very bad.  I hate myself now."
+
+Gudrid kissed her.
+
+"Tell me, Freydis, now," she said, "why did you call your girl Walgerd?"
+
+Freydis did not want to answer, but presently she said: "I should have
+called her Gudrid if that had been lucky.  But we must not use the
+names of living persons for the new-born, so I called her Walgerd,
+because yours had been called so.  I went as near to you as I could."
+
+It seemed to hurt Freydis to talk about it, but Gudrid kissed her
+again, and went away feeling happy about her.  "It is good to be loved,
+even by Freydis," she said to Karlsefne, whose answer was, "Who could
+help loving you?"
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+But before the ship-building was began Freydis changed her mind, and
+said that she would go home with the rest.  Nobody caring to stop alone
+out there without some chieftain over them, it came to it that all must
+go home in one ship.  They killed what stock they could not take alive,
+and sailed out of the river at the beginning of summer.  Gudrid's boy
+Snorre was just two years old, and Karlsefne was anxious to be safe at
+home before he had a brother or sister.
+
+They waited about at the river's mouth for a fair wind, then set all
+sail and ran before it northerly along the coast.  So they came again
+to Markland and stayed there for certain days.  It was there that
+Karlsefne and some of the crew, on shore after game, surprised some
+savages in a hollow of the woods: a bearded man, two women and two
+children.  He saw them, unperceived himself, stalked them with art, and
+made a dash into the midst of them.  He caught the two children, but
+the others disappeared into the earth.  He brought them home with him
+and gave them to Gudrid.  "Can you have too many children?  I don't
+think so."  She took them gladly and brought them up.  They were brown
+all over and naked; they had black eyes round and staring as beads, but
+a ring of blue all about them, as blue as that on a thrush's egg.  In
+time she taught them her own tongue, and in time had them baptized--but
+that was not until she went to Iceland.  When they sailed from Markland
+the wind still held good, and they came safely into Ericsfrith, and
+picked up their moorings in the haven.  It was as if they had never
+been away.
+
+Leif came down to welcome them, and they stayed with him the rest of
+the year.  Eric Red was dead, and Leif not married.  He had his son
+with him born in Orkney, but Thorgunna herself had not come, and Leif
+would not marry any other woman.  Theodhild his mother kept house for
+him--it was no longer the great hospitality which old Eric had loved to
+maintain.
+
+They heard of the fate of Thorhall the Huntsman lost in Ireland, and of
+Biorn who had sailed with him.  Their ship had been driven out of her
+course by tempest, and had drifted into a strange sea which they called
+The Maggoty Sea.  Here the water was full of worms, which fastened on
+the ship and ate the timbers, so that she became rotten under them.
+They had a boat with them which the worms would not touch, and cast
+lots which should go in her and which remain.  Thorhall drew a good lot
+and Biorn another; half the crew got into the boat.  But then, as they
+were casting off, a young man who had been with Biorn in Iceland and on
+many voyages looked over the side and said, "Biorn, do you leave me
+here?"  Biorn said, "Why, what can I do?"
+
+"You should keep the promise you made to me when I left my father's
+house to go along with you," the young man said.
+
+Biorn looked about.  "Well," he said, "what would you have?"
+
+The young man answered, "I would have you take me in the boat."
+
+"Would you have my place?  Do you mean that?"
+
+The young man did not answer him, but said, "Well, I am young to die."
+
+Then Biorn said, "In with you, then.  Death is a hard thing for young
+men."  So they changed places, and Biorn saw the boat out of sight.  It
+was wrecked on the coast of Ireland, and many of the company drowned.
+
+
+Gudrid's son Biorn was born at Brattalithe and named after a brave man;
+and then it became a question for Karlsefne what he had better do.  He
+had had from Gudrid a fine estate in Greenland, but he had one of his
+own at Rowanness in Iceland, and wanted to take her there.  He told
+her: "I had the only good thing in Greenland when I had you; and you
+were not born here, and do not belong here either.  But it shall be as
+you please."
+
+She said at once, "Let us go home to Iceland," and as she said it her
+face fell and she looked sorrowfully at him.
+
+"What is it now, sweetheart?"
+
+"I remember," she said, "what was foretold of me when first I came to
+Greenland, and all of it has been fulfilled but two things.  Now I am
+afraid again, though it was so long ago."
+
+Karlsefne laughed.  "And one was that you should end your days in
+Iceland?"  She nodded, fearing the rest; but he went on--
+
+"And the other was that you should outlive me?"  She nodded again; but
+he looked at her and laughed, until she did too, but ruefully.
+
+"Let be all that, my dear," he said.  "Death is not so fearful a
+thing--and the longer we live the less fearful it is.  But I will tell
+you this, my Gudrid: I should be a miserable man were you to die first.
+And what would these children do without you?  I call that comfortable
+soothsay, for my part--but I am not for dying yet awhile."
+
+
+He was not; for the rest of his tale is as prosperous as its beginning.
+He settled down in Iceland upon his own land, and did well by Gudrid
+and her children before his time came.  As for her, it is said that
+when she had seen her sons out in the world, and married her daughters
+seemly, she turned to religion.  A pilgrimage to Rome is reported, and
+that she became a nun.  Thorberg had predicted of her that she should
+find the life which she loved best, and may have meant that of
+religion.  The fact appears to be that Gudrid was a sweet nature and
+could be happy anywhere if she were allowed to love.  And if it is not
+permitted always to love men, a woman can always love God.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gudrid the Fair, by Maurice Hewlett
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gudrid the Fair, by Maurice Hewlett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Gudrid the Fair
+       A Tale of the Discovery of America
+
+Author: Maurice Hewlett
+
+Release Date: November 27, 2007 [EBook #23643]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUDRID THE FAIR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GUDRID THE FAIR
+
+A Tale of the Discovery of America
+
+
+BY
+
+MAURICE HEWLETT
+
+
+Author of
+
+  "The Forest Lovers,"
+  "The Life and Death of Richard Yea and Nay,"
+  "Love and Lucy," etc.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+1918
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1918,
+
+By Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This tale is founded upon two sagas, which have been translated
+literally and without attempt to accord their discrepancies by York
+Powell and Vigfussen in their invaluable _Origines Icelandicae_.  As
+well as those versions I have had another authority to help me, in
+Laing's _Sea-Kings of Norway_.  I have blent the two accounts into one,
+and put forward the result with this word of explanation, which I hope
+will justify me in the treatment I have given them.
+
+I don't forget that a "saga" is history, and that these sagas in
+particular furnish an account of the first discovery of America, no
+less a thing.  Nevertheless, while I have been scrupulous in leaving
+the related facts as I found them, I have not hesitated to dwell upon
+the humanity in the tales, and to develop that as seemed fitting.  I
+don't think that I have put anything into the relation which is not
+implied in the few words accorded me by the text.  I believe that
+everything I give Gudrid and Freydis, Karlsefne and Leif and Eric Red
+to say or to do can be made out from hints, which I have made it my
+business to interpret.  Character makes plot in life as well as in
+fiction, and a novelist is not worthy of his hire who can't weave a
+tale out of one or two people to whom he has been able to give life.
+All romantic invention proceeds from people or from atmosphere.
+Therefore, while I have shown, I hope, due respect to the exploration
+of America, I admit that my tale turns essentially upon the explorers
+of it.  My business as a writer of tales has been to explore them
+rather than Wineland the Good.  I have been more interested in Gudrid's
+husbands and babies than I had need to be as an historian.  I am sure
+the tale is none the worse for it--and anyhow I can't help it.  If I
+read of a woman called Gudrid, and a handsome woman at that, I am bound
+to know pretty soon what colour her hair was, and how she twisted it
+up.  If I hear that she had three husbands and outlived them all I
+cannot rest until I know how she liked them, how they treated her; what
+feelings she had, what feelings they had.  So I get to know them as
+well as I know her--and so it goes on.  Wineland does not fail of
+getting discovered, but meantime some new people have been born into
+the world who do the business of discovering while doing their own
+human business of love and marriage and childbirth.
+
+All this, I say, is implicit in the saga-history.  So it is, but it has
+to be looked for.  The saga listeners, I gather, took character very
+much for granted, as probably Homer's audience did.  Odysseus was full
+of wiles, Achilles was terrible, Paris "a woman-haunting cheat," Gunnar
+of Lithend a poet and born fighter, Nial a sage, and so on.  The poet
+gave them more than that, of course.  Poetry apart, he did not disdain
+psychology.  There is plenty psychology in both _Iliad_ and
+_Odyssey_--less in the sagas, but still it is there.  And when you come
+to know the persons of these great inventions there is as much
+psychology as any one can need, or may choose to put there--as much as
+there is in _Hamlet_, as much as there is in _La Guerre et La Paix_.
+
+In Kormak's Saga, for instance, which I put forward some years ago as
+_A Lover's Tale_, is there no psychology?  It is no way out of it to
+put down Kormak's tergiversations to sorcery.  I doubt if that was good
+enough for the men who first heard the tale; it is certainly no good to
+us.  In the strange barbaric recesses of the tale of Gunnar Helming and
+Frey's wife, what are we to make of it all unless we reckon with the
+states of poor Sigrid's soul, married to a gog-eyed wooden god?  How
+came Halgerd to betray Gunnar to his foes, how came Nial to be burned
+in his bed?  Can one read _Laxdale_ and not desire to read through it
+into the proud heart of Gudrun?
+
+And having once begun with them one could go on, I believe, until the
+hearts of all those fine, straight-dealing people were as plain to us
+as those of our superfine, sophisticated moderns.  For Nature is still
+our mother and mistress, no less now than she ever was--and that's a
+good thing for the story-reader as well as for the story-teller.
+
+
+Out of the Saga of Thorgils, which is a tale of Greenland's
+exploration, I hope that I drew a portrait of a good Icelander.  Out of
+Eric's Saga and Karlsefne's Saga combined I believe there is a no less
+faithful picture of a good Icelandish woman.  Gudrid was wise as well
+as fair, if I have read her truly; she was a good woman, wife and
+mother.  The discovery of Wineland is to my own feelings quite beside
+the mark where she is involved; but I have put it all in, and wish
+there had been more of it.  Psychology and romantic imagination will
+not help us much there.  We want the facts, and they fail us.  All that
+can be made out is that Karlsefne sailed up the Hudson.  His Scraelings
+were Esquimaux.  But who was the black-kirtled woman who appeared to
+Gudrid and gave herself the same name?  And where was the Maggoty Sea?
+And what goaded Freydis to her dreadful deeds?  I admire Freydis
+myself; I think she was a _femme incomprise_.  I have taken pains with
+Freydis, though personally I had rather been Gudrid's fourth husband
+than Freydis's first.
+
+I am not afraid of the accusation of vulgarising the classics.  It is
+good that they should be loved, and if simplification and amplification
+humanise them I can stand the charge with philosophy.  Of all classics
+known to me the sagas are the most unapproachable in their naked
+strength.  Their frugality freezes the soul; they are laconic to
+baldness.  I admire strength with anybody, but the starkness of the
+sagas shocks me.  When Nial lies down by his old wife's side with the
+timbers roaring and crackling over his head, and Skarphedin, his son,
+says, "Our father goes early to bed, but that was to be expected, as he
+is an old man," Professor Ker, exulting in his strength, finds it
+admirable.  I say it is inadequate, and not justified to us by what
+else the saga tells us of the speaker.  I am sure that Skarphedin had
+more to say, or that if he had not the poet could have expressed him
+better.  It recalls the humorous callousness of our soldiers, which,
+nakedly rendered, is often shocking.  This is, however, not really the
+point.  Terseness may be dramatic--it often is, as in "Cover her
+face--mine eyes dazzle--She died young"--but in narrative it may check
+instead of provoke the imagination.  But if it provoke, is it not
+reasonable to let the imagination go to work upon it?  If Skarphedin
+indeed took his father's death in that manner, is one not justified in
+going to work with Skarphedin, to find out what manner of man he was
+who could so express himself in supreme crisis?  I trace a great deal
+of our soldiers' crude jesting at death to their Scandinavian blood;
+and nothing more intensely and painfully interesting has ever been
+given to the imagination to work upon than their conduct in the face of
+horror and sin of late, so dauntless, so blithe and so grim as it is.
+
+Where heroism has been so shown on all sides of us in these three
+dreadful years, it is no longer possible to pick and choose heroic
+nations.  One might otherwise have said that no such heroes were ever
+given to the world as the heroes of Iceland.  That they are not
+accepted as such on all hands is no fault of the literature which
+presents them; for that literature, like all great art, makes demands
+upon its readers.  It hands over the key, but if the lock is stiff it
+will not give you oil for the wards.  That you must find for yourself.
+Oil for the wards is all I can pretend to here; and if I may say that I
+have humanised a tale of endurance, and clothed demigods and shadows in
+flesh and blood, I shall feel that I have done useful work, and bear
+charges of vulgarisation with a philosophy which assures me that the
+two terms are much of a muchness.
+
+The great gestures, the large-scale maps, the grand manner are for
+history and epic, but genre for the novel--and what _genre_ is so
+momentous to it as the human?  Let Homer describe the wrath of Achilles
+and the passion of Hektor and Andromache.  The novelist will want to
+know what Briseis felt when she was handed from hero to hero, will pore
+upon the matronly charity of Theano, the agony of the two young men
+Achilles slew by Skamander, and find the psychology of these pawns in
+the great game as enthralling as that of the high movers.  I confess
+that to me Gudrid, the many times a wife and the always sweet and
+reserved, is more absorbing a tale than the discovery of Wineland.  I
+like the two running Scots better than their country, would barter all
+Greenland for the tale of the winter sickness in Thorstan Black's
+house.  So much apology I feel moved to offer for having put down
+Exploration from the chief place in the tale, and put up a wife and
+mother.
+
+As for the verse--Gudrid's Wardlock chant is adapted from the Lay of
+Swipday and Merglad in _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, I, 92 _seq_., and
+Thorstan's Song of Helgi and Sigrun is a partial version of that epic
+(_ibid_. 131).
+
+
+
+
+GUDRID THE FAIR
+
+
+I
+
+Thorbeorn was old when this tale begins.  His face was lean, his beard
+was grey, he stooped somewhat in the saddle.  But he had a fiery mind,
+a high spirit, and was so rich, or believed so, that men said he could
+buy off Death more likely than any other man, seeing he would neither
+fail of hardihood nor money.
+
+By this time, old age apart, he had done very well for himself, having
+not only buried a wife, but married another; having not only seen three
+sons out into the world and become a grandfather twice over; but having
+had also, by his second wife, whose name was Hollweg, a daughter, and
+an estate of Bathbrink which could be hers by and by, if he so pleased.
+This daughter was by name Gudrid, and by all men's consent Gudrid the
+Fair.  Iceland has always been famous for handsome women; but three are
+chiefly commemorated as "the Fair."  The first is Gudrun, who was
+daughter of Oswif; but she was now old.  The second is Stangerd,
+daughter of Thorkel of Tongue, and at this time the wife of
+Battle-Berse of Sowerby in the north-west parts.  This Gudrid,
+Thorbeorn's daughter, is the third, and was, at the moment, of
+marriageable age, being full fifteen years old.
+
+She was a tall girl, well and beautifully made, with carriage so
+graceful and look so courteous that men used to stop in the road and
+gaze after her as she walked.  Her hair was very nearly black, and made
+a plait which she could easily sit upon.  She was no talker, but had
+the best of manners, whereby it happened that those who talked with her
+were eloquent and believed that she had been so.  She had a beautiful
+voice and notable skill in singing.  Men heard her songs, and rushed
+out into the dark emulous of desperate work, and the sooner the better,
+to deserve well of her.  Thorbeorn was very proud of her; but it had
+been her mother's work to have her carefully trained.  If she had lived
+this tale might not have been written; but she did not.  She died a
+year before it begins, and left her old husband to a peck of troubles.
+
+Thorbeorn was the last man to cope with trouble.  He was too proud, too
+vain, and too idle--too proud to confide, too vain to accept, too idle
+to repair.  He had always kept a great table and had a hall full of
+guests.  He had them still, though he had not the money to pay for
+them.  He borrowed on his property, and borrowed again to repay the
+first loans; he had ventures at sea, which failed him.  He might have
+had help from his sons, but would not ask them.  When Gudrid was
+fifteen years old these things vexed him sadly; but what vexed him more
+was that young men came to Bathbrink to see if they could get speech
+with her; and that some of them put forward friends with proposals to
+marry her.  So far he had refused to treat with any.  "It is not to be
+thought of," he generally said; sometimes, "It is very unsuitable"; and
+once, "I am greatly offended."  Not that he did not fully intend to
+have her married--rather it was that he had a rooted belief in the
+greatness of his family and in the girl's merits, and could find none
+of the suitors at all equal to them.
+
+He was one of those men who rather wish to believe in themselves than
+do it.  He was always on the look-out for flaws upon his mettle.  He
+thought that Gudrid was unapproachable, and when he found that she was
+not, fretted to make her so.  But Gudrid herself was not at all
+unapproachable.  She liked the company of her equals in age, and saw no
+reason why young men should not be anxious to talk to her, or why, if
+they hung about with the generality at the lower end of the hall, they
+should not be invited to the fire.  With the girls in the bower she
+talked freely of courtships, and of young men.  Thorbeorn would have
+been cut to the heart to hear her.  It might have been better for him
+to have such a wound than the wound which actually he did receive.
+
+He was riding home late one autumn evening.  The weather was still mild
+and warm.  Nearing home, he turned his horse on to the turf and walked
+him, with the reins hanging loose.  Presently he was aware of two
+figures together under a clump of trees.  One of them he saw at once
+for Gudrid.  The other was a man, he knew not whom.  Immediately hot
+water sprang into his eyes and veiled their sight, but he saw enough to
+guess more.
+
+The pair were taking leave of each other.  Their hands were clasped,
+their arms at length.  They were far apart, the man talking, Gudrid
+listening.  Then presently the strain on the arms relaxed, their
+clasped hands fell; they were near together.  Gudrid, he saw, hung her
+head--and then, suddenly, the man put his other arm about her neck, and
+drew her to him and kissed her cheek.  At that she broke away and ran
+towards the house.  The man, looking after her for a little, then
+vaulted the turf wall and ran down the hillside towards the river,
+making great skips and jumps over the tussocks and boulders, as if he
+were as happy as a man could be.  That was what Thorbeorn saw in the
+autumn dusk.
+
+He went home in a dreadful state of mind, and could hardly bear to be
+served supper by his desecrated daughter.  To think that those soft
+cheeks had been profaned by a strange youth, that those grave young
+eyes had looked kindly upon another than himself, that that fair hand
+had clasped another's in kindness--all this seemed to him horrible.  He
+thought her a hypocrite; he thought himself insulted.  Yet even he had
+to admit that the kiss was sudden, and she evidently surprised and
+(since she ran away at once) probably frightened.  He judged that she
+was a novice at such work, but for all that was very much afraid that
+she took kindly to it.
+
+He spent a great part of the night thinking it over, and before he went
+to sleep had made up his mind.  Early in the morning he was out and
+about; before the day-meal he sent for Gudrid.  She came, singing to
+herself, fresh as a rose and as fair.  She asked his pleasure--and he
+had not the heart to tell her his displeasure.  What he did say was
+this: "Put your gear together as soon as you can.  I am taking you to
+Erne Pillar, where you will be put in fostership with Orme."  Gudrid
+looked up startled, and saw in her father's eyes what she had not seen
+before.  Her own eyes fell, she coloured up, turned and went away, to
+do as she was told.
+
+It may be said at once that she had done very little harm, and none
+knowingly.  The young man, who was one of the several who came to the
+house, was the son of a neighbour, a man of repute.  Gudrid favoured
+him no more than any of the others, but it had so happened that he had
+been there that afternoon, talking with the girls, and that Gudrid had
+walked with him as far as the trees on his way home.  He had protracted
+the farewells, and had snatched a kiss; she had been frightened and run
+away.  That might have happened to anybody--but she knew now that
+Arnkel had had no business at the house when her father was not there.
+That could not be denied.  She went soberly about her preparations, and
+the girls were full of pity.  They talked it over and over, but there
+was nothing to be done.  Her bundles and bales were corded upon the
+sumpter's back.  She embraced and kissed her housemates.  There were
+wet cheeks and trembling lips involved, but they were not hers.  Then
+she was put up before her father, and away she went.
+
+As for young Arnkel, he no more comes into the tale than he had stayed
+in Gudrid's mind.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Orme was a friend of Thorbeorn's, and a prosperous man.  He lived at
+Erne Pillar, which is below Snaefellness, and near the sea.  There was
+a haven there and a town.  Moreover it was a Christian settlement, with
+a church and a priest.  Most of the houses and land there belonged to
+Orme, who lived in a good house of his own with his wife Halldis.  They
+had no children, which was a grief to them.
+
+Thorbeorn brought Gudrid to the house, and had a good reception from
+the goodman and his wife.  "Take her with you, good wife, into your
+bower," he said, "while I have a word with Orme.  He will tell you all
+about it, or I will.  It is good for me to be sure that it makes no
+matter which of us tells you."
+
+Halldis said, it was easy to see that Gudrid was not making a short
+stay, and took her with her through the house into the bower.  There,
+it was not long before she knew all that Thorbeorn or Orme could have
+to say, and may be more still.
+
+Meantime, Thorbeorn, after much unnecessary havers, said to Orme: "The
+matter is this, neighbour.  I ask you and the goodwife to take Gudrid
+here in fostership.  It will suit me in every way, and I hope you will
+agree to it."
+
+Orme said that it would suit him too very well.  "Nothing the mistress
+would like better than to see herself reflected in a young pair of
+eyes."  Thorbeorn accepted that as a matter of course; but presently he
+asked whether they saw much company at Erne Pillar.
+
+Not such a deal of company, Orme said.  Now and again a ship came in,
+and there was a bustle, with men coming and going, cheapening the
+goods.  "Nothing to you at Bathbrink, I daresay," he added.  "They tell
+me that you keep a great house up there--as is fitting you should."
+
+"I have to remember what is expected of me," Thorbeorn said, and felt
+that he was no nearer what he wanted to say than he had been.
+
+"Gudrid is young," he said, beginning again.
+
+"She's a beauty, it's evident," Orme said briskly, and instantly
+Thorbeorn felt himself bristling down the backbone.
+
+"She is sought after on all hands--but not by any who is to my liking.
+I hope that Halldis will look after her well."
+
+"She will look after her like one of her own," said Orme.  Thorbeorn
+had rather he had said more than that.  He could not understand that
+Orme did not see what was at stake, and yet could not enlighten him
+further.  The good wife then came springing in.
+
+"She will be happy, and so shall we be," she said.  "I have a roomy
+heart, too long empty, woe's me.  She will soon be singing about the
+house, and then we old folks will fall to it.  It will be like a nest
+of linnets.  She will scour our rusty pipes for us.  Excellent!"
+
+Thorbeorn was put out that they seemed to think it pure pleasure to
+have his daughter on their hands instead of great responsibility and a
+call to duty.
+
+"Well," he said, "you have helped me with a serious trouble.  I leave
+her to you with confidence.  Where is she now?  For I must be going."
+
+"She is with the girls in the wash-house," said Halldis.  "All
+chattering together like starlings on a thatch.  All talking at once,
+and none listening.  Do you wish her fetched?"
+
+"No," said Thorbeorn, waving his hand.  "She will do better where she
+is."  He felt the impossibility of saying what he wished.  Then he took
+his way homewards, and the couple looked at each other.
+
+"A love affair," Halldis said.
+
+"It looks like it," said Orme.  "And there will be love affairs.  She's
+a paragon."
+
+"That remains to be seen," Halldis said.  "She's a beauty at least.
+But a baby as yet.  Wait till she's cut her teeth."
+
+"I hope she won't cut them here," said Orme; but his wife said briskly,
+"Better here than there."  Halldis could see through Thorbeorn and pity
+his barren pride.
+
+Gudrid was happy at Erne Pillar, and soon very much at home.  She had
+found her voice at once, and now she began to find herself.  Her
+discoveries were made in the appreciative eyes of her foster-parents,
+for that is the first place in which we get our notion of ourselves.
+The portrait encouraged her.  She became interesting to herself.  Then
+there were the neighbours, often in and out of the house, but always
+under the heedful eyes of the good wife.  Then there were the ships.
+Last there were the priest, and his little church.  All the people at
+Erne Pillar had been christened, as had Thorbeorn himself been; but
+there was a great difference when you had a priest and a church.  The
+priest at Erne Pillar was a serious priest.  He said Mass every day,
+and expected you, or some of you, to be there.  Now Thorbeorn,
+Christian though he were, had never been to Mass in his life.  His
+Christianity consisted in turning his back on Frey.  Frey had been the
+chief God at Bathbrink and in all the country round.  Thorbeorn had
+been Frey's priest at one time, but now would have nothing to say to
+him; and as for Gudrid, she had never known anything herself about Frey
+or the other gods, but had been sprinkled as soon as she could be
+carried down to Erne Pillar.  That, so far, had been the utmost of her
+Christianity.  But she had heard plenty of talk about the old gods; and
+now she was to hear more about them, and something of the new gods too.
+
+Orme and Halldis had both been heathens and knew a deal about Frey and
+Redbeard, as they called Thor.  Orme was not interested in religion at
+all; but Halldis was.  Halldis kept well with the priest, but on
+certain nights of the year--on the night they called The Mother Night,
+for instance--she was restless, and used to go to the door and stand
+there looking out at the moonlight, as if she would be off with the
+others if she dared.  That, too, was what plenty other women at Erne
+Pillar were doing; but none of them went.  The priest saw to it.
+Halldis taught Gudrid numberless songs--charms, incantations, love
+spells, and long, terrible tales about Valkyrs and their human lovers.
+The girl came to understand that love might become a tearing, wringing
+business, and marriage a tame road for life to take.  Halldis's songs
+were seldom about marriage, but always about love.  The two only came
+together in the same song when it was a case of a giant with a woman
+for his wife, or a Valkyr with a man for her husband.  These cases, it
+seems, had often occurred.  They were exciting and ended in tears--but
+not often in marriage as well.
+
+She went to Mass first of all with Halldis, but afterwards, as often as
+not, she went alone.  Halldis had plenty to do at home.  If she kept to
+what was of obligation she thought she did very well.  But Gudrid liked
+the quiet and darkness; she used to stare at the lights till they
+multiplied themselves and danced like shooting stars.  She liked the
+murmur of the words, and the mysterious movements and shiftings of the
+priest.  When he lifted up the Host, she bowed her head, and used to
+hear her heart beating.  She supposed that something was happening
+overhead, and used to listen for the rushing sound of wings.  This was
+a constantly renewed excitement; it never failed her when she was
+well--and that was always.
+
+The priest, who was a serious priest, and came from the south, was
+interested in Gudrid, and wanted her to confess and communicate; but
+she would not.  "No, I couldn't do that," she said, "without asking my
+foster-mother."
+
+"Ask her, then, my daughter," said the priest.
+
+"But she would have to ask my father," said Gudrid, "who would not
+allow it."
+
+"But your father is a Christian, surely?" said the priest.
+
+"Certainly he is a Christian.  He went into the river to be one."
+
+"Then he will order you to do your duty."
+
+Gudrid shook her head.  "No, no.  He would not like it at all."
+
+The priest spoke to Halldis about it, and scared her.  "It is not the
+custom here," she said, "but I will ask Orme."  The priest himself
+asked Orme, who rubbed his chin.  "One thing at a time is a good rule,"
+he said.  "We in Iceland are not much given to private talks between
+men and women.  Husband and wife is all very well.  And Thorbeorn is a
+peculiar man.  I recommend you to wait for a little.  These are early
+days for new customs."
+
+The priest was vexed.  He did not care to be called a man.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+The second summer after Gudrid came to Erne Pillar a fine ship came in
+from Norway with a full cargo.  She came in late in the evening, and
+everybody was on the shore to see her.  Orme knew whose she was and all
+about her.  She was Einar's ship, he said, and overdue.  In the morning
+she would discharge her cargo in his warehouse, "and then," he said to
+Gudrid, "there will be matters for you to see to, which will last you a
+good while.  Fine cloth, Einar always brings, and embroidered lengths
+from Russia.  We shall have you going as gay as a kingfisher about the
+ways."
+
+Nothing was done that night except that Orme was rowed out to the ship
+and stayed drinking with the master till late.  But in the morning,
+when Gudrid went to Mass, she saw men bringing up the cargo from the
+quay; and when she came back from Mass, there, at the door of Orme's
+warehouse, was Orme himself talking to a stranger who had foreign
+clothes on him, a gold chain round his loins, from which hung a goodly
+knife in a sheath, and rings in his ears.  Gudrid, being well brought
+up, looked neither to the right nor left, but dipped her head to her
+foster-father as she went by.  She had on her sea-blue gown, and a blue
+silk handkerchief knotted in her hair.  The handkerchief was there in
+obedience to the priest, who had told her she must not come to church
+bare-headed, even in the summer-time.  The morning being fresh, her
+cheeks were a-flower with roses.
+
+Orme greeted her with a happy word as she sped by him, but Einar, who
+was the stranger present, the master of the ship, looked after her, and
+presently said, "Tell me, who is that beautiful person?"
+
+Orme told him who she was and of what stock.  Einar's colour was high.
+"She is a prize for a good man indeed," he said.  "And many and many a
+man has tried after her, beyond doubt?"
+
+"Many and many a man," said Orme; "you are right there.  But she is not
+for the first comer, nor yet for the second.  I won't answer for
+herself, if herself had anything to say in it--which isn't likely.  But
+for her father the Franklin, I will say as much as this, that he's a
+great man, and knows it, though not so well to do as he was.  And he
+will be hard to come at in the matter of Gudrid."
+
+Einar said no more about her just then, but turned to his affairs and
+was busy all day long.  Then, at supper-time, Orme took him home to his
+house, where he was to stay so long as his occasions kept him in the
+country.  Halldis made him very welcome, and then Gudrid came into the
+hall, and he had a greeting for her.  He was young and fresh-coloured,
+and showed fine white teeth when he smiled, which was often.  He
+produced his bales, presents for Halldis and Orme; and presently, while
+they were all pulling over the things, he held up a jointed girdle of
+wrought silver with crystals set in every square of it.  This he
+offered to Gudrid.
+
+"For you, lady, if you will accept of it," he said.  Gudrid drew back
+and blushed.  Then she looked at Halldis.
+
+"Oh, may I?" she asked.
+
+Halldis, who had her hands full of scarlet cloth, looked at the
+glittering thing.  "It is too good to refuse," she said.  "And why
+should you refuse it?"
+
+"You will make me proud and contented if you will take it," Einar said.
+"It will be a kind action on your part."
+
+"Einar speaks well," said Orme.  "Put it about you, Gudrid."  Gudrid
+put the belt round her waist and fastened it.
+
+"That's a good fit," said Halldis.  "It might have been made for you."
+
+Einar was still looking at Gudrid, and smiling all the time.
+
+"Does it please you, lady?" he said.
+
+"It is beautiful," said Gudrid.
+
+"It ought to be," Einar said.  Then she thanked him fairly, and turned
+and ran away to show herself to the maids in the bower.  Einar was very
+thoughtful for a time; but brightened up when Gudrid and the girls
+brought in the meal, and served it.  He told tales of his voyages and
+entertained the company.
+
+A very good tale he told of a friend of his called Biorn--Biorn
+Heriolfsson--who was a ship-man like himself, and had come home to
+Iceland two winters back expecting to find his father at home.  But his
+father in the meantime had up-stick with everything and gone off to
+Greenland after Eric Red.  That put Biorn out, because he was a man who
+liked old customs.  It had always been his way to spend the winters at
+home with his father, and now here was his father flitted to Greenland.
+So Biorn stood on the deck of his ship, very much put out.  "Shall we
+break bulk?" somebody asked him.  "No," says Biorn, "you will not do
+that.  Let me think."  When he had thought he told the ship's company
+that he was minded to go to Greenland after his father, and they agreed
+to make the voyage.  He fastened down his cargo again, refitted, and
+away.  But it was one thing to resolve upon Greenland, and another
+thing to hit it off.  He had not sailed those seas before, and falling
+in with bad weather, was driven out of his course; and then--to make
+matters worse--there came down upon him with a northerly wind a thick
+blanket of white fog in which he could get no hint of his whereabouts
+and drifted upon a strong current, fairly smothered up.  He knew no
+more where he was than Einar himself could tell them; he lost count of
+days and nights, but estimated that he was three weeks at sea before
+the fog lifted and he saw the stars.  In the morning the sun rose fair
+out of the sea, and he got a bearing.  More than that, he saw before
+him--like a low bank of cloud--a strange coast lying on his starboard
+bow.  He could not tell where he wag got to, or what land that might
+be, but was sure it was not Greenland.  The land lay low, and was dark
+with woods.  The shore was sandy, with hummocks of blown sand upon it,
+covered with grass; the surf very heavy.  He coasted that country for
+two days and nights with a good wind off-shore, but would not try for a
+landing anywhere, being set upon Greenland and sure that he was not
+there.  Other lands he saw, and a great island covered with snow, and
+ice-mountains rising sheer out of the sea--but still he kept on his
+course.  After that he had a spell of heavy weather with green seas
+over him constantly; and last of all he saw another land, on his port
+bow, which he said was Greenland.
+
+A great ness ran out far into the sea, which he made with safety, and
+found smooth water, a town, an anchorage, and a man in a boat fishing.
+Biorn drew alongside, feeling for his anchorage, and laughed to himself
+when the man looked up from his fishing and presently raised his hand
+and sawed the air once or twice.  "Hail to you, father," said Biorn.
+"I thought you would be coming along," said his father.  "You have hit
+me off to a nicety."  Biorn said, "I don't know about the nicety of it.
+I have been seven weeks at sea since I left Iceland, and no man alive
+knows where I have been--least of all myself."  "Be careful of my
+lines," said his father.  "I am in the way to catch monsters, and have
+pots down and out all round me."  At that Biorn threw his head up and
+laughed till he cried.  "A scurvy on your monster pots," he said.
+"Here am I come from beating round the watery world to seek you, and
+you think only of pots."
+
+Gudrid was thrilled to hear of the new lands; but Orme, who knew
+Heriolf, Biorn's father, was tickled to death with the old man's
+quirks.  "That is Heriolf all over," he said.  "And to say that such a
+man could get on with Eric Red.  Greenland is not wide enough to hold
+those two."
+
+But Gudrid held Einar with the most beautiful pair of eyes in Iceland.
+"And what country was it that Biorn found first?" she asked.
+
+Einar said, "I can't tell you.  He must have drifted south of
+Greenland, south and by west.  I believe that he crossed the western
+ocean, which no man has ever yet done.  It is a notable deed--but a
+thousand pities that he made no landing."
+
+But Gudrid still gazed at him, and into him.  "And will you not go
+yourself, and seek out that new country?"
+
+Einar said, "I have often thought of it.  It would be a fine adventure.
+But just now I have another adventure in my mind, which may delay me.
+
+"And what adventure is that?"
+
+Einar said, "I cannot tell you at the moment.  It is not a settled
+thing by any means."
+
+Halldis looked at Orme, and Orme nodded his head.
+
+After that Einar saw much of Gudrid, and used to tell her tales of the
+sea.  He was busy, of course, most of the day, but found time in the
+evenings; and in the mornings, too, he had the habit of going to church
+at Mass-time and kneeling behind her.  She was pleased to find him
+there, and the first time showed it plainly.  After that she was more
+than pleased, but careful not to show it.  They used to walk home
+together, and sometimes did not go the straight road, but went round by
+the frith and looked at Einar's ship lying out at her moorings, swaying
+with the tide.
+
+One day, looking at the ship there, Gudrid asked him again what his
+adventure was, and whether anything was settled.  No, he said, nothing
+was settled; but he hoped it might be settled soon.  "It does not
+depend altogether upon me," he said.  "My mind was made up at once."
+
+"But," said Gudrid, "if that adventure were settled and done with,
+would you not then think of seeking the new country which Biorn saw?"
+
+"Well, I might do that," Einar replied.  "But a man tires of the sea
+after a time, and I have had plenty of it.  I am very well off, you
+must know.  I might set up my house-pillars, and find me a wife."
+
+"But you would not do that?"
+
+"Ah," said Einar, "but I am sure that I would."  She kept her gaze for
+the tide in the frith, feeling it would be indiscreet to say more.
+
+A little later on he told her what the adventure was on which his heart
+was set, and when she had heard it she gave him her hand.  But she told
+him that it did not rest with her--as he knew very well it did not.
+They sat together on the brae in the sun, and her hand remained in his
+keeping.  Presently she said, "If my father says that we may, we will
+go out to find the new country together."
+
+"We will go where you will," said Einar.  "It will be all one to me."
+
+Again she thought, with her face set towards the sea.  Then she turned
+suddenly and put her arms round his neck.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Einar spoke to Orme about the affair, and Orme put on a scared look,
+though he had been expecting something of the kind.  "You will find
+Thorbeorn hard to deal with," he said.
+
+Einar replied, "Hard or not, I intend to come at him, for I love
+Gudrid, and she loves me.  She is worth fighting for, being as good as
+she is fair."
+
+"She is so," said Orme; "but, to tell you the truth, I don't know how
+you will set about it."
+
+"I shall ask you to be my friend in it," Einar said.  "He will listen
+to you sooner than any one."
+
+Orme put his head on one side.  "I don't care much about your errand.
+You will get me into hot water with Thorbeorn.  Don't I tell you that
+he is a great man, an old settler and what-not?  He knows his
+forefathers back to Baldur the Beautiful."
+
+"You are telling me what I know already," said Einar, who was rather
+red, and showed a frown.  "My own birth is no such thing.  My father
+was a freedman.  Well, I couldn't help that."
+
+"If I am telling you stale news, neighbour," said Orme, "it is only
+that you may see what I have to tell Thorbeorn."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," Einar said.  "He is a man of rank, and I no such
+thing.  I grant it.  But I have money, do you see?  I am well off both
+in ships and credit; my name stands well in the world.  And I am young,
+and he is old.  I think I could be useful to Thorbeorn, if he would
+allow it--and I need not tell you I set no bounds in reason upon what I
+would put down for the sake of the match."
+
+"Well," said Orme, "I will go and see him."
+
+
+Gudrid could hear nothing of this until the morning; but then Einar
+told her what he had arranged with Orme.  She now considered herself as
+pledged to Einar, though she was nothing of the kind.  Loyalty to him
+persuaded her of it, and he found that very sweet, and was touched.
+They sat close together on the brae; she allowed him her hand, and
+rested her cheek on his shoulder.  Einar, who was an honest young man,
+began to fear that he was doing wrong to allow it.  But he could not
+resist a word or two for himself.  He told her of his birth, saying
+that his father, Thorgar, of Thorgar's Fell, had been a freedman, but
+had done well since.  "It is right you should know these things," he
+said.
+
+Gudrid said that it was nothing to her; but Einar warned her that it
+might be much to her father.  He went on: "To you perhaps it is enough
+that I love you dearly--and to me it is enough.  But who knows?  Maybe
+I shall not have the right to talk to you after to-morrow or next day.
+Now I wish to say this to you, that I shall never look at another
+woman, and will bind myself to you if you will accept it of me."
+
+She sat erect at that and looked gravely at him.  "You ought not to
+bind yourself," she said, "since I cannot."
+
+"You cannot.  I know that," he said.  "But I both can and will."
+
+Thereupon he brought out a handful of money from his breast and chose a
+gold coin of thin soft gold, with the head of a ragged old king on it.
+He told her where it came from, and how he had had it from a dead man
+after a battle in the mouth of a great river in Russia.  Then he bit it
+in the middle with his teeth, and indented it fairly.  He bent it to
+and fro until it was broken in half; and next he bored a hole in each
+portion, and gave one to Gudrid.
+
+"Now I have tokened myself to you, my love," he said.  "Do you wear
+that upon a chain which I will give you presently, and remember when
+you look at it, or take it in your hands, that I wear the fellow.  If
+ever you want me, you have only to let that half-moon of gold come into
+Orme's hands, and sooner or later you will see me again.  And so let it
+be between us from henceforward if you will."
+
+She took the coin, and closed her hand upon it until he should give her
+the chain, but having it, she could not be to him as she had been
+before.  She sat up straight and looked at the sea.  Her hand was free
+for him; but he did not take it, and she felt sure he would not.
+
+A constraint fell upon them; neither could find anything to say.  Fate
+was between them.
+
+So it was until Orme came back with his news.
+
+
+He had nothing good to report.  Thorbeorn had heard him with
+impatience, and as soon as he had ended put himself into a rage.  His
+thin neck stiffened, his faded eyes showed fire.  "Do you offer for my
+daughter on behalf of a thrall's son?  Well for him he put you forward
+instead of a smaller man.  But I take it ill coming from you whom I
+have always treated as a friend."
+
+Orme had excused himself on the score of Einar's merits--for which he
+could answer, he said--and well-being.  "He has two ships at sea in the
+Norway trade.  His credit stands high on each side the water.  There's
+many a worse man than he well married--and he loves your Gudrid beyond
+price.  There is nothing he will not put down for her."
+
+But that had wounded Thorbeorn in his most sensitive part.  He knew
+that he was ruined and could not bear that other men should know it
+also.  "It is hard that his money should tempt you to insult a poor
+man," he said.  "I am what I am, and that is a man not so poor but he
+can keep his honour clear.  You must think me poor indeed in other
+things than goods when you ask me to trade my own flesh and blood.  Let
+me hear no more of it for fear I may get angry.  It is the case, I see,
+that I rate my daughter's marriage more highly than you seem able to
+conceive of.  I made a great mistake when I left her in your charge
+precisely to avoid what you have brought upon me.  Now she shall come
+home, where she can be valued at the worth of her name and person.
+That is what I have to say to you, Orme."  With that he had looked Orme
+straight in the face, and there had been no more to urge.
+
+
+Einar heard it from Orme, but it was Halldis who told Gudrid the news.
+Gudrid received it in silence, but put her hand up and laid it over the
+token which fluttered in her bosom.  "My pretty one," said Halldis, "I
+blame myself."
+
+"No, no," Gudrid said, "you must not do that.  Nobody is at fault."
+But Halldis thought Einar had been much to blame.  She would have
+comforted Gudrid and made much of her if she had been able--but Gudrid
+would not have that.  She served the table as before, and sat by
+Halldis afterwards while the men talked and passed the mead about.  She
+was pale and silent, but did not give way, nor leave them till her
+usual time.  When she was in her bed she sobbed, and buried her hot
+face in the bolster; but even then she did not cry.  She was always
+impatient of deeds which led nowhere--and crying is a great deed.
+
+In the morning they parted.  "I shall sail as soon as may be now," he
+told her.  "Iceland will be hateful to me if it hold us two apart."
+
+"Maybe you will seek out the new country," she said, with a bleak smile.
+
+"Maybe," he said.  "But it may be you who see it first."  She shook her
+head sadly.
+
+"We do foolishly when we talk of my fate," she said, and then there was
+a silence which was like a winter fog.  She broke it by throwing
+herself into his arms.
+
+"Listen," she said with passion, "listen.  They will give me to another
+man, but I shall be yours all the while.  They might give me to two
+men, one on the heels of another, but it would be nothing.  Do you
+believe it?  You must believe it, you must."
+
+"I believe it," said Einar; "but it is dreadful to talk about."
+
+"No, it is not dreadful, because I tell you it is nothing," she said.
+"You are free to do what you will, and you offer me yourself.  I did
+not like to accept it, because I thought I could give you nothing.  But
+now I know I can.  Tell me that you believe me, and then I must go."
+
+He told her as he kissed her that he believed her--but it was not true.
+He did not believe her because he could not.
+
+Then they parted.  She went back to Orme's house, and he went his way
+along the shore of the frith.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Gudrid did not see Einar again.  Kettle, the reeve of Bathbrink, came
+down to fetch her away, and by now she was behind him on his pad, while
+Einar was far into the fells.  He did not return until late, and then
+he told Orme that he should sail with the first tide.  "Whither will
+you go?"  He said that he must go back to Norway to discharge, and
+after that did not know what he should do.  "I am in heavy trouble over
+the way this has turned out.  At such times a man cares little what may
+become of him."
+
+"Yes, but men get over it," Orme said.
+
+"I think that I shall not.  There is that in her which will prevent me."
+
+"She is like all women, I fancy," Orme said; "very tender where they
+are loved.  They set more store upon love than men do, and whosoever
+offers it to them, it is a valuable thing, and enhances the offerer."
+
+"That is not Gudrid's way," said Einar.
+
+Orme felt sorry for him.
+
+"Thorbeorn will make a marriage for Gudrid, you may be sure," he said.
+"And I dare swear she will be a good wife to the man who gets her."
+
+"It is certain," said Einar.
+
+Early next day he weighed his anchor and went down the frith.  Now he
+leaves the tale.
+
+
+But he did not leave Gudrid's mind, who now had little else to think
+of.  Her father said nothing to her of the reason which had brought her
+home.  He was stately and remote.  Nor did he mention his difficulties,
+which were gathering so close about his house.  But they were common
+knowledge at Bathbrink, and Gudrid heard of little else from morning
+till night.  There was scarcity there, not of provision, but of guests.
+No young men came about the house, or filled the great table in the
+hall.  Other men came, who wanted money, and went grumbling away, with
+voices which rose higher in complaint as they went further from the
+house.  Thorbeorn himself was often away, and used to come back more
+silent and proud than he had gone out.  The winter set in with wind and
+drifting snow.  Darkness drew closer about the country; the sky was
+lemon colour, the fells were black.  It was the time of great fires,
+and long festivals within-doors; but Thorbeorn's hall remained empty.
+
+In the face of such manifest misery the love she had given to Einar and
+received from him shone far off like a winter star, which had no warmth
+for the blood.  She used to look fondly at her token and try to make
+herself believe that his strong teeth had bitten the deep gauffres into
+its edge.  When she succeeded the scene came back to her, she felt
+again as she had when he had been standing there beside her on the brae
+overlooking the racing water.  Her eyes grew misty as she looked away
+into the dark, holding her relic clenched in her hand.  But it was not
+real; these were only dreams of him.
+
+So the winter came upon Bathbrink and lapped it in snow, and love grew
+numb with cold.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Towards winter's end Thorbeorn roused himself.  He had made up his mind
+to face his troubles, and now saw a way of doing so with nobility.  He
+would break up his homestead, sell his estates, pay his debts, and go
+abroad.  That would be at once just and of good appearance in the world.
+
+But he would not go east where he would find a life ready made for him,
+with the same state to maintain, and be no better off than he had been
+at home.  It was for Greenland he intended, a new country with but few
+settlers in it yet.  An old friend of his, one Eric Red, had gone out
+there for good reasons some years ago, and had often sent him messages
+begging him to join his colony.  Now he would do it.  The thought
+warmed him.
+
+He set the business afoot at once, and sold the whole of his estate for
+a good price.  When he had paid his creditors, which he did very
+particularly and with a great air, he had a good sum over and above the
+cost of his ship.  His spirits rose, his taste for splendid hospitality
+revived.  He resolved to give a great feast to all his friends and
+acquaintances, such a feast as should make men say that nobody had ever
+confronted misfortune more gallantly than Thorbeorn of Bathbrink.
+
+It was a noble feast, lasting three days and nights; the greatest there
+had been made within the memory of men.  Everybody came, for enmities
+were all forgotten.  Orme was there from Erne Pillar, and Halldis was
+with him.  Good Halldis embraced Gudrid, kissed her on both cheeks, and
+held her closely, very ready to revive memories.  "And what have you to
+say to it?  And how will you face the hardships of the strange land?"
+Gudrid was very guarded in her answers.  "I shall like to see
+Greenland," she said; "we used to talk about it at Erne Pillar."  It
+was true, Einar had told them of it, and of his friend Biorn who had
+found his father out there after seven weeks at sea.
+
+"And you go out there without a husband?" said Halldis, with sympathy
+ready and waiting in her kindly eyes.
+
+Gudrid said, "Why not?  It is not I who have the wedding of myself."
+She would not meet Halldis half-way, nor any part of the way.  Halldis
+felt the chill.
+
+But Gudrid and her maidens did the last hospitalities of Bathbrink
+sweetly and diligently.  They say that the qualities of the mistress
+are reflected in the maids.  Gudrid was owned a beauty on all hands,
+but it was agreed that her manners enhanced her good looks, as a fair
+setting will show off a jewel.  To see her at her service, you would
+have thought her without a care in the world.  She could laugh and talk
+with one and all, she could be grave with the grave and gentle with
+those who mourned.  But she would not let any know that she mourned
+herself.  Any hint towards Einar turned her to smooth stone.  She had
+that kind of pride from her father, the kind that is tender of itself.
+
+As for Thorbeorn, he was splendid, and the more splendid he was the
+more he felt himself to be so.  On the last night of his feast, when
+the hall was full, the horns nearly empty, and the torchlight getting
+low, he thumped the high table with the hilt of his dagger, and stood
+up in a dead silence.
+
+"Neighbours," he said, "it is time I should bid you farewell.  In this
+good land, where my fathers have lived before me, I too have lived my
+life out, and kept my customs, and good faith with all men; and have
+made many friends, and no enemies that I know of.  As I have served
+mankind, so has mankind served me.  To you, friends and guests, I say
+that we have proved each other and seen good days.  But now, so it is
+that I at least must see some doubtful days.  I have been pinched and
+straitened in many ways.  I have had to consider whether I should stay
+on here in a mean way of life or move out into freer quarters.  Old as
+I am, I choose to go abroad; nor do I think you will blame me if I can
+go away honourably, leaving no man the worse for my departure.  Now my
+good friend Eric Red has asked me to share quarters with him in
+Greenland, where he has a settlement and keeps a great train--and
+thither I intend to go.  And I shall go this very summer, if all turn
+out as I expect, and take, as I hope, your friendship with me.  In any
+case let this feast stand to you as a token of my goodwill to every man
+here."
+
+He stood for a moment looking forth upon the crowded tables, and at the
+women clustered about the doors.  He was much moved by the force and
+plainness of his own words, and for a while every one kept silence,
+thinking that he had more to say.  But he had not, and presently sat
+down in his seat.  That was the signal for uproar.  The men stood on
+the benches and shouted "Hail" to him; they helped the women up, too,
+who waved their hands or scarves, or whatever came handy.  Gudrid saw
+Orme's hand held out to her, and took it, standing with the rest, with
+Orme's arm round her.  In the excitement of everybody the emotions get
+loose.  Orme held Gudrid closely to him and whispered in her ear, "If
+he would let you stay with us, Gudrid, how happy we should be!"  She
+turned him her pale face, smiling into his; but Fate held her fast, and
+she did not even answer him.  "Shall I have at him again, for Einar's
+sake?" said the good Orme, eager to procure happiness for somebody.  At
+that she shook her head.  "He would not have it.  I am sure of that."
+So was Orme in his sober mind.
+
+Meantime the neighbours were thronging about Thorbeorn, pledging him in
+horns of mead and ale.  Many of them offered him stock or provision for
+the voyage; many cried that they would go with him to the new
+settlement.  They would never thole a new master, they said, and fully
+believed it.  Some thirty souls did actually go on the voyage.  This
+was the greatest day of Thorbeorn's life so far.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Thorbeorn's ship lay ready for him in Rawnhaven; but there was much to
+do, what with hay and corn harvest, to get in, before he could leave.
+He sailed, then, fully late in the year--himself and his household,
+thirty or more of his friends beside, his house-pillars and all the
+stock he had left beside.  He was burning to be off, the old adventurer
+that he was, but Gudrid was not of his way of feeling about it.  The
+Icelanders were a race of stoics.  What was to be held them spellbound.
+Far from hindering adventure, it promoted it; for you never knew but
+what Fate intended you to succeed.  But Gudrid had seen how she might
+have been happy, and could not understand how otherwise she could be.
+The last night at home, so she fondly called Iceland, was spent with
+Orme and Halldis, to whose kindness she thawed at last.  She cried upon
+Halldis's broad bosom, and revealed herself.  "You see how it is with
+me now," she said.  "If I never meet him again I shall never love
+another man.  And I see no way of meeting him--and so I must be
+wretched."  Then she fairly wailed: "I might have been so happy--I
+might have been!" till it was pity to hear her.
+
+Presently she took out her token and showed it to Halldis.  "That is
+all I have of Einar's," she said.  Halldis said that she had the girdle
+he had given her.  "Yes," she said, "but this has his teeth-marks in
+it."  Then she sat up on Halldis's lap and looked shyly at her, saying,
+"I am going to ask you something."
+
+"Ask, my child."
+
+"If it should happen ever that I come home again, and want to see
+Einar, will you give him this from me?  He will know then what to do."
+
+Halldis promised.  "He is mostly here every year," she said.  "But
+there's no saying how it may find him."
+
+"It will find him waiting for me," Gudrid said.  "He promised me that."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear," cried Halldis, "to be sure he did!  What else
+could he say or feel at such a time?"  But Gudrid held to her opinion,
+and to her token too.  She said that she should always wear it; and
+Halldis had not the heart to exclaim.
+
+They sailed with a fair wind, having waited for it, and were soon out
+of sight of land; but it did not hold.  Bad weather overtook them,
+contrary winds, driving rain, fog--that overhanging curse of Greenland.
+They ran far out of their course and had to beat back again; cattle
+died, provision ran short; to crown all a sickness broke out among the
+company, whereof near half died.  Thorbeorn kept hale and hearty
+throughout; and Gudrid took no harm.  The wet, the clinging cold, the
+wild weather did not prevent her attending the sick, or doing the work
+which they should have done, had they been able.  She had no time to be
+happy or unhappy, and was never afraid of anything.
+
+It was hard upon the winter; the days were short, the nights bitter
+cold.  The fog, thick and white like a fleece, seemed incapable of
+lifting.  The wind came in short spells, the sea was lumpy.  But one
+day as they were labouring and rolling, the ship straining and cordage
+creaking, Thorbeorn lifted his head, and bore hard upon the helm.
+"Breakers!" he shouted, and the crew sprang to the rail.  A dark form
+seemed to lift out of the fog, like a core of blackness, and clouds of
+sea-birds wheeled overhead with harsh clamour.  They were come unawares
+to Greenland the White, and within an ace of breaking up against her
+cliffs.
+
+None on board knew what headland this might be; but Thorbeorn knew it
+was not Ericsfrith, which he had intended to make.  They rounded it,
+however, without mishap, and had a fair wind when they were beyond it.
+At last they could see a shore with a rough breakwater of stones; and
+presently upon that shore some men standing together.  They cast anchor
+and let down their sails, and before all was shipshape a boat came
+rowing out to them, with a man in the stern in a blue cloak.  The boat
+came alongside, and they were hailed.  "Who and whence are you?"
+
+Thorbeorn told his name and port of origin.  "I hoped to make
+Ericsfrith," he said.
+
+"You have made a poor business of it," said the master of the boat.
+"This is Heriolfsness, a good ten hours' sailing from the frith; and I
+am Heriolf at your service."
+
+Gudrid's heart leapt.  This was the father of Biorn, of whom Einar had
+told her in the days of her happiness.  That seemed for a moment to
+bring Einar within touching distance.
+
+Meantime Heriolf came on board and greeted Thorbeorn fairly.  He was a
+hale old man, with white hair and beard, and twinkling blue eyes.  "You
+will do well," he said, "to stay with me through the winter.  This is
+an unchancy country in winter time, what with fog and scurvy and one
+thing and another.  In Iceland you do better, because you have the
+wind--but here the fog smothers everything.  If my son Biorn were at
+home he could tell you of a new country, my word!  But he's away, and
+no telling when he will be here again.  Now, if you are willing, we
+will be going.  My people will see to the housing of yours, and the
+stock shall be looked after as if it was my own.  But you and your girl
+here will be happy to be by a hearth again."
+
+So it was done.  They found Heriolf a good host, his house well built
+and well stored.  He had a comely wife, too, who took kindly to Gudrid.
+"That's a paragon of a girl you have there," Heriolf said.  "If my son
+were at home I don't know how it would turn out."
+
+"She's not for every one," said Thorbeorn, on his dignity at once.
+
+"But my son Biorn is some one, let me tell you," said Heriolf.  "He is
+a traveller who has seen more of the world than any man living, I dare
+say.  And here in Greenland, you must know, a woman is a precious piece
+of goods.  There was a woman brought in here last summer with a sick
+man who died before he had been a week in bed.  Before he was buried
+there were six men fighting who should be her next.  And two of them
+were killed outright; but none of them got her."
+
+"Would she have none of them?" Thorbeorn asked, though he was not at
+all interested.
+
+"She had no opportunity," said Heriolf.  "For another man came and took
+her away before they had done fighting."
+
+Thorbeorn held his head stiffly.  "But my daughter is greatly
+descended," he said.  "And Eric Red is of my friends."
+
+"All that may be," said Heriolf, "but your daughter is a woman, and
+Eric Red himself no more than a man.  In this country you have to deal
+with people as God made them.  But there is a wise woman in the town,
+and maybe she will tell us what is written in the book of life."
+
+"My daughter is a Christian," said Thorbeorn, but old Heriolf's mouth
+twitched.
+
+"I dare swear she will be wanting to know what the book of life says,
+for all that.  Let me tell you that a marriage is not over when the
+priest has said his say.  No, nor yet begun, maybe."
+
+Nobody could have been more easy to quarrel with than Heriolf upon the
+subject of his son, except Thorbeorn upon that of his daughter; yet
+there was no quarrel.  It may be that Thorbeorn was too happy to
+stretch his thin legs towards a driftwood fire again, or again, that he
+recognised the sweet kernel of his host under the cruddled husk.
+However it was, he let the talk of wise women and the Book of Fate
+float over his head as the spume of the sea passes over the tangle far
+below.  The spume creams and surges, then disparts; but the sea-tangle
+sways to the deep currents of the tide undisturbed.  All well and
+good--but there was a Wise Woman.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Thorberg was the Wise Woman's name.  She was the last alive of a family
+of nine, all women and all wise in the art of reading the days to come.
+It was supposed that she had come from Iceland, but nobody remembered
+to have brought her, nor knew of her origin.  In these days she lived
+by herself in a hut of the Settlement at the Ness, and crouched over a
+peat fire all the winter, singing songs to herself which nobody could
+understand.  In the summer she was often seen about among the pastures
+below the hills, but always by herself.  When she was asked she might
+go out and show herself at men's houses where there was a feast going
+on; if she was treated according to her fancy she might foretell the
+fortune of the householder or of some guest of his, or the upshot of
+the coming harvest, whether of the sea or of the land.  But everything
+must be exactly as she pleased.  There was no telling what she would do
+or say.
+
+Heriolf was the greatest man at the Ness, and kept the best table.  He
+seldom lacked of guests during the dark months.  He was a most
+hospitable man--loving, as he said, everything on two legs.  He had
+never accepted the new religion, and stood well with Thorberg, but had
+such respect for her that he would never ask her to come to a feast
+unless the entertainment were what he thought worthy of her.  This
+year, with Thorbeorn and Gudrid in the house, he felt that she ought to
+be asked up, so sent a man out to invite her, naming the day when the
+feast would be ready.  Thorberg returned word that she would come, but
+made no promises of what she would say.
+
+Immediately, Heriolf set about his preparations and, immediately, there
+was trouble with Thorbeorn.  He did not like it at all.  He took it ill
+that there should be such a fuss.  Thorberg, it seemed, must have a
+high seat; she must be escorted to the feast; she must have her
+particular food, dressed just so; she must be treated with great
+respect, let alone, never crossed, never importuned.  And he a
+Christian!  "Heathen customs!" he said.  "Friend, you shall have me
+excused.  These things smell of brimstone.  I could not be present by
+any means, and don't desire that Gudrid should be involved."
+
+But Heriolf scouted him.  "Hey," he said, "please yourself!  But as for
+Gudrid, let her alone.  Why should she not hear what the world has to
+say to her?  What harm can come to a good girl?  All kinds make this
+world."
+
+Gudrid, whose hair he pulled, as he spoke, in a very friendly way,
+seeing his eyes twinkling and his lips twitching, coloured, but said
+that she should like to be at the feast.  It was true, but apart from
+the truth, she would not hurt Heriolf's feelings.
+
+"Of course you would like it," said Heriolf, greatly pleased.  "I never
+knew a handsome girl yet who did not like to be told about it.
+Thorberg thinks a deal of handsome persons.  You will find that she has
+a wonder-deal to tell about you.  And perhaps we shall learn what my
+son Biorn means to do with himself when he comes home here, and finds a
+flower in the garth."  Gudrid coloured more than ever at this; but she
+liked it.  Thorbeorn waved his hand before him as though to brush
+gossamer from his path, and stalked away with his chin in the air, and
+his beard jutting out like a willow in the wind.  He kept his word,
+though; and took himself to bed when the feast began.
+
+These were the preparations made for Thorberg's visit.  A high seat was
+set for her at the right hand of Heriolf's own, and upon it a cushion
+worked with runes and dragons in knots, stuffed with hen's feathers.
+That had to be wherever she went.  Then she must sit in the chief place
+at the table, beside the giver of the feast, and her food must be seen
+to.  First she must have a mess of oats seethed in kids' milk; then,
+for her meat, a dish made of the hearts of animals.  Gizzards, too, of
+birds, and their livers, must be in it.  There were to be set for her a
+brass spoon, and an ivory-hilted knife with rings of bronze upon the
+handle.  She had a great horn for a beaker, adorned with silver; and
+then her drink was to be hot mead, with spices and apples floating in
+it.  Heriolf saw to everything.
+
+When all was ready, and the guests expected, a man was sent out to her
+house to bring Thorberg to the feast; and when all the guests were
+gathered, but by no means before, in she came.  She was a tall fair
+woman, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered and of large presence.  She had a
+wild, rich, comely face.  She was dressed in a black robe which gleamed
+and reflected light.  It clung to her as if she had been dipped in
+water.  Silver clasps held it under the bosom, and from neck to foot it
+was set with large blue stones.  Round her neck she had a string of
+beads, of red amber, as large as seagulls' eggs.  She walked with a
+staff, knotted with amber; on her head was a hood of black lambskin,
+lined with white.  There was a girdle round her loins made of dried
+puff-balls strung together, and a fishskin pouch hung from that, in
+which were the charms she used in her prophesying.  Her shoes were
+calfskin with the hair outside, and were bound to her ankles with broad
+leather thongs.  She had gloves on when she came in--catskin gloves
+with the hair turned inwards.  So dressed, holding herself high and
+queenly, she stood in the doorway, and said, "Hail to this house," in a
+deep voice, like a bell.  Then she took off her hood and gloves and
+gave them to him who attended upon her, while Heriolf came up to her,
+took her hands and kissed them, saying, "Sibyl, you are welcome."
+
+After Heriolf all the company came crowding about her and saluted her
+as if she were a princess.  To some she was gracious, at some she
+stared as if she could see through them to the wall beyond, at some she
+muttered with her lips and looked about, as if she were uneasy till
+they were gone.  All the women curtseyed and kissed her hand, and
+presently Heriolf brought Gudrid to her.  Gudrid did not kiss her hand,
+but curtseyed and spoke her fairly.  Thorberg frowned, not unkindly.
+
+"And who art thou, my child?"
+
+Gudrid said, "I am a stranger, not long come to Greenland.  I am
+Thorbeorn's daughter, of Bathbrink in Iceland."
+
+"You have a good face, and a fair one," said Thorberg, "and yet you
+will not kiss my hands."  Gudrid coloured and looked down.  "Perhaps
+the day will come when you will kiss them," Thorberg said.  "It would
+be no shame to you to do it."
+
+Gudrid then said, "I will do it now if you will let me."  But Thorberg
+patted her cheek and said, "By and by."  The people thought that Gudrid
+had shown good manners by offering and that Thorberg was pleased with
+her.
+
+They spread the table for the feast, and Gudrid served the guests with
+the other girls of the house.  Thorberg sat by Heriolf, and said very
+little, which was all to the good, since it made men treasure what she
+did say, and find more in it than may have been there.  Then, when the
+tables had been cleared, Heriolf stood up and asked her if she had been
+well-treated.  Thorberg said, "You have given me your best, Franklin.
+No one can look for more."
+
+"Would it please you, then, to reveal certain things to the company?"
+
+She stared before her.  "What do you desire to know?"
+
+"Why," said Heriolf, "we should like to know how it stands with this
+house, and with those who are in it, and those who are of it; and how
+long these plagues of sickness and death are to oppress us; and other
+things which you may read out of the dark, and be moved to tell us."
+
+She thought for a while, looking down the hall above the heads of those
+who stood to hear her.  Just below the dais Gudrid was standing with
+the house-girls.
+
+After a time Thorberg said, "Set me the spell-seat," and remained
+abstracted while it was being done.
+
+Heriolf set up the spell-seat, and then Thorberg opened her pouch of
+magic and took out certain small flat stones covered with writing, and
+some tufts of feathers, a lump of brown amber, a ring of jet, and some
+teeth of a great sea-beast.  All these she laid round the seat in a
+circle, except the ring of jet, which she kept in her hand.  Then she
+sat upon the spell-seat, and said to Heriolf, "Bring me the woman who
+is to sing the Ward-locks."  Those were the charms which had to be
+sung, not so much to invoke the spirits with whom she was familiar as
+to keep away those who were adverse.
+
+Every man looked at his neighbour; the women whispered together, but
+all shook their heads.  In and out among his guests Heriolf ran in a
+great taking.  "Heard any one the like of this, that I should think of
+everything, and fail for one?"  But nobody knew the songs.  In his
+naked bed behind the wall lay old Thorbeorn with the blanket up to his
+nose, and jerked his thin legs, losing not one tittle of all this.
+
+Presently, with Heriolf hot and flustered and at his wits' end, with
+women scouring the kitchen and the bower to find some one not counted
+yet, Gudrid turned round about to face the Wise Woman.  She was pale,
+but her eyes were bright.  "Whisht now," Thorberg cried in her deep
+tones; "heed the fair girl."  The hush then was dreadful, but Gudrid
+said what was in her.  "I am not a sorceress, and know nothing of
+magic, but Halldis my foster-mother taught me some songs which she said
+were Ward-locks and charms."  Heriolf clapped his hands, and Thorberg
+smiled and said, "I believed thee wise when I saw thee first.  And now
+perhaps it is for me to kiss thy hands, or even for the most of this
+company, for thou art timely as well as wise."
+
+But Gudrid looked troubled.  She did not at all wish to sing.  "The
+songs," she said, "were sung idly at home while we sat at needlework.
+They did not mean anything to me.  I thought no harm of them."
+
+"Nor is there harm, my child," said Thorberg.
+
+Gudrid said, "But this is a rite, and the song is part of it.  I think
+I ought not to sing, because I am a Christian."
+
+Thorberg was still smiling, but her eyes glittered.  "It may be that
+thou canst serve the company here, and do no harm to thyself.  Who
+should think the worse of thee?  Certainly not I.  But this is for our
+host to see about.  It is he who made me sit here."
+
+Now it was Heriolf's turn, and he pressed Gudrid hard.  The girls too,
+and all the women who were there, were closely about her, asking with
+eyes and voices.  Gudrid could not resist them, though she knew
+Thorbeorn would be angry, and believed herself that she ought not to
+have anything to do in magic.  But she promised.  The women made a
+circle about her; she thought for a little while, then lifted her head,
+and sang loud and clear--
+
+  "To Vala sang Vrind,
+  The first charm I wind--
+  What evil thou meetest
+  Let drop it behind.
+  Thyself for guide,
+  The ghost is defied--
+  Look forth
+  To what thou shalt find.
+
+  Next charm I call--
+  If despair thee befall
+  As thou goest thy journey,
+  May the Good Folk wall
+  With wings, with wings
+  Thy wayfarings--
+  Look forth,
+  Fear not at all.
+
+  This third charm I make--
+  If the dark thee take
+  On the road thou goest
+  For this man's sake,
+  May the hags of night
+  Do thee no spite.
+  Look forth,
+  My heart is awake.
+
+  The fourth charm I tell
+  Is the loosing spell--
+  Though they bind thee in fetters
+  And cast thee in cell,
+  No walls shall clip thee,
+  The irons shall slip thee--
+  Look forth,
+  All shall go well."
+
+
+The song was to a strange wild air, very beautiful, known to many, of
+whom many had tears in their eyes to hear it again, and sung so well.
+Thorberg sat with her eyes closed, and nodded her head to the beats of
+it.  It made a great effect, and Gudrid was praised by everybody.  When
+it was over, Thorberg, being squarely on the spell-seat, said to her:
+"I thank you for the song, and for the good heart which was in it.  I
+tell you that many beings besides those whom you see have been drawn in
+by the sound of your voice, beings who without it would have passed
+over our heads and paid no heed to us and our concerns.  They have been
+here, they are here now all about us, and by their means I see many
+things clearly.  And first, you, Heriolf, need not fear the death nor
+the sickness which are rife at this time.  They will pass with the
+winter, and return again with another winter; and for a long time the
+winter will be hard upon you men in Greenland."
+
+So much she said to Heriolf, but she had not ended her soothsay.  Her
+eyes returned to Gudrid, who stood just below her.
+
+"As for you, my daughter," she said, "I can read what is in store for
+you as if it was written in a book.  You will have three husbands here
+in Greenland, and shall not go far to get them.  All will be honourable
+men.  One will be a famous man, and one an ugly man; but he will be
+kind.  With all of them you will go great journeys over sea, but they
+will not all last long.  One journey you will go, to a country far from
+here, which will be of the greatest length, and have hardships in it,
+and wonders, and a good gift for you.  But all your ways lead to
+Iceland, and thither you will return.  Out of you will come a great
+race of men, and you shall end your life-days in the way that pleases
+you best."  Then her eyes grew less blank, and seemed able to see more
+clearly.  She held out her hand towards Gudrid, who stood rooted,
+staring up with great eyes.  "Farewell, daughter, and I give you hail,"
+she said.  Gudrid ran up the steps and kissed her hand.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Gudrid's fortune was envied by the girls of the house, who expressed
+themselves freely about it.  "With your looks," they said, "it was to
+be expected she would take notice of you.  But to see so much, and to
+tell you all!"  The poor girl herself, however, took it very hard, and
+saw herself punished for impiety.  She felt as if she was branded for
+ever--the girl who was to kill two men, and perhaps a third.  In her
+mind's eye she could see that doomed first husband of hers, the shadow
+coldly upon him, herself looking sorrowfully at him, seeing him in the
+shadow but not able to speak of it.  Her heart gave a leap of gratitude
+that Einar had been sent away by her father.  It might have been he in
+the shadow.  But would he be the second?  Ah, no, she vowed he should
+not.  Or would he be the third?  Not if the third was to be an ugly
+man.  Then there was the promise of the end: "Your ways tend to Iceland
+. . . thither you will return . . . you shall end your life-days in the
+way that pleases you best."  Could that mean that Einar----?  But after
+three honourable men had received death at her hand!  She shuddered and
+hugged herself against the cold.  Not even the promise of Einar seemed
+fortification enough for that.  Nevertheless, there was comfort in the
+last days.  She told her bedfellow stoutly that she did not believe a
+word of it, but the girl merely stared at her.  Then she said: "I know
+who your first husband will be if he can persuade Thorbeorn.  It is
+Skeggi of Whitewaterstrand."  After that Gudrid had to be told all
+about it.
+
+She told her father too--but not so stoutly--that she did not believe
+it; but in her heart she felt that it must be true.  As for Thorbeorn,
+who had heard it all through the wall, whatever he may have thought, he
+was very indignant, and angry with her too.  "Put such mummery out of
+your head.  We are not Christians for nothing, I should hope.  A
+scandalous hag with her bell-wether voice and airs of a great lady!
+What has she to do with good women, well brought up?  A woman's duty is
+to leave match-making to her parents, and the future to God and His
+Angels.  Who can foretell his end?  Can the priest?  Can the bishop?
+No.  And who would wish to know it?  Ask yourself.  I am vexed that we
+should have fallen upon a heathen house, and much more that you should
+have lent yourself to its wicked customs."
+
+Gudrid excused herself.  "I couldn't help myself.  They are kind
+people.  It would have been ungracious.  And I did know the songs.  How
+could I have said I did not?"
+
+"And who taught you such songs?"
+
+"Halldis sang them," she said; "I learnt them of her."
+
+He had to allow for much that she urged.  "Well, think no more of it,"
+he bade her.
+
+"No, I must not," she said.
+
+"When the time comes, when we are settled by Eric Red, I shall find a
+good husband for you, beyond a doubt."
+
+"Yes," said Gudrid.
+
+"Then we shall have the laugh of these mystery-mongers."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"As for me, I never heard such nonsense in my days."
+
+"No," said Gudrid, looking about for a way of escape.  She could
+neither put it out of her head, nor believe it nonsense.  Fate hung
+heavy on her like a pall of smoke.
+
+She had Skeggi of Whitewaterstrand pointed out to her by her room-mate,
+and recognised him as a young man she had often seen at the house.  Now
+immediately she looked upon him with tenderness, and received his
+advances to acquaintance with such kindness that he conceived high
+hopes and went about with his chest swelling with pride.  But all the
+time he was talking to her, or at her, rather, with the other girls,
+her heart was calling to him, "Do not marry me, do not, do not----"
+which he, unfortunately, interpreted in the opposite sense.
+
+Oddly enough, though every one in the Settlement had heard the
+soothsay, and nobody doubted it, she was the only person concerned who
+took it closely to heart.  Young Skeggi was earnest to have her to
+wife, and asked Heriolf to put his case forward to Thorbeorn.
+Thorbeorn, however, would have nothing to say to him.  Skeggi
+disappeared, and Gudrid had a moment's ease.
+
+The first things foretold by Thorberg came about with the quickening of
+the year.  With the first blowing of the warm wet wind of the west, the
+fogs began to roll away off the land and pile themselves upon the
+flanks of the mountains.  Then, when the earth had warmth enough in her
+body to thaw the iron mail about her ribs, the sickness in the
+Settlement abated.  Men felt the light, and saw whence it came.  The
+sun showed himself, first like a silver coin, then with sensible heat.
+The cattle were put out to pasture, the sheep could move and nibble
+about the foothills.  Hens began to lay, cows to give milk, sheep to
+drop lambs.  Thorbeorn made ready to sail to Ericsfrith, and Gudrid was
+able to forget that she was marked with a curse.
+
+So the day for sailing came, a bright spring day with a soft wind,
+which crisped the waters of the bay and heaped froth upon the stones.
+At parting, old Heriolf twinkled his kind and frosty eyes upon Gudrid.
+"Farewell, my child," he said; "you are a notable woman who will do
+great things."  She smiled, but sadly.  "It seems I am to bring
+unhappiness to many," she said.  "No, no, that's not how I look at it,"
+said Heriolf.  "Men must die, we all know.  But more than one are to
+have your love and kindness while they live--and that is more than they
+ought to expect.  If I were not so old, or my son Biorn were at home,
+we would keep you in the family.  Who wants a long life?  Not I, though
+I have had it.  But who wants a good wife?  Who does not?"
+
+Gudrid said, "To be good is the least I can do.  It seems very easy.
+But to be happy is difficult."
+
+"I never found it so," said old Heriolf.  And so they parted, she
+whither Fate beckoned her, and he to go fishing.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Eric Red, who lived at Brattalithe in Ericsfrith, had been a notable
+man all his life, and a man of mettle.  In Earl Hakon's day in Norway
+he had been a Viking, had made a few friends and many enemies; then he
+had gone out to Iceland and founded a family in the west country, which
+might have endured to this day if it had not been for his headstrong
+way of doing.  But, as before, he made more enemies than friends; and
+when he killed the son of Thorgest the Old, and was pursued for the
+slaughter at the Thing, he found that there was more feeling against
+him than he had reckoned on, and that Iceland could not hold him much
+longer.  By what shifts a ship was hidden for him among the islands,
+and how his friends got him down by night, and rowed him aboard, and
+how he slipped his cable and escaped pursuit, cannot be told here.
+Enough to say that he found his way to Greenland, and chose out a fair
+haven for himself and his company.  When he was settled in, and had his
+town of Ericshaven marked out, and his house built, he felt himself
+like a king and cast about for alliances.  He sent out messengers to
+Iceland calling upon all men who had been his friends to rally about
+him.  Many came, and by the time his friend Thorbeorn had decided to
+join him there was a strong settlement at Ericshaven.
+
+Eric was now grown old, and was very fat.  He thought himself that his
+work was over, but had hopes to see it continued in his sons.  He had
+three sons by his wife Theodhild; the eldest was Leif, who was abroad
+at this time, supposed to be in Orkney.  Leif was a fine tall man who
+took after his mother, and had none of Eric's fiery colour; the second
+son was Thorstan, who was as red as a fox; the third was Thorwald, and
+resembled Leif, but was of slighter build.  Then there was a
+tempestuous daughter, named Freydis, a strongly made, fierce girl, who
+was fated to do terrible things.  She was married to one of Eric's
+vassals, a man called Thorward of Garth, but treated him with great
+contempt and did just what she pleased.  As for Theodhild, Eric's wife,
+she was a Christian at this time, and had taken herself out of
+Brattalithe for religion's sake.  She had built a church in Ericshaven
+and found a priest to serve it; and now she lived in a small house hard
+by and practised austerities.  She was a very stately woman, and held
+in great estimation all over the settled country.  Eric Red was uneasy
+with her, because he believed that she scorned him; but her sons used
+to go to see her.  She had quarrelled with Freydis irrevocably, and if
+she met her anywhere would never take any notice.
+
+
+Thorbeorn was made welcome at Brattalithe and great attention shown to
+his fair daughter.  Women were scarce in Greenland.  Eric's two sons,
+Thorstan and Thorwald, immediately wanted her; but Thorstan was the
+elder and stronger, and soon came to terms with Thorwald.  "My mind,"
+he said, "is set upon Gudrid, and I am older than you by a good deal.
+I advise you to be my friend in the affair, otherwise no one knows how
+it may turn out."  Thorwald said that that was fair enough: "But I
+advise you to be sharp about it."  "Why so?" said Thorstan.  Thorwald
+told him that he would be only one of many.  He named one or two, and
+Thorstan frowned.  Thorstan was a very honest man; he was a good poet
+and a great man for dreams, but slow and heavy minded.  "A man must not
+be driven in such a matter," he said.  "A man should not need it,"
+Thorwald replied.  "As you have spoken to me, so do you speak to
+Gudrid's old iron father.  Hammer him smartly; knock sparks out of him.
+If you do not, some one else will, and I shall have wasted benevolence
+upon you.  If you are not to be the lucky man, why am I to be thrown
+aside?"
+
+This was in the very early days, before Thorbeorn had taken up lands in
+the Settlement.  He was all that summer the guest of Eric at
+Brattalithe, and there was a great deal to do.  Eric and Thorbeorn rode
+about the country, talking of this land and that.  Gudrid fell into the
+ways of the house and made herself useful.  She was taken to see
+Theodhild, and became friends with the stern, lonely woman.  Theodhild
+spent much of her time in the little dark church she had had built.
+Until Gudrid came, she and the priest had had it pretty much to
+themselves, for the people in the Settlement stood by Eric, their great
+man.  But Gudrid went to church with Theodhild, and renewed her
+emotions.  She seemed to escape from her shadow in there.  One little
+twinkling light before the altar shone to her through the fog and bade
+her still to hope.
+
+Then there was Freydis.  Oddly enough Freydis took to her, though she
+pretended to despise her.  "You are one of those women whom men go mad
+about--one of the meek, still women who madden men," she said.  "But I
+am one whom men madden rather; for I hate them and detest their ways,
+and yet cannot get on without them."  Gudrid denied her maddening
+qualities, and denied that she was meek or still.  She assured Freydis
+that she herself could get on very well without marriage.  "I used not
+to think about it at all until I came to this country where, it seems
+to me, nobody thinks of anything else.  The first thing that happened
+to me was dreadful.  It is no wonder if I think about it now."
+
+Freydis wished to hear what dreadful thing it was, and with a little
+pressing Gudrid told her what Thorberg had prophesied.  Freydis stared.
+"Is that all?  You have only to live in Greenland and live to be a
+hundred and you might have as many husbands.  People die here in the
+winter like tadpoles in a dry summer.  Three!  Her moderation alarms
+me."
+
+"But I must be sure of the death of two men!" said poor Gudrid.
+
+"You must be sure of the death of every man in the world," said
+Freydis.  "It may be that you will be glad enough to be sure of it
+before you have done with them.  I am sure that I should be."
+
+That was all the comfort she got out of Freydis; but happily she had a
+diversion of her thoughts.  Biorn Heriolfsson, who had come round the
+Ness soon after Thorbeorn sailed, now came up to see Eric Red.
+
+He was a brisk, vivacious man, with a good conceit of himself, and had
+much that was interesting to say of the new countries he had visited.
+Gudrid was rapt in attention, for every word he said seemed to make
+Einar visible to her, with his bright eyes, his ear-rings, his soft
+eager voice and his white teeth.  Einar now stood for all sorts of
+things besides himself to Gudrid.  He stood for home; he stood for
+Halldis and Orme who had loved her well; and he stood for the days when
+no heavy fate hung between her and the blue sky.  He stood to her as to
+us the song of a lark may stand, when we are shut up within the walls
+of a town.  She would have married him gladly, but for the Fate; but
+she no longer thought of him as a lover.
+
+Therefore on account of all that he stood for--home, freedom,
+loving-kindness, hopefulness--she was enthralled by Biorn's talk, and
+could not hear enough of the new countries which he had seen.  Einar's
+account of what he had done and where been was quite true.  A fair wind
+took him out from Reekness, and he sailed before it until he had lost
+the land for two days.  Two more days it held, then veered to the
+northward and blew down upon them the dense Greenland fog.  He was now
+helpless, and for a week or more had no knowledge of his course; but he
+observed that a strong current was bearing him, as he thought,
+westward.  That might be all to the good, he judged, forgetting how far
+south he had run before the thick weather caught him; anyhow, there was
+nothing to be done except to keep a sharp look-out for land
+a-starboard.  He passed several icebergs and had a touch-and-go
+business with some of them, he said.
+
+At last the fog lifted a little, and a light and fitful wind began to
+blow--from what quarter they had no means of knowing, but it was a
+chill wind.  Biorn guessed it was northerly.  He saw the stars before
+he saw the sun, and got his bearings.  Next day it was fair.  The sun
+rose out of the sea.  The ship was heading nor'-nor'-west.  He hoisted
+all sail, and made brave work of it.  In the course of that day they
+saw land ahead, a long low line of dark, like a bank of rain-cloud.
+Biorn ran on, heading straight for it, but he had his doubts from the
+first, and when they could make out the country better he said to his
+mate, "That's never Greenland."
+
+Sounding carefully, they came within two miles of the land, and could
+hear the thunder of the surf, and see it too.  The sea was like a hilly
+country with troughs between the rollers like broad ghylls, Biorn said.
+He would be a bold man who tried to land there from a boat.
+
+The country looked to be low-lying, with a sandy shore blown into small
+pointed hills.  Behind those, so far as the eye could reach, there was
+a dense woodland--most of it black, or looking so, but with patches and
+belts of red and rose-colour; like flames, said Biorn.  No mountains,
+no snow at all, though by now it was winter in Iceland.  Biorn said, "I
+knew very little about it, to be sure, but knew it was not Greenland
+the White."
+
+Eric asked him why he had not landed.  "How should I land in a surf
+like that?  And what was I to do in the country with my Norway
+merchandise still aboard, and my father God knew where?  I knew he was
+not there--and that was enough for me."
+
+"But, Biorn," said Gudrid, flushed and eager, "that was a new country
+you had found.  How could you pass it by?"
+
+"All very well," said Biorn, "but I'll trouble you to remember that
+Greenland was a new country to me--and my father in it moreover.  And
+one new country at a time is enough, I suppose."
+
+He went on to say that he coasted those flat wooded shores for the
+better part of two days and nights, keeping the land on his port bow,
+but when, as it seemed to him, the coast-line turned westward as if to
+make a great bay, thinking he would cut across it, he held on his
+course.  It was another two-three days before they made land again, and
+then it was the same thing as before--woods, swamps, sand, driving
+rain, or good sunshine; and still no snow.  Now he had trouble with his
+crew, who were for running into the land.  They wanted wood and water,
+they said; but Biorn wouldn't have it.  "I wanted my father," he said,
+"and besides there was abundance of water."
+
+"What you wanted your father for beats me," said Eric, and Gudrid's
+bright eyes sparkled their approval of his judgment.
+
+"A man may want to see his father more than a foreign country, I
+suppose," said Biorn.  "You forget that I have seen a deal of foreign
+countries--Russia, Sweden, Dantzick and what-not."
+
+Well, then they sailed for three days and nights before a spanking
+breeze from the southwest, and ran into the true winter cold, and
+presently saw land for the third time--snow mountains wreathed with
+cloud, snow upon the sea-beach itself.  Biorn said it was an unchancy,
+inhospitable kind of country where his father would never choose to
+live.  It was deep water so that they could come close in.  There were
+no signs of habitancy; but there were white bears to be seen, in
+plenty.  That was an island, he said.  They held on their course, which
+was N.E. by E., the breeze stiffened into a gale; and then it came on
+to blow hard.  They had more than enough of it under shortened sail,
+and shipping green seas every fourth wave.  Then, for the fourth time,
+they sighted land, and a great ness which ran far out into the sea.
+"Greenland!" said Biorn; and Greenland it was.  On the lee side of that
+ness was the very town about his father's house; and the very first man
+he saw was his father, with lobster-pots all round him.
+
+That, he said, was how it had been, and anybody was welcome to the
+news.  As for himself, he was a trader, and had no mind for fancy
+voyages.  Eric said that he might take the adventure up himself, but at
+any rate his son Leif would take it up.  Thorwald said that he intended
+to go if Leif would take him.  "I want to see that country where there
+is no winter.  That's the place for me.  Will you come too, Thorstan?"
+
+But Thorstan was looking at Gudrid and did not hear him.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+Biorn stayed on some time longer with Eric Red, and had some talk with
+Gudrid.  He had had his eye on her from the beginning, with curious,
+considering looks.  After several attempts, swallowed down by himself
+with abrupt decision, he did manage to speak out.  "It was of you that
+Thorberg prophesied at the Ness, I expect," he said.
+
+"Yes, it was," said rueful Gudrid.
+
+He tossed his foot from the knee, and looked at it swinging.  "Such
+things as that make a man thoughtful."
+
+Gudrid bent over her needlework.  "You may be sure that she made me
+thoughtful."
+
+"Well," said Biorn, "it is a glory to a woman to hear the like of that.
+But it makes a man think twice.  Now, I daresay my father spoke to you
+about me, with a nod and wink, as we say?  He is fond of me, is my
+father."
+
+"And you, certainly, of him," Gudrid said.  "You seem to be a loving
+couple."
+
+"He spoke to me about you," Biorn went on, pursuing his own thoughts.
+"He was much taken with you, and seemed to think you were singled out
+for great honour.  And clearly you are.  But I value my life--and so I
+told my father.  And then he spoke scornfully to me, and hurt my
+feelings."  Gudrid found something to smile at in this.
+
+But while she scared Biorn she attracted the brothers at Brattalithe,
+and others besides them.  Thorstan Ericsson was exceedingly shy, and
+would never go into the bower to talk to the girls, nor into kitchen or
+wash-house when they were working there if he could help it.  So he saw
+very little of Gudrid, and had nothing to say to her when he did see
+her.  Yet he loved her deeply within himself, in an honourable way of
+worship, with no jealousy about it.  Thorwald, his younger brother, was
+always in and out of the women's quarters, teasing the girls, getting
+in their way, and making them laugh.  He was often outrageous, but they
+all liked him, and Thorstan trusted in his loyalty.  He told Gudrid
+that Thorstan thought a great deal about her; but she knew that
+already.  She used to sing in the evenings when the hall was full, and
+everybody praised her except Thorstan; yet she knew that he was more
+affected than any one.  She felt his heavy eyes on her, and used to
+think of songs which would please him.
+
+But Thorstan was dumb, and others were not.  One day in the spring
+Gudrid was sent for.  She was in the wash-house, up to the elbows in
+lather and foam, in no state for company.  All the girls stopped work,
+and one said, "A wooer for Gudrid," and another, "Thorstan has found
+his voice."  But they all helped her to make herself tidy, and wished
+her joy.  She went out with all her colours flying.  Her father was by
+the fire in the hall; Eric Red with him; and another man was standing
+there, tall and heavily made, in a red cloak.  She had not seen him
+before.  He was a dark-hued man, with bent brows, rather shaggy, and
+had a black beard.  He kept his head bent, and his hands behind his
+back, but looked at her as she came in.  So did Eric, in a kindly way.
+Thorbeorn only looked at the fire.
+
+She went up to her father and put her hand on his shoulder.  There was
+a short silence--but not enough time for her to collect her thoughts.
+Indeed, she had no thoughts.
+
+"Gudrid," said Thorbeorn, "we think it is time for you to be settled,
+and have here an honourable man who has asked for you.  He is our
+friend, Thore Easterling.  He is well-descended and of good estimation
+with our host.  His family is of Ramfirth in Iceland, and he has a fine
+estate here in Ericshaven.  He has the new faith which we believe to be
+the true faith.  Now we think you ought to feel yourself happy, being
+sure that you have every reason to be so.  It will be a good marriage
+for you."
+
+Gudrid said nothing, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground.  Presently
+she removed her hand from her father's shoulder, let it fall to her
+side, and stood alone.  It was a painful pause, felt to be so by all
+four, and broken presently by Thore himself.  "Lady," he said, "I hope
+to have your good will in this.  I have few pretentions to a lady's
+liking, but believe I am an honest and friendly man.  If you will
+accept of my love and service I am content to trust myself to win
+yours."
+
+Gudrid's throat was dry.  She had difficulty in speaking.  "I shall do
+my duty," she said.  And then, "I shall obey my father in all things,
+as I ought."
+
+Eric went over to her and took her hand.  "I won't deny I shall be
+sorry to see you leave Brattalithe," he said.  "I tell Thore here that
+if my Leif had been at home there's no saying what might have
+happened--but as it is, he's the lucky one.  He will have a sweet wife,
+and owe it to us that she is as happy as she is good."  She gave him a
+swift and searching look, a flash of gratitude in it for his humanity,
+but resumed her searching of the floor.  Thorbeorn rose from his chair
+and said to Eric that they had better leave the pair together--but then
+Gudrid looked wild.  "May I not go now?  Must I stay here?"  Her eyes
+asked so of Eric, but he only smiled.  She caught at her father's
+sleeve.  Then Thorbeorn kissed her forehead and said a few words of
+blessing.  He and Eric went out together.
+
+When they were gone Thore went over to Gudrid and put his arm firmly
+round her.  "I see, my dear, that you are upset by this news of ours.
+Be sure that I understand it.  My belief is, that you will be happy
+with me.  I have a good house, warm and dry.  You will see company, you
+will have your maids to see after; and when we have settled down
+together--maybe before the end of the summer, we will take ship to
+Iceland and pay a visit to my old mother who is in charge of my
+property out there.  Now let me hear your voice.  I know how sweetly
+you can talk--for I've heard you.  And your singing makes me younger: a
+dreamer of dreams."
+
+He seemed kind; his arm was strong and temperate.  She imagined him
+much older than he was.  But she didn't in the least know what to say
+to him.  He waited for her, still holding her close, but she said
+nothing.  So then: "Come, come," he said, "just a word or two"; and
+when she looked up and saw him laughing, she laughed too; and then he
+kissed her.  "There," he said, "that is better," and drew her closer.
+
+"You seem kind," she said.
+
+"Ah," said Thore, "you will find me so.  The fonder I grow the kinder I
+shall be."  He gave her a very friendly squeeze, and she began at once
+to be sorry for this strong, gentle-hearted man as she thought him.
+
+Her face was now against his shoulder, his black beard brushed and
+tickled her forehead.  She was rather breathless, but quite determined
+to tell him her trouble.  "There is something which I ought to tell
+you."
+
+"Is there, indeed?  I thought that you might find your tongue perhaps,
+if I gave you time."
+
+"But I should have found it before," she said, "if it had not been for
+my trouble."
+
+"Well," he said, "and now for your trouble.  Mind you, I've seen a good
+deal of the world, and don't expect miracles out of the church.  So if
+you have had a sweetheart or two, think no more about it.  Bless
+you--do you think I don't know?"
+
+"No," she said, "it's not that.  But it is that I have heard prophecies
+about myself.  I am not a fortunate woman at all."
+
+"Hum," he said.  "Perhaps we had better clear up that.  Now, you come
+and sit on my knee by the fire, and let me hear all about it."  She did
+not decline that seat, but still she chose another.  He sat in Eric's
+great chair, and she brought up a stool.  He noticed that, and approved
+of it.  "This is a girl who is not for the mere asking," he thought.
+
+When she had told him all about Thorberg, he did not scoff, nor laugh,
+nor take it seriously either.  He just considered it, with one large
+hand grasping his beard.  "Well," he said, "some people have the gift,
+there's no doubt, and if your Thorberg had it not, all her mummeries
+would avail her nothing.  You set them up for a deal, I fancy, but they
+are little to me.  I am willing to believe her story, but what then?
+So long as I am the first husband you have you may have twenty when I
+am gone.  Likely enough that you will see to the burying of me.  I must
+be twice your age.  So much for your trouble, my dear."
+
+"It was horrible to me," said Gudrid; "I have been unhappy ever since.
+It seemed to me that I was accursed, and that no man ought to look at
+me."
+
+"But how can they help looking at you, foolish girl, and you like a
+rose!"  That gave her roses indeed, and a good deal more too.
+
+"You are certainly very kind," she said, and he replied that if that
+was kindness, there need be no end to it.
+
+She went away after a time, so free of her shadowy load that she sang
+as soon as she was out of the hall.  She accepted the exuberant
+greeting of the girls with evident pleasure.  Her colour was clear, her
+eyes shone like stars.  They had plenty to tell her of Thore.  He was
+very rich, they said, and a widower.  He had had a querulous and sick
+wife, and had always treated her well.  He was not exactly "near," but
+thought twice about what he spent.  He had a stone-built house up the
+country.  A just man, and one who did not bend his knee to any one.
+Eric Red had often quarrelled with him.  Except Theodhild he was the
+only Christian among the great men.  It was a pity he was so much
+older, with such a great beard.  They wanted to know if it scratched
+you, but Gudrid wouldn't say.
+
+It was all very pleasant, except for one small matter.  Thorstan
+immediately went away, and stopped away for ten days or a fortnight.
+No one knew exactly where he was except Thorwald his brother.  He was
+teasing about it, when Gudrid asked him where Thorstan was.  "I shall
+tell him you asked me," he said.  That made her sorry she had asked,
+but she did not like to say tell him by all means, nor beg him not to
+tell.  It turned out that Thorwald did tell him.
+
+Freydis said, "If you must marry, that is the man you should choose.
+Not a half-skald like my brother Thorstan, nor a pranking pie like
+Thorwald.  You will have a master in Thore, and most women like that.
+He might beat you."
+
+"I think he will not," said Gudrid.  Freydis looked at her with
+narrowed eyes.
+
+"And I think that you are right.  You know how to make yourself
+respected, I believe.  But many women like to be beaten.  I know that I
+should love the man who could beat me.  But he would have to fight with
+me first.  My husband is as timid as a Norway rat.  You don't see him
+here often."  Gudrid had never seen him.  "He comes when I send for
+him," said Freydis.
+
+After that she saw Theodhild at Mass, and went home with her to her
+hermitage and told her the news.  Theodhild said little, but one thing
+she said struck Gudrid.  She said: "You will have much trouble, and
+give more of yourself than you can afford.  But you will leave
+something to give to God at the end--more than I have left."  Gudrid
+said: "It is foretold of me that I shall have three husbands, then go
+to Iceland and live as pleases me best."  "It may well be so," said
+Theodhild.  "Love is all to women, but if they can love God they are
+happiest.  Love of man is more sorrow than joy.  Love of God is pure
+joy.  You will find it so."
+
+Gudrid was young enough to wonder if that was true.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+Thore was very good to her, as he had promised, but he had to be
+obeyed.  Directly he saw the token which she wore, he wanted to know
+about it.
+
+"What is that which you wear round your neck?  It looks to be gold."
+
+She said it was a token.  "A token!  And what kind of a token?"  She
+said she had had it when she was a child.
+
+"Let me look at it," said he.  He held it near to the light.
+
+"Rats have been at this," he said.  "Here are teeth-marks.  Hungry
+rats, too, they must have been.  And that was a good coin of England
+once--and valueless now.  There's the half of a king for you.  That was
+Knut King of England--a rare man I have heard my father say.  And rats
+have bitten him in half.  Take it off, my girl.  You don't want such
+things now."  She thought that reasonable, and took it off, to be laid
+aside.  She had not much feeling about it now, and yet could not bear
+it should be lost.  She put it carefully away in her chest next day.
+
+By and by she told Thore that she had not spoken the truth.  She had
+not been really a child when it was given her.
+
+"I never thought so," said Thore.
+
+"And it was not rats that bit it."
+
+"Rats, indeed!  Never in the world."
+
+Then she told him the whole story, which he took very good-humouredly.
+"So that's it, is it?  And when I take you to Iceland I suppose you
+will call him up with that?"
+
+"Not unless I want to see him," she said.
+
+"Not unless _I_ want to see him, you would say?"
+
+"I think you will be as pleased with him as I shall be," said Gudrid.
+So all went well except for Einar perhaps, whose prospects certainly
+were not enhanced by being talked about.  The stronghold of a lover is
+to be so deeply hid that he is never talked of.
+
+It was the fact that Gudrid was happy with her blunt blackbeard of a
+man.  He was easy to live with, always much the same, and did not ask
+for more than he was able to give.  He was very thrifty, and taught her
+to be so, for she was anxious to please.  He was never jealous, though
+Thorstan had a way of coming to the house.  At the same time, he told
+her one night that he wouldn't have him there when he himself was away.
+He was often from home two and three days together.  "It has a bad
+look," he said.  "The neighbours look pityingly at a man.  I won't have
+that.  Not that there is any harm in Thorstan.  He is the son of a
+friend of mine, and a very honest young man, though I call him dull.  A
+man ought to be able to talk.  I think him hot-tempered, too.  He
+killed a lover of his sister Freydis once, and might as well have left
+it alone.  She could have looked after herself.  Besides, we are not so
+handy with our weapons as our fathers were in Iceland.  Life is hard
+enough in this country without cold steel.  Now remember--" and he
+pinched her cheek--"no men here when I am away."
+
+Certainly she did not love Thore as she believed she had loved Einar
+the sailor.  Thore never made her heart beat, or brought mist over her
+eyes.  But she was happy and proud of her great house and many maids
+and young men.  And she was happy enough to be sorry for Thorstan, who
+followed her about with a dog's patient eyes, and evidently worshipped
+her shadow.  He told her that he went down to Heriolfsness when he
+heard that she was promised to Thore.  When there he had gone to see
+Thorberg.  What did she tell him?  Gudrid wanted to know; but he
+wouldn't answer.  He said, however, that she had told him that he
+himself had the sight.  "I had thought as much," he said, "and now I
+know that I have."
+
+Gudrid became very much interested, but not enough to dare probe any
+further.  Indeed, she asked him not to tell her what he had seen.
+Thorstan looked away.  "I would not tell you even if I knew anything,"
+he said; "I would die sooner."  She felt that she might become very
+fond of this moody and melancholy Thorstan, as a woman readily will of
+a man who, through no fault of his own, seems marked out for
+misfortune.  She could not find that he had any faults.  While very
+manly, and of great strength and courage--for he was untiring at
+hunting, could swim like a seal, and was believed to be afraid of
+nothing--with all this he was as gentle as a woman.  She knew that he
+was a poet, though he would not sing her any of the verses he made.
+She thought to herself, "I could make him if I cared"; and the thought
+gave her joy.  She told herself that if ever she loved a man again, as
+she had once understood love, it would be this man.  And upon the heels
+of that thought came another, which she instantly put away, What and if
+Thorstan was to be her second husband?  She put that out of her mind
+for Thore's sake--Thore's, who had freed her and made her happy.  It
+was odd that Thore, whom she could never love, had made her happy,
+while Thorstan whom she could have loved, it was certain, would never
+do that.
+
+
+In the course of that year the great event was the home-coming of Leif,
+Eric Red's eldest son.  He sailed up the frith in the early morning of
+a June day, and when Eric came out of doors, there was Leif's fine ship
+in the anchorage, and many boats about it.
+
+He had been away more than two years, adventuring greatly; but those
+adventures of his do not belong to this tale.  He had been in Orkney
+for some time, and had fallen in love with a high lady whose name was
+Thorgunna.  He knew her to be of great descent, and that she had the
+gift.  He was much taken with her and she with him, and they set no
+bounds upon their intercourse, it is understood.  When it came to the
+day before he sailed, Thorgunna said that she would go with him.  Leif
+said that could not be, because her kindred would never allow it.
+"Maybe my people are as good as yours," he said, "but yours would not
+believe it, and I have to make my way in the world."  "Think nothing of
+my people," she said, "but take me."  But Leif would not.  So then she
+told him the truth, that she was with child, and the child his.  "If
+that's the case, then I stay here till the child is born.  Him I will
+take, for it is the best thing for you."  But Thorgunna said that she
+would bring up the child, and send him out to Greenland as soon as he
+was old enough.  "I will accept him," Leif said.
+
+He sailed, then, as he had intended, and went to Norway.  There he fell
+in with King Olaf Tryggvasson, and was made a Christian.  The King put
+great trust in him, and when he heard that he was going home to
+Greenland, gave it in his charge to change the people's religion.  Leif
+said that would be a hard matter.  "My mother is a Christian, I know;
+but my father is not, and never will be, and my brothers are of no
+account."  But King Olaf was in earnest about it, and Leif promised
+that it should be as he wished.
+
+Thore and Gudrid went to Brattalithe to see Leif.  Gudrid thought that
+she had never seen so fine-looking a man.  He was about thirty-five
+years old, and six feet four inches high.  He looked as broad as a
+bull.  He had golden hair and beard, and blue eyes.  His face was
+burned to a hot brown colour.  He was frank and open in speech, and
+full of fun and jokes.  No secret was made of his intentions towards
+the religion of the people in Greenland.  He told his father what he
+had undertaken; and he set about it at once.  Theodhild, his mother,
+helped him, and Gudrid made Thore give money to increase the church.
+Thorstan and Thorwald were among the first to be sprinkled, but Freydis
+would have nothing to do with it, and Eric Red said that he was too old
+to change.  Leif took that good-humouredly and laughed at his father.
+"If I were to tell you where was a great store of gold and silver
+coins, to be had for a little cold water on your back, you would strip
+to the skin in midwinter.  But you will believe in no treasure which
+you cannot handle and run through your hands.  Where do you expect to
+go when you die, with all that wickedness on your shoulders?  You will
+come to a bad end, and ask me then to help you.  I know how it will be.
+But go your way."
+
+He spent that summer preaching to the people in the Settlement up and
+down the frith.  Most of the people accepted what he told them, because
+it was he who told it.  Others said that if the King of Norway was of
+that way of thinking it was more likely to be the right than the wrong
+way.
+
+There was another matter very much in Leif's mind, and that was the
+voyage of Biorn Heriolfsson.  He had to hear all about that, and he
+heard it first from Gudrid.  Her face glowed and her eyes showed fire
+as she spoke of it.  Leif watched her and thought her a lovely woman.
+"If you and I were to go out there together," he said, "we should never
+come back again.  But your good man would take it in bad part."  Gudrid
+said, "Yes, he would.  But to go with us would seem to him still worse.
+Yet you will go."  Leif considered.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I shall go, and as soon as may be.  But first I must
+know what course Biorn took, and next I must have his ship to go in.  I
+would not take my own--she is neither roomy enough, nor strong enough
+built for such great seas."
+
+Gudrid had by heart the figures and bearings of Biorn's voyage, for
+first Einar had drawn them on Orme's table, then Heriolf on his own,
+and then Biorn on Eric's table.  She fetched a charcoal from the
+kitchen and drew the map, with all the company crowded about her.  Leif
+was absorbed in it and her eager explanations.  "I see just what he
+did," he said.  "He drifted far south of Greenland, and didn't know it.
+Then when he got a wind he sailed south-south-west, and made that
+low-lying forest country.  Then he steered north with a wind off the
+land, and came into the winter which we have here.  He followed the
+coast along, and then, when it came on to blow from the south-west, he
+ran before it, and made Greenland.  That's what he did.  And that's
+what I will do."
+
+"It is what I would do if I were a man," said Gudrid.
+
+"Good for me that you are not a man," said Thore, who sat by the wall.
+
+
+Before that summer was over Thore told Gudrid that he should take her
+to Iceland, as he had business there.  They would go almost at once.
+
+"How long shall we be there?" she asked him.
+
+He said that there was no telling.  "A year and more, I expect."
+
+Her face fell.  "Then we shall miss Leif's sailing."
+
+"No harm in that," said Thore.  "What have you to do with Leif and his
+affairs?  Enough for you that you have made him go."  He was not angry
+with her; but he thought Leif altogether too fine-looking a man.  That
+was a man's reason--no woman would have reasoned so.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Leif bought Biorn's ship from him that winter, and busied himself
+stocking her with tools, weapons and spare gear for his voyage.  As
+soon as the weather was open he was ready, and then it was a question
+whether Eric Red would go with him.  Eric was in two minds about it,
+old as he was, and extremely fat.  He had been a great traveller in his
+youth, and was averse from exertion in these latter days, but he was
+uncomfortable at home, with no wife in the house, and all his sons
+holding the new faith.  So he wavered until the last minute, and then
+said that he would not go at all.  Leif was not sorry.
+
+He had a crew of five-and-thirty with him, and sailed his ship as near
+to S.S.W. as might be.  She ran for six days before a fair wind, and on
+the afternoon of the sixth they made land on the starboard bow.  There
+were mountains with snow upon them, and much fog; but Leif said that he
+would land in the morning, whatever kind of country it was.  "It shall
+never be said against me, as it has been against Biorn, that I travel
+six days over the sea and leave the land I reach because it is not
+Greenland," he said.
+
+They found a good anchorage, waited the night through, and then rowed
+off in their boat and ran her up on to the beach.  It was a naked
+country of broken rock and shale.  No grass was to be seen, and hardly
+any trees, except a few stunted silver birch.  They walked inland for a
+mile or more to where the snow began, and then saw, as it were, one
+vast unwrinkled sheet of snow stretching upwards into a bank of cloud.
+The ground was all scree of slate and shaly rock.  They saw no signs of
+habitancy, and few tracks of animals.  Then presently they looked at
+each other, and Leif laughed.  "I think there is something to be said
+for Biorn; but although this is a barren land there is no reason why it
+should not have a name.  I will call it Helloland, for such it is." [1]
+Then they returned to their ship, and up-anchor, and away along the
+coast, so far as that allowed, but always keeping a straight course.
+
+They came to another land, lying low in the sea, and sailed in towards
+it.  Here also they landed, but on a shore of fine white sand, very
+level towards the sea, but blown into hummocks, whereon grass grew,
+towards the land.  That was a flat country, and swampy, with trees so
+far as they could see, in some places dense and in others more open;
+but where the country lay open there were the swamps.  "This country
+pleases me more than the last," Leif said.  "The least it deserves is
+to be named.  We will name it after its quality, and call it Markland,"
+he said.[2]
+
+But nobody wanted to stay there very long, and there seemed nothing
+better to do than to get back to the ship again and sail.  Leif
+considered the timber that he saw of little worth to them.  It was
+mostly small wood, and soft or of open texture.
+
+They sailed, then, once more, with a fresh north-easterly wind blowing
+off the shore, and were two days at sea without sight of land.  But
+then they made an island in the sea, and south of that saw the
+mainland, and a great frith striking up into it.  There was no snow
+hereabouts, and the air was balmy and scented, blowing from the island.
+"Here," said Leif, "is a land worth visiting, I believe.  Let us cast
+anchor in the lew of the island for the night; and to-morrow we will
+row up the frith yonder and see what we shall see."  They found good
+holding-ground under the island, and then, as the light was good for
+several hours yet, launched the boat and rowed to the shore.  The place
+lay peaceful in the level afternoon light, with trees softly rustling,
+and birds calling to each other from thickets.  They wandered about,
+singing as they went, or calling to each other to see some new thing.
+Gradually the sun sank and the light began to draw in.  One of them by
+chance stooped down and felt the grass.  There was dew upon it.  He put
+his finger into his mouth; and then he said, "This is a holy place.
+The dew tastes sweet."  They all tried it that were there, and believed
+it.  This filled them with wonder, and some of them walked about on
+tiptoe, as if they had no business to be there.
+
+They slept on board ship, and in the morning very early found that the
+tide had gone down and that she lay on her side, high and dry.  The
+tide went back so far that it was possible to walk from the island to
+the mainland.  As for the frith, it had shrunk to a dribble of water.
+But all this made no matter, so eager were they to savour the country
+which was heralded by so fair an island.  They jumped off the ship's
+side on to the sand, which was firm and white, and ran to shore, and up
+the frith, where the going was easy for a mile or two.  They found that
+it issued from a great lake, many miles in length, and many in width.
+It was shallow at the edges, but in the midst looked to be deep enough.
+On the shores of this lake were fine trees growing, of such wood as
+none of them had ever seen before; flowers, shrubs, birds were alike
+new to them.  In the pools of the river left by the tide they saw great
+fish lying, which Leif thought were salmon.
+
+They wandered about all the forenoon, and when it was time to eat
+something and they went back to the shore, the river was filling fast,
+and their ship was afloat.  They hailed her, and saw one of the hands
+row off for them in the boat.  Leif then said that they would tow up
+the river and cast anchor in the lake, and that was done when they had
+made their meal.  They found good anchorage there and a snug berth out
+of all troubles of wind or water.  Next day they took off all their
+stores, and pitched tents for themselves in a glade, for it was Leif's
+meaning that they should pass a winter there.  He was very much in love
+with the country, and said that in all his travels he had never been in
+a place so little likely to be vexed by cruel weather.  "In my belief,"
+he said, "we should have no need to store fodder for the stock against
+the winter.  It seems to me that there should be grazing here the year
+through--but we will prove that, if you are willing."  Everybody agreed.
+
+In a little time they had established order in their camp, for Leif was
+a strong and wise leader, a tall and fine man of wisdom and good
+manners, and all obeyed him cheerfully.  Duties were assigned to the
+men in order; some were to fish, some to hunt--for they found deer as
+well as birds in plenty--and some to explore.  Leif made a rule that no
+more than half his party should be away at one time, and that none
+should wander so far as that he could not win back by nightfall, nor
+separate himself from hail of the others who were with him.  So the
+time wore on and the seasons changed.  A mellow autumn gave way to a
+mild winter in which came no iron frost, and very little snow.  If they
+had had cattle with them, as Leif had foretold, they could have kept
+them out all the winter.  They found the light very different from
+Iceland or Greenland.  On the shortest day they saw the sun between the
+afternoon meal and the day-meal.  What puzzled Leif very much was this,
+that in so fair a country there was no sign of habitancy.  They saw no
+men, nor any traces of men--and yet it was hardly to be believed that
+such a country was empty.
+
+It was late in the autumn when a great discovery was made.
+
+
+
+[1] York Powell and Vigfussen translate this as Shale or Slate-land;
+and Laing says that it is believed to have been Newfoundland.
+
+[2] That is, Bush or Scrubland.  Believed to be Nova Scotia, according
+to Laing.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+It happened one day that Leif had not gone out with the exploring
+party, but was by the tents expecting it to come home.  When the men
+returned late in the evening he saw at once that a man was missing, and
+a man, too, of whom he was very fond.  His name was Dirk, and he came
+from the south--that is, from beyond the Baltic Sea, from some distant
+part of Germany which no Icelander had seen.  Eric Red had found him in
+his younger days in Bremen and shipped him for a voyage.  Dirk had made
+himself useful, and desired to remain in Iceland.  When it became
+necessary for Eric to leave home, Dirk went with him to Greenland.  So
+it was that Leif had known him since he was a boy, and that there was
+much love between them.  Dirk was as ugly a man as there could well be
+in the world, short, bandy and mis-shapen, with a small flat face, high
+forehead, little eyes, no nose to speak of; but yet he was active and
+clever with his hands and feet.  The men told Leif that they had not
+missed him before the call had gone about to assemble for the return.
+They had looked all ways for him--but no Dirk.  They had called--no
+answer.  There was nothing for it, since it was growing dark, but to go
+home.
+
+Leif was troubled.  "You are good men all," he said, "and yet I will
+tell you that I would rather have missed any two of you than Dirk.  I
+have known him all my life, and grown up, as you may say, between his
+knees.  It shall go hard with me but I find him before another sunset."
+With that they took their meal, and turned in for the night, all but
+Leif.  He had Dirk in his mind and no way of thinking of sleep.
+Instead, he wandered up the shore of the lake in the moonlight, and
+presently was aware of a whooping sound among the trees, as it might be
+of a coursing owl.  As he listened, it seemed to waver from place to
+place, now high, now low; and then in the pause he heard something like
+a chuckling noise; and then last of all a great guffaw.  "There is
+Dirk, as I live," he said to himself, and plunged into the woodland to
+find him.  He had not far to go.  Some bowshot within the forest, in a
+glade, he saw Dirk plainly under the moon, dancing and waving his arms,
+curtseying to his own shadow.
+
+"Ho, Dirk!" he cried out sharply, and Dirk stopped short and looked
+about him.  Leif watched him.
+
+Dirk stared into the dark, then shook his head.  "I made sure somebody
+called Dirk," he said, and then--"But I don't care," and fell to his
+dancing and whooping again.
+
+Leif stepped into the moonlight, and Dirk saw him, but without ceasing
+to caper.  "Dancing," he said, and went on.
+
+Leif went to him and clapped him on the shoulder.  "Are you drunk,
+then?"
+
+Dirk nodded.  "I am very drunk.  That is just what I am."
+
+"Come you with me," said Leif, "and you shall be no more drunk."  Then
+it was that Dirk said, "Let us sit down.  I'll tell you where I've
+been."  So they sat down together in the moonlight.
+
+Then Dirk told him that he had outwalked the others and passed out of
+the forest belt and reached a ridge of low hills.  When he came to them
+he found that they were a tangle of wild vines.  "And I know what vines
+are very well," he stopped to say, "for in my country there is no lack
+of them."  Now these vines, he said, were loaded with grapes, some
+still ripe, but mostly over-ripe and fallen; and in a hollow of the
+rocks he had come to a pool of water wherein the grapes had fallen and
+fermented.  "There," said he, "was my wine-vat, and there was I.  The
+rest, master, you know."
+
+"Can you take me to that place to-morrow?" Leif asked him.  Dirk said
+that he could.
+
+"Well," Leif said, "here is our work then.  We will collect what we can
+of your grapes, and load our ship with timber.  That will fill up the
+winter for us; and in the spring we will go home."
+
+And that was the way of it.  The timber which they got was fine wood,
+and fit for building.  They stored what grapes they could, and having a
+good-sized meal-tub on board, they made wine in it.  They had samples
+of self-sown grain, too, and the skins of animals which they had
+trapped or shot with bows.  When the spring came, they loaded their
+ship and sailed out of the lake into the open sea; but they left on
+shore the huts which they had made, meaning to return.  At parting Leif
+said: "That country deserves a good name, and shall have one.  I call
+it Wineland the Good."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Leif in after days had his name of The Lucky, not for the great country
+which he had explored, nor for what he brought back from it, nor for
+the good passage home which he made, but for another reason altogether.
+It was the fact that the wind never failed them from the day they set
+out until that one on which they first saw plainly in the sea the snow
+mountains of Greenland.  Everybody on board was in high spirits.  Leif
+himself at the helm, and the look-out man was waiting for the first
+view of the great headland beyond which Ericsfrith with its two rocks
+would open up, and a straight course for the haven.  And then,
+suddenly, Leif put down the helm, hard, and the ship veered several
+points off the land.
+
+"What will you do, master?" one asked him, and Leif replied, "Look out
+and see what I will do.  Do you see nothing on the water?"
+
+The man said that he saw nothing out of the common.  "Well," said Leif,
+"look again.  I see a rock, or else a ship--and if a ship, then a ship
+on a rock."
+
+They all saw the rock now.  "Yes," said Leif, "and there's a ship too,
+or a piece of a ship; for there are men on the rock."
+
+That was true too, but before they were near enough to count the
+survivors of a wreck, pieces of the wreck itself, and baulks of timber,
+which they supposed her cargo, came drifting by them; and then
+presently a drowned man with a white face turned upwards.
+
+Leif ran on, as near to the rock as he dared, near enough at least to
+see the men huddled on the ridge of it, and their hands up signalling
+to them.  There, too, were the bows of a good ship rising high into the
+air like a seal.  The rock was a sort of shelf in the sea, and stood
+out some ten furlongs from the great headland.
+
+Leif brought up his ship and cast anchor.  He had the boat out, and
+himself rowed out to the wreck.  "They can do us no harm, whoever they
+are," he said; "but I think they are friends of ours."  Some fifteen
+men were huddled together, and apart from them was a woman in a blue
+cloak, with a man lying beside her, his head on her lap, and a cloth
+over his face.  She did not move as the boat drew in, but all the
+others came scrambling down the shelf to the water's edge.
+
+Leif shouted.  "Who are ye?  And of what country?"
+
+"Thore's people--from Ramfirth."
+
+"Where is Thore?"  They pointed to the woman.
+
+"Yonder he lies hurt.  That is his wife."
+
+"And you are for Ericshaven?"
+
+They said that they were.  "Then you are well met," said Leif, and
+stepped on to the rock.
+
+Gudrid's eyes were great and serious.  Leif came to her and took her
+hands.  "I little thought we should meet again like this."
+
+"We must have died without you," she said.
+
+Then he asked to look at poor Thore.  He was unconscious, and had a
+great wound in his temple, cut open almost to the bone.  Gudrid told
+him that when they struck, Thore, who had been at the helm, was thrown
+out upon the edge of the rock.  One of his men, thrown out also, had
+pulled him up out of the sea.  Gudrid herself had been below, sleeping.
+She did not know how she had been saved.  She awoke at the shock to
+find herself in water.  Then Leif saw that she was wet through and
+almost rigid with cold.  He did not believe Thore was dead, nor did
+she.  "No, no, he won't die so.  He will die in my arms."  So Gudrid
+said.
+
+They took off the sick man first, and Gudrid with him.  Both of them
+were put to bed, where Gudrid, who was now in a fever, soon became
+light-headed.  Leif attended to her like a woman.  It was wonderful to
+see so big a man so gentle and light in the hand.
+
+
+He brought them all in safely, and Thore and Gudrid were taken up to
+Brattalithe, to lodge with Eric until one at least of them was well
+again.  Gudrid very soon recovered, and seemed none the worse, but in
+all her glow of beauty and health.  Thore was much slower.  His wound
+pained him a great deal.  Cold had got into it and inflamed it.  The
+pain made him fretful; he seemed much older than a year and a half's
+absence could account for, and was anxious to get home.
+
+Gudrid wished to go also.  Everybody was very kind to her at
+Brattalithe.  She was a great favourite with Eric Red, who used to tell
+her that she ought to have married one of his sons.  "Then I should
+have been sure that things would go right here when I am out of the
+way."  Gudrid once replied to that that none had asked her, whereupon
+the old man looked slyly about him, and then said: "There was one at
+least was thinking of you--and so he is now."
+
+She knew that too well.  Thorstan was consumed by love, and must always
+be with her if he could.  She was gentle with him, as she was with
+everybody, and had to own to herself that it was Thorstan who now
+possessed her thoughts.  That may have been going by contraries, for if
+Leif paid her nothing but the good-humoured civility he had ready for
+everybody, Thorstan, on his part, seemed afraid of her, and was
+speechless in her company.  But there's all the difference in the world
+between a man completely easy in your company and one completely
+uneasy.  Leif was a young giant, the best-tempered giant in the world;
+but it was clear to Gudrid that he had other things to think about
+besides love.  He was full of the exploration he had made, determined
+to get more of the good timber over, and with more than half a mind to
+go out and settle in Wineland.  Dirk made wine of the grapes which they
+had brought back.  There was a great feast, and everybody got very
+drunk.  If Eric Red had not died and left the Greenland settlement on
+his hands there is little doubt but Leif would have colonised Wineland.
+
+Meantime, Thorwald, the third of the brothers, was on fire with the
+thought of going.  He said that he should go out next spring if Leif
+would let him have his boat.  Thore--to the surprise of all--said that
+he would go too, but nobody seemed to want him.  Leif said: "I don't
+think you a lucky man, Thore.  And I don't think your wife will care
+about so long and rough a voyage, seeing what you made of her last."
+The laugh went against Thore.
+
+"Gudrid shall stay with her father," said he; but Gudrid said, "I shall
+go if you do."  Thorstan's face fell, and Eric Red burst into a great
+shout of laughter.  "Oh, sour face," he cried out, "let us hear what
+you have to say about all this."
+
+Thorstan was very hot, but he answered his father.  "I think that
+Gudrid should not go, nor Thore either"--which made Eric chuckle.
+
+When he was with her the next day, after a long time of brooding,
+Thorstan said that he hoped she would not go to Wineland.
+
+"I must go if Thore goes," she said over her needlework.
+
+"If Thore goes, I shall go myself," Thorstan said after a pause.
+Gudrid looked up, but said nothing.
+
+"He is not a lucky man--that is to be seen," Thorstan said then.  "And
+he has no great knowledge of the sea, and is moreover infirm.  It would
+come to this, that he would hurt himself, and you would have the care
+of him as you did upon the rock out beyond the head."
+
+She answered him gravely.  "It may be as you say, that he is not lucky.
+Indeed, I know it too well.  For it was told me before ever I saw or
+heard of him, that he would die before me."
+
+Thorstan was now strongly moved.  He wrung his hands together.  "I beg
+you to tell me just what was said about that."
+
+She coloured deeply.  "No, I cannot tell you."
+
+But Thorstan said: "I know what it was.  It was said that you would
+have two husbands.  Was it not so?"
+
+She could not tell him the truth; so she said, "Yes."  Then Thorstan
+said in a voice which did not sound like his, "That is another reason
+why I must go."  And then they looked at each other for a measurable
+space of time--and then Thorstan got up and left her.
+
+When they met again he was as he had always been before; but Gudrid was
+frightened, and insisted on going home to Stockness.  It was hard to
+persuade Eric Red to let her leave him.  He had grown very fond of her,
+and the more so because he hated his own daughter Freydis.  But Gudrid
+held to her determination, and won her own way.  At parting old Eric
+took her in his arms.  "I am loth to let thee go, dear child," he said,
+"and afraid lest I lose thee altogether.  But thou art between two old
+men who love thee, and Thore has the first claim.  Promise me this,
+that if he die before me thou wilt come back to Brattalithe and be a
+daughter to me."
+
+"Yes," Gudrid said, "I promise you that."
+
+"Right," said old Eric.  "Then I shall live to see thee again."  With
+that he kissed her and let her go.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+Thorwald told Leif that he had been too faint-hearted in his
+explorations of Wineland.  "You were bolder than Biorn, I grant you,"
+he said; "but you only nibbled at the rind after all.  I promise you I
+will dig down deeper into the meat."
+
+"Dig," said Leif, "dig by all means.  But look that you don't dig your
+grave.  I saw no men the length and breadth of the land; and yet it is
+unreasonable to think that no men have been engendered to live in such
+a fine and fruitful country.  If our father were not so old and hard to
+move, I tell you I should be for cutting adrift from Greenland and
+settling out there.  But then I would go in a larger way than you
+intend.  I would take a wife first of all----"
+
+"So would Thorstan, our brother, if he could get her," said Thorwald.
+
+"But he cannot get her," Leif said, and then Thorwald, "He won't move
+from her until he does get her."
+
+Leif said: "He will go if Thore takes her out with you.  But never mind
+all that.  You will need a stock of cattle if you are for settling, and
+a strong body of men.  It is not the way of our people to live in tents
+and eat only of the beasts that we chance to take.  We are too fond of
+the earth to care to live without what she can give us.  And if by
+incessant toil you win a sustenance out of this frozen land, consider
+what you could do in Wineland, where there is no frost, and but a
+sprinkling of snow, and where the soil is four feet deep, or double
+that for all I know."
+
+"You are talking of one thing, and I thinking of another," Thorwald
+said.  "Time enough to settle when I have discovered the country for
+you.  That's what I mean to do."
+
+
+Leif helped his brother with a ship and good advice; and Thorwald
+sailed west in the spring with a sufficient crew.  Thore did not go;
+for that winter there had been a great deal of sickness, and old
+Thorbeorn took it badly, and died of it.  Thore himself had the
+sickness, and Gudrid nursed him through it; but he was not fit for a
+long voyage.  And Thorstan would not go either, though he kept away
+from Stockness, and saw nothing of Gudrid.  Thorwald would have been
+glad of his help, for Thorstan was very strong and a man who could be
+depended upon; but he saw the trouble in his eyes and forbore to urge
+him.  It came to this, then, that Thorwald was in sole command.  He was
+young and full of spirit; he did not doubt himself the least in the
+world: but Leif doubted him, and threw away much sound advice upon him.
+
+They sailed out of the frith one fine afternoon, and were lost to
+sight.  They had a prosperous voyage throughout, and no trouble in
+picking up the Island of Sweet Dew, the river and the lake.  There, in
+a glade of the forest and in full view of the lake, they saw the booths
+still standing, which Lief and his men had set up.  They were intact,
+the bolts seemingly not drawn, and not much the matter with the goods
+within, but what fresh air and sunlight could amend it.  They spent the
+better part of six weeks in and about those shores, but then, leaving a
+garrison at the booths, Thorwald and the rest of the crew went far and
+wide over the land, travelling mainly by boat up the great river which
+fed the lake on the west.  They did not return till late in the autumn.
+
+They reported to their friends that so far as they had been the forest
+land extended, with timber in it of incredible size and height.  It
+increased in density the further they went, and the country all level,
+with no mountains to be seen.  In the river were many shallows, and
+islands too; the shores were white sand and firm to walk upon.  They
+had met with few animals, and no signs of men at all.  Thorwald, who
+was unaccustomed to a forest country, said that he should never settle
+there, and that he should go further north, where a man might perhaps
+see where he was going.  But they stayed out the winter where they were.
+
+In the spring they made their preparations to depart.  They sailed east
+in the first place, but always north of the land, but encountered rough
+weather off a great headland which drove them on to the beach and broke
+the ship's back.  That gave them a great deal of work, and involved a
+long stay while they mended her.  There was abundance of timber, and of
+good quality, and they were well stocked with tools; but there was much
+building to be done before they could get at their work, and it took
+them the best part of the summer.  But they were away about the time of
+harvest, and still sailing north, and being east of the mainland, the
+country appeared to grow more open, the trees were sparse, and they
+could see hills to the far west of them.  So presently, when there
+opened out to them the mouth of a great frith, Thorwald sailed up it
+some distance till he came to a place where there were bluffs standing
+up sheer in the water, and beyond a headland a broad bay.  Thereabouts,
+standing close inshore he berthed his ship, and was able to run out
+gangways and walk from ship to land.  He himself with a party went into
+the country to look about them.  It was fine open land, with a good
+deal of wood growing on it, but well-watered and with pasture of fine
+quality.  "This country suits me," Thorwald said.  "I shall stay here
+and make a homestead in it."  As it turned out he spoke more truly than
+he thought for.
+
+On their way back to the ship they struck the frith nearer to the mouth
+than where the anchorage was.  They jumped down the cliffs to the
+beach, and in the very act to jump Thorwald saw something move between
+two hummocks of sand.  He collected his men together and advanced
+quietly.  There behind the hummocks they saw men.  Three hide-boats lay
+at the water's edge.  There were three men to each.
+
+Thorwald said, "We must rush upon them suddenly.  Let each of us make
+sure of one man."  There were twelve men with Thorwald, counting
+himself.
+
+The men, who were short and very dark, with black hair, in which were
+feathers, had bows with them; but Thorwald gave them no chance of using
+them.  At a signal his party sprang with cries from behind the
+hummocks, and fell upon them.  Three fell at once; the others took to
+the water and were slain there, all but one.  He, as he went, slid out
+a boat, and scrambling in, made off at a great pace, and was soon out
+of sight behind the cliffs.  Thorwald took the hide-boats and the
+weapons, but left the dead men where they lay.  Then he went back to
+the ship, uneasy, thinking what he had better do.
+
+It was everybody's advice that they should seek an anchorage further
+from the shore--and that they did.  Setting a watch, they went to bed.
+Nothing disturbed them until the grey hour of the morning; but then the
+watchman called loudly to Thorwald: "Thorwald, Thorwald, arm yourself,
+and come up!"  Thorwald leapt to his feet and ran out to look.  The
+water was very smooth and still, but listening intently, he could hear
+countless paddle-strokes; and by and by in the mist the water appeared
+to be moving, so many and close together were the boats, and so
+shadowy-grey the men in them.
+
+"Out with your war-wall," Thorwald cried, and all the crew, now wide
+awake, obeyed him.  The war-wall was run up and made fast.  Every man
+took spear and shield and stood behind it, ready for the worst.
+
+The natives came within easy shooting range and rained showers of
+arrows at the ship.  They did not venture to get at closer quarters,
+but held on until they had shot all their arrows; then made off with
+cries.  The Icelanders looked at each other, and Thorwald, who was very
+pale, said, "Is any man here wounded?"  They told him No.  Then
+Thorwald, smiling rather queerly, said: "There slipped in an arrow
+between the rails of the board and my shield and struck me under the
+arm.  You shall take it out, one of you, but I declare it my
+death-wound.  I feel the venom working in me; and now I see how wisely
+I spoke when I said that my homestead should be out yonder.  So it will
+be, but a smaller one than I thought to have put up.  Now," he said,
+lying down upon a skin which they had spread for him, "pull me out this
+accursed dart, and listen to what I say.  You shall bury me there where
+my homestead is to be, and put up a Cross over me.  For though I am not
+long christened I know that I belong to the true faith.  Call that
+place Crossness in memory of me, and when you go home tell my people
+where I lie, in case any of them come out and are minded to see if I
+need anything."
+
+He bore the pulling out of the dart with great cheerfulness, and
+composed himself for his end.  The poison worked swiftly.  He was soon
+discoloured, and rambled much in his talk.  Towards the end they had to
+hold him, and at sunset he died.
+
+Everything was done as he had ordered it.  They dug him a grave, rather
+than piled a cairn about him as the custom had always been; but sat him
+up in it with his weapons, thinking that more honourable.  There were
+no Christians among them to say any prayer over the grave; but they
+made a great Cross and carved runes upon it.  Then they went back to
+the ship and got the anchor up, being ill-disposed to stay there
+another day.  The night passed without attack, and by daylight they
+rowed out of the frith, and out to sea.  They beat their way back to
+Eric's booths in Wineland and found them unmolested.  There they
+remained for the autumn and winter following; and then went home to
+tell Eric Red and Lief the fate of young Thorwald.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Thorbeorn of Stockness died of the winter sickness the winter before
+Thorwald sailed for Wineland.  Thore himself had been very sick too,
+but he recovered and was almost himself that summer.  Not altogether
+so, for he had lost his lightness of heart, and with that his decision
+and blunt common sense.  Gudrid, who had fought, as it seemed to her,
+against fate, and prevailed, was unhappy that he should care so little
+to be with her.  She did not know that he avoided her.  But it was so.
+He spent most of his time at Brattalithe, where he had taken a great
+fancy for Thorstan.  He did not tell her, and Gudrid did not know, what
+he and Thorstan could have to say to each other--but the two were great
+friends.  The fact of the matter was that Thore had now got it into his
+head that Gudrid had cast a spell upon both himself and Thorstan, and
+that the prediction concerning her was less prophecy than a gift of
+magic power.  He found that Thorstan would let him talk about his hard
+fate by the hour together--nay, more, he found that Thorstan did not at
+all avoid being cast in the same lot.  Thorstan, indeed, was quite open
+about it.  "I have so much love in me for Gudrid," he said, "that you
+may say whatever you please about her to me, and I shall hear you
+gladly.  Talk evil of her, sooner than not talk at all.  I shall never
+believe you, but I shall hear her name, and name her myself.  That will
+be enough for me."  So Thore grumbled away about his troubles, and
+Thorstan listened to him.
+
+He himself saw Gudrid seldom, because he believed that it made her
+uneasy to have him there.  Nevertheless he prevailed upon Thore to
+bring her to Brattalithe very often; and when she was there he would
+take himself off cheerfully to work about the estate.  Eric Red always
+made much of her, and even Freydis liked her well enough.  She was the
+only woman for whom Freydis had a civil word.  Freydis used to frown
+upon her, with her arms folded under her bosom.  "You have soft ways,"
+she said, "and can make men do as you want; but all that is nothing to
+me.  I see that you are made of steel underneath, for all that.  I see
+that you are no fool, and no doll.  One of these days you will fall in
+with a man worthy of you, and then I should like to see the pair of you
+at work."
+
+Another time she said, "Good for you, Gudrid, that you have no child."
+
+Gudrid said, "That is not my opinion.  I wish with all my heart I had."
+
+"Wait," said Freydis, "until you have a man for a mate."  But that made
+Gudrid's eyes bright.
+
+"You must not scorn my husband to my face," she said.
+
+"Pooh!" said Freydis; "he's not here for long."  Then Gudrid turned
+pale, and grew very grave.
+
+"You know that, then?"
+
+"Why," said Freydis, "it is common knowledge.  We have all had to do
+with Thorberg.  She has the second sight."
+
+"That is dreadful to me," Gudrid said, but Freydis took it easily.
+
+"You are woman enough to bear what you must bear," she said.  "One of
+you must die before the other.  I hope you don't want to share graves
+with such an old man as Thore?  Well, then, suppose it had been you
+that were to die first--do you suppose that Thore would have left you
+for some other girl?  What do you take him for?  Not he.  He's man
+enough to have his pleasure.  Trust him for that."
+
+Such was Freydis, who treated her own husband with a high hand, and
+sent for him when she wanted him.
+
+Freydis spoke of the marriage of Thorstan and Gudrid as of an appointed
+thing.  "You will suit each other," she said.  "There is good mettle in
+Thorstan."
+
+Gudrid could say nothing to that.  The fate hung heavy upon her.  She
+felt that she was killing Thore, and had the knife in readiness with
+which to kill--not Thorstan but herself.  For she knew that she had
+given Thorstan her heart, and that his death would be more certainly
+her own.
+
+Meantime, with a dreadful fascination, she watched the doom settling
+like a storm about her husband Thore.  She only saw it; he himself, now
+that he was better, was unconscious of anything impending.  He talked
+hopefully of what he should do when Thorwald came home with news of
+Wineland, having forgotten his dark commerce with Thorstan.  But
+Thorstan had not forgotten, and seemed to be waiting, like a raven on a
+rock, until he should be dead.  Gudrid, who was fanciful, saw herself
+and him in that guise--silent and watchful, each on a rock, made
+patient by certainty.  All this was terrible to her, and made her old
+before her time.  She was not more than three-and-twenty even now.
+Thorstan avoided her, which made matters no better, but worse, rather;
+for she knew why he did it, and felt spotted, and longed to see him,
+and felt that she was accursed.
+
+So life drew along for that summer and autumn; and then the long
+Greenland winter began, with the dark and the clinging, frozen fog.
+Thore seemed to make no stand against it, but took to his bed, from
+which Gudrid knew he would never rise.  She waited on him hand and
+foot; he lay there watching her with his aching eyes, and wounded her
+to the heart.  He hardly ever spoke, and seldom asked for anything.
+Thorstan used to come up most days to ask how he did.  Gudrid knew
+quite well when he was on the road, and would tell Thore.  "Here is
+Thorstan Ericsson coming.  Will you not see him?"
+
+"Nay, nay, not yet," was Thore's answer.
+
+Then there came a day when, being very ill, and nearly blind with
+fever, Thore asked to see Thorstan.  So Gudrid opened the door to him,
+and her colour came back to her when she said, "Thore has asked for
+you.  Come in, then."
+
+Thorstan, glowing in his health and strength, came into the hall.
+Gudrid took his furs from him to dry them by the fire, for the fog was
+frozen thick upon them.
+
+Thorstan sat on the edge of the bed, and asked Thore how he did.  "I do
+badly," said Thore, "but before long it will be better with me."
+Gudrid was turning away when he said to her, "Nay, do you stop here.  I
+shall need you."  So she stood where she was, a little way from the
+bed, half dreading and half glorying in what was to come.
+
+Thore shut his eyes and seemed to wander in sleep.  They heard him
+talking very fast to himself--counting the same things over and over
+again, and always failing at a certain number.  They thought he was
+counting sheep--but it was salmon in a net.  Thorstan watched him
+attentively, while Gudrid stood in a spell; but presently Thorstan got
+up and fetched a stool for her to sit upon.  She could not look at him
+to thank him.  So the time passed in silence, broken only by the
+feverish whispering of the sick man.  The thoughts of the man were
+deeply upon the woman, and the joy of her nearness made his heart beat.
+As for her thoughts, if there was no joy in them, there was great
+content, and a sense of peace which she had not known for a long while.
+She thought that a word from him might have broken down her peace.
+"What need of speech between us two?" she thought.  "I would live with
+him and know all his thoughts, and tell him all mine without speech at
+all."
+
+Presently Thore woke up with a start and asked what time it was.  "It
+is late," Gudrid said.  "I will bring you your broth, and maybe you
+will sleep a little."  She turned away to the fire, but Thore said
+sharply, "Stay; there is no need for broth now."  Then he said, "Are
+you there, Thorstan?  I cannot see you."  Thorstan said, "Here I am."
+
+Thore spoke again.  "Take the hand of Gudrid, and tell me that you have
+it."  He faltered for a moment, but then looked at Gudrid, and called
+her with that look.  She went over and gave him her hand.
+
+"Is it done?" said Thore.
+
+"Yes, it is done," he was told.
+
+"Her father was too quick when he married her to me, and you, maybe,
+were over-slow," Thore said.  "She would have married you at first if
+you had asked her.  Now you must make the most of your time, for it
+won't be long.  And I knew what the matter was between you from the
+first, but in those days I loved her dearly and could not let her go.
+Now do you two be married soon, and take it not amiss with me that I
+have outstayed my time."
+
+"You do wrong to speak so," Thorstan said.  "Gudrid has been faithful
+and loving to you; and it is no fault of hers that she knew how it
+would turn out."
+
+"No, no," said Thore.  "She has been good to me."
+
+"Now I will tell you," said Thorstan, "that I have the second sight
+myself, and know what my fate is, and that she must take a third
+husband.  But if it were my fate to die the day after my wedding with
+Gudrid, I would wed her if she would take me.  You, Thore, are dying a
+Christian.  See to it, then, that you do not die with hard judgments of
+Gudrid in your heart."
+
+Thore lay still, breathing very short.  They believed he was struggling
+with his thoughts.
+
+Presently he called her, and she went to him, and kneeled by the
+bedhead, and put her cheek against his.  He lay very still, and she
+remained patiently waiting.  So then he had a great convulsion, and
+struggled in it; and then turned violently in his bed and sat up.  He
+saw Gudrid kneeling, and smiled at her.  It was as if he had newly
+awoken out of sleep, and was himself again as she had first known him.
+She, as if knowing his mind, leaned towards him.  He kissed her
+forehead, and lay down again.  In a few moments more he was dead.
+
+When they had laid him out, and lighted tapers about him, Thorstan
+said: "Do you now go and sleep, and I will sit up with him."  She asked
+with the eyes that she might stay, but he would not have it.  So she
+went away and made a bed by the fire, and slept long.  He did not touch
+her, would not look at her.  They neither kissed when they parted, nor
+at all until Thore was buried.  But after that, when she was at
+Brattalithe, and he found her there, he took her in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+There were many things about her marriage with Thorstan which she did
+not understand at the time--Thorstan's urgency for it was one, a kind
+of feverish haste about getting through with preliminaries; and another
+was his opposition to living anywhere but at Brattalithe.  He would not
+go to her father's house, nor to that which had been Thore's, and which
+was now hers for life.  He put a reeve in each of them and took her to
+Brattalithe.  Afterwards she understood everything, and was confounded
+by her former blindness; but it is the truth that Thorstan's love for
+her was of a sort to forbid thinking.  She was carried off her feet and
+out of her common sense by his passion.  He, so dumb and still a man,
+was by the touch of passion set on fire.  And fire caught fire.  The
+pair of them lived in each other, and the world seemed empty of all
+other men and women.
+
+As for Thorstan himself, knowing what he knew, it is not wonderful that
+his love burned at white heat.  Passion with him was in a trap and
+fighting for an hour of life.  What is wonderful is, that he never
+betrayed in any other way that he had the end in sight from the
+beginning.  It was "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" with
+him.  But Gudrid did not see it.  She was too happy to see it.  Her
+doom was flooded out by sunlight, as it were.
+
+He made songs for her from the time of Thore's death onwards, and in
+these his secret might have been revealed if she had been able to read
+below the surface.  He sang her one night as she lay in his arms the
+terrible Song of Helgi and Sigrun.  Certainly Death and Love embrace in
+that.
+
+
+Helgi was a Wolfing, the son of Sigmund and Borghild.  He was forecast
+a hero by the Norns, and at fifteen slew Hunding, who had slain his
+father.  The sons of Hunding gathered themselves--Alf and Eywolf,
+Hiorward and Haward--and the hosts met in the plain under Lowfell.
+There was war in heaven while those armies made it on earth.  Out of
+the lightning flare came the Valkyrs, daughters of Odin, choosers of
+the slain.  They rode grey horses; they wore helms and coats of mail;
+their spear-heads gleamed like fire.  Helgi sat by the Eagle Rock and
+cried out to them to stay.  And one--it was Hogni's daughter,
+Sigrun--turned him her fire-hued face and answered: "Other business
+have we in hand than to pledge you in horns.  My father has plight me
+to King Hodbrord, whom I hold no better than the son of a cat.  Yet he
+will come for me soon unless you deliver me."  Then love grew between
+them as they looked at each other; and Helgi said: "Fear not Hodbrord,
+for I will meet him unless I am dead."
+
+King Hodbrord called up his levies and mustered a host.  The ships
+flocked about Brandey, but still he waited, and warriors came to him,
+hundreds of them, from Hedinsey and other islands.  Then said Helgi to
+Hiorleif, "Is the host called?"  And Hiorleif nodded his head and
+pointed them out over sea, high-beaked ships, hemmed with shields,
+thick on the water like wild swans.  They fought in a storm, and the
+waves played their part in the battle.  The waters drank as much blood
+as the swords; from on high Sigrun the Valkyr guided the warriors of
+Helgi.
+
+Now King Hodbrord stood in the gate of his house, hooded and helmed,
+his spear in his hands.  He saw far off in the valley horsemen riding
+with speed, whose cloaks flew out in the wind they made.  Who come
+here?  Whose is the host?  And Godmund, his housewife, told him of the
+sea-fight, and that the Wolfings were coming against his house.  Then
+looking, he saw the helm-bright Valkyrs coursing the air, keeping pace
+with the horsemen below.  They met in a crash by the Wolf rock; the
+swords flamed, the spears were like flying stars.  Over the dead
+Hodbrord Sigrun the Valkyr cried in triumph, "Never for your arms is
+Sigrun of Sevafell," and as she spoke the arm of Helgi the hero held
+her fast.
+
+Their love was fierce, but it was short.  Helgi is dead of countless
+wounds, and laid in his barrow with his weapons beside him.  Sigrun of
+Sevafell keeps the house; she sits by the fire; her eyes are hard.  She
+says to herself--
+
+  "Now had been here
+  Had he been minded
+  Sigmund's son,
+  The hero Helgi,
+  Out of the halls of Odin;
+  But the eagles roost
+  On the high ash-boughs,
+  All the household
+  Falleth to dreams--
+  Faint is my hope of him now."
+
+
+But her handmaid at the window sees a man riding in armour.  He rides a
+grey horse, his face is pale and streaked with blood.  She speaks to
+herself, and then to the dead--
+
+  "What wraith rideth?
+  Is Doomsday come?
+  Shall dead men ride,
+  Shall they drive spurs in?
+  Ho, pale rider,
+  Hast thou leave homeward to fare?"
+
+
+It is Helgi who answers her as he rides by upon a noiseless horse--
+
+  "This is no wraith,
+  This is not World's Doom
+  Though a dead man rides,
+  Though he pricks with spurs,
+  Leave I have homeward to fare."
+
+
+And then he cries aloud, so that Sigrun hears him, and looks up,
+listening--
+
+  "Ha, come thou forth, Sigrun of Sevafell!
+  Here is thy lord
+  If thou wouldst see him;
+  The cairn is open,
+  Helgi is here
+  With the sword-wounds bleeding--staunch thou the blood!
+
+  For I must ride soon
+  The reddening roads,
+  My good horse climb
+  The ways of the air;
+  West of the sky-bridge
+  Needs I must be
+  Before the grey cock cry to the sun."
+
+
+Sigrun is up now, and at the door.  She pants as she pulls at the
+bobbin of the latch.  Her eyes are on fire with eagerness.  But the
+maid cries to her--
+
+  "Go not, go not,
+  Sigrun of Sevafell,
+  Sister of kings,
+  Seek not the house of the dead!
+  For the night is abroad
+  When the dead are mighty;
+  Await bright dawn, thou shalt be stronger."
+
+
+But Sigrun is out in the moonlight, and Helgi is upon his feet.  Now
+she has him in her arms; now she holds his pale face between her hands
+and speaks to him close--
+
+  "The hawks of Odin
+  Greet not the Storm-lord,
+  Scenting the slain, their smoking quarry,
+  Not more eagerly
+  Cry they the dawn dew
+  Than I cry thee, dead King Helgi.
+
+  Now I kiss thee, dead King Helgi,
+  Ere thou castest
+  Thy blood-clutter'd mail-shirt.
+  Bloody the dew
+  On thy dauntless body,
+  Heavy the rime
+  On thy raven love-locks;
+  Cold are thy hands, Helgi, my king's son,
+  How shall I loose thee, lover and lord?"
+
+
+But Helgi puts her hands away from his face and holds her apart--
+
+  "The death-dew is dank on me,
+  Sigrun of Sevafell,
+  This is thy doing, O sun-fraught lady,
+  Golden woman, the tears thou sheddest
+  Upon thy bed stay not beside thee;
+  Like blood they fall, cold and deathly,
+  Like sobs they stab me
+  Through the breast!"
+
+
+Then, seeing her despair, he throws up his white face towards the moon
+and laughs without joy--
+
+  "Ho, let us drink
+  Deep draughts of joy,
+  We that have lost
+  Land and life!
+  Let no man keen us,
+  Let no man pity
+  The wounds shining upon my body."
+
+
+He clasps her close in his arms, and speaks as it were between his
+teeth.
+
+  "Now is a queen,
+  Sigrun of Sevafell,
+  Now is a queen
+  Shut in the cairn,
+  Living and warm with the cold dead."
+
+
+But she strains him to her and cries aloud--
+  "Helgi, Helgi, here is thy bed made,
+  Thou son of Wolfings, a warm bed, a gentle--
+  Fast in arms, Helgi, enfold me;
+  As when thou livedst
+  Clip me in death sleep."
+
+
+And then the maid sees the cairn open, and Sigrun lying in it in the
+dead man's arms.  Helgi lifts up his face to the moonlight, and sings--
+
+  "Never on Sevafell
+  A great marvel--
+  No more wondrous
+  That hill of magic--
+  For Hogni's white daughter
+  Lies with a dead man;
+  A king's daughter
+  Alive in the arms of the dead."
+
+
+There is no more terrible song than that, nor one in which love is
+brought so close to death.  When she remembered it after-wards Gudrid
+saw well that she had indeed been lying with a dead man when that song
+was sung to her.  For if she could have had the wits she would have
+felt at the time the death-dew on his face.  But love had then bereft
+her of all wits.
+
+She called that year afterwards the Little Summer, as well because of
+the glory and promise of it as for the few days it held.  By the end of
+June she knew herself with child.  Thorstan gave a sort of sobbing gasp
+when she told him and pressed her to his heart.  She felt the wet from
+his eyes upon her cheek, looked at him and saw tears.  "You weep at my
+news?"  "It is because I am happy, my love."  She herself was softly
+elated by the gift she was to be enabled to make him, but not
+otherwise.  All her love was centred in him just then.
+
+
+But in July the ship came home from Wineland the Good without Thorwald,
+and with the heavy news.  Eric, who had been ageing, was very much cast
+down by it.  He wished Lief to go out and fetch back the body; but Lief
+did not seem inclined to move.  He told Thorstan his reason.  "If we
+can move out, house and homestead, gear and cattle, man, woman and
+child, well and good.  It is a finer country than this.  I will settle
+there gladly.  But you see how it is with our father.  He won't last
+long, and you will see he will refuse to move.  This is his Settlement;
+he has made it for himself.  He is king of all this country, and he
+feels it.  Now if we go and leave him here, he will die--and what then?
+The end of Eric's kingdom.  No, I shall stay here and take up the
+government after him.  But I think that you should go--you and Gudrid."
+
+Thorstan said: "I think so too.  I will speak to Gudrid.  But I shall
+wait till after harvest."
+
+He told Gudrid what he thought.  "They have buried him heathenwise,
+sitting with his weapons, looking out to sea, and heaped the stones
+over him.  True, they have set up a cross atop.  But he should have the
+rites.  I must see to that.  We will go, my love, if you are
+willing--but maybe we shall not come back."
+
+She looked at him fondly.  "I will go wherever you bid me.  But we
+shall come back."  It is wonderful that she did not remember what had
+been predicted of her; but she did not.
+
+Thorstan did not meet her eyes.  "We will go, then.  But not till after
+harvest."
+
+"Harvest!" said she.  "You will not go in the winter?"
+
+"No, no," he said.  "The harvest will not be done."  Then she knew that
+he did not speak of the corn-harvest, but of their own.
+
+The year sped quickly, as happy years will do; the harvest of the earth
+was gathered, the winter fell, the clinging mists, the still and deadly
+cold.  But they were a happy household at Brattalithe, for Gudrid was
+found to be a solvent of much domestic ferment.  Her sweet manners drew
+even Theodhild to come in and out of the house, and hushed the storms
+which periodically swept over Freydis the Wild.  At Yule there was a
+feast of many days, singing, eating and drinking, and games in the snow
+for the young men.  Gudrid sat apart and watched it, Thorstan never far
+away from her.  Still she didn't guess what lent such fervour to their
+loves.  Foolish with happiness, she thought it was the first of many
+Yules--whether here in this frost-locked country or in the forests of
+Wineland mattered little to her.  She saw them all in years to come as
+they were now and felt her heart high in her breast.
+
+And then at the end of March, when men began to talk again of the ice
+breaking up, and the thawing of the passages, her child was born.  It
+was a girl, and christened Walgerd.  And now Thorstan looked about him
+at the still sheeted lands and knew that his hour was at hand.  He told
+nobody, he never betrayed himself; but went to work silently and
+methodically.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+It was the end of summer again before they were ready to sail.  The
+ship which brought home Thorwald's crew had gone a voyage to Iceland
+and not come back.  It was necessary to find and furnish another; no
+crew would ship until the harvest was over; and though Gudrid was
+willing to follow Thorstan at a word, Eric had not wanted her to leave
+him yet; so she saw one more high summer.
+
+
+They fared badly from the start, with heavy weather as soon as they
+were off the land.  After a week of blustering south-west gales and
+rain the wind went round to the north.  Then from the N.N.W. there
+began a storm the like of which none of them had ever known, and for
+week after week they were buried in it, not knowing where they were.
+They lost men, tackle, stores; there was not a dry rag on the ship;
+every day Thorstan expected the snow.  Instead of that, after a few
+days of sunny weather, the wind dropped in a clear sky; it began to
+freeze, and then came the white blanket to cling about sheets and
+spars, and hold them close, a blur drifting upon a sea like oil.
+Gudrid sat like a ghost in the after deckhouse, nursing her baby and
+trying to keep it warm.  It did not thrive and could not be expected to
+thrive.  She was sure it would die.  And so it did--died in its sleep
+while she was suckling it.  She felt the cold upon its legs; and then
+it grew heavy.  She looked down--its eyelids were blue.  But she did
+not move.
+
+Thorstan came down to see her.  He knew at once.  He went to her and
+covered her breast in the blanket.  He said nothing, but was very
+gentle.
+
+"Oh, husband, speak to me!  Our little baby----"
+
+"Hush, my dear one--it is better.  She is not cold now."  He made her
+lie down, with a hot stone for her feet and another for her arms to
+hold instead of her Walgerd.  When she was asleep he said a prayer over
+the child and sank it in the sea.  Then he comforted her as only he
+could have done it.
+
+There was a good deal of sickness on board and plenty for Gudrid to do.
+The wind blew gaps in the fog, and as it stiffened tore it into flying
+shreds and rags.  The ship heaved and lurched in water now inky-black.
+They got steerage way, and ran before a gale which they judged came
+from the south-west; they held this course for many days, hoping to get
+a sight of land.  And land was nearer than they thought, for one
+morning Thorstan saw a darkening in the fog, a kind of shape, and then,
+quick as the thought, he put the ship about.  She came round slowly,
+and at that moment the spars and rigging seemed alive with sea-birds.
+As the ship went round a huge black wall reared itself a-starboard, and
+he heard the waves at its foot.  As nearly as might be he had broken up
+his ship on the rocks.
+
+Thorstan ran out to sea for half a mile or more and stood off until the
+weather cleared a little.  When it did they all saw the crags and
+headlands of an iron coast.  The only thing to do was to keep within
+hail of it until they found some sort of haven.  Thorstan said he would
+spend the winter there, whatever country it might be.  Already it was
+cold, and wherever the land stooped low enough there was snow to be
+seen lying.
+
+An opening in the land was reported next day, and as they drew near
+they could make out a firth and a muffled ship lying at anchor within
+it.  The tide serving, Thorstan ran in between low hills all smothered
+in snow.  A settlement of white, muffled houses lay on the shore of a
+bay, a deserted quay, a few boats drawn up on the beach: not a soul was
+to be seen; the winter swoon was over all.
+
+He drew up within hail of the silent ship and anchored in that black
+water.  The rattling of the chain and splash of the anchor echoed among
+the hills, but awoke no man.  "Are we, dying, come to a city of the
+dead?" he thought.  The chill lay on his heart like lead; the thought
+of Gudrid gave him a dull ache; even the passion of desire to save her
+was dead within him.  He did what came up before him to be done, but
+could not provide nor foresee.
+
+"Here we must see the winter out," he said, and had the boat out so
+that he might go ashore and seek quarters.  First he went below to see
+Gudrid.
+
+He found her in the bed, rigid with cold, almost too cold to shiver.
+He leaned over her in an agony of pity.  "Oh my heart!  Oh my poor
+heart!"  She looked up at him and smiled in his face.  She was not able
+to speak.
+
+"I shall see the winter out here," he told her.  "I must find out where
+we are--I believe that we have beaten back to Greenland.  If that be
+so, then we may be able to reach home; but if that is not possible,
+then we stay here.  I will get quarters for the men, and for ourselves,
+please God.  My love, trust me to do for the best--and wait for me
+here."
+
+She nodded her head two or three times, but her eyes were shut and she
+did not look at him again.  He dared not kiss her for fear of finding
+out how cold she was.  How could it be that men were allowed to suffer
+so?  He found some more covering for her bed before he left her.
+
+The boat took him ashore; he went to the nearest house he saw and
+thumped on the door.  There was no light to be seen, and for long there
+was no sound to be heard inside; but at last he heard the bolts drawn
+back.  A white-faced woman peered at him through a crack.
+
+"Let me in, for the love of God," said Thorstan.  Then she beckoned him
+in.
+
+A sick man lay muttering in a bed; children huddled about a turf fire.
+The place was very nearly dark, but he made out some six souls to be
+there.  He found out that he was come to Lucefrith in West Greenland;
+the winter sickness was heavy on the place.  The woman did not refuse
+to take one of his men, and did not agree.  She seemed stupid with
+misery.  He told her that he should send her a man, and went out.  In
+every house in the Settlement was much the same story.  Sickness and
+death on all hands, but no refusals.  At the end of his rounds he had
+managed to place out all hands.  There remained himself and Gudrid.
+There was no place for them--not room enough to die in.  He had asked
+if there were no headman in Lucefrith, and was told of one Thorstan
+Black; but he, it seemed, lived far off--over the hills, they said--and
+no way of getting at him through the snow.
+
+Then he went back to the ship and told his men to get ready to go
+ashore.  He took them off by companies in the boat, and saw them all
+indoors before he left them.  The last man under cover, he rowed back
+alone to the ship.  At this extremity, with frozen death and silence
+all about him, he felt a strange uplifting of the heart in the thought
+that he and Gudrid were now alone indeed--they two and Love.  And what
+if Death were a fourth in the party?  Ah, he was welcome too.  But
+before Death came Love should be there.  He rowed gaily, fiercely, that
+he might be with her the sooner.
+
+He was warmed by his exercise when he was on deck again, and wildly
+happy in the thought which possessed him.
+
+He went below and saw his love watching for him.  "My heart, I am
+coming to you," he said.  He took off his furs and most of his clothes
+and got into the bed with her.  He held her close to him, with a
+passion which despair may have quickened into flame.  Wildly as he had
+loved her since she had given him herself, he never loved her as he did
+now, when the end seemed close upon them.
+
+For a week they lived so, the supreme week of Thorstan's and Gudrid's
+lives.  They were utterly alone, and they never left each other's arms,
+but when Thorstan was busy mending the brasier fire, or getting food.
+They cherished each other, the fire in them at least never went out;
+they loved and slept, they loved again and slept.  It was the last leap
+of their fire, it was the swan-song of their love maybe; but it was
+beautiful, and as strong as if they were breasting a great flight
+through space.  Thorstan sang to Gudrid, he told her tales of lovers,
+he put their joint lives into verses; but he had not a word to say of
+the future.  Here fate was too heavy for either love or religion.  Fate
+stood with stretched-out arms holding a black curtain over what was to
+come.  Thorstan had seen behind it.  He knew.  But Gudrid had
+forgotten, and he would not tell her.  As for Gudrid herself, the glory
+was to have Thorstan find her so lovely, and her love so full, was
+enough for her.  She lived on his needs.  To fill them was her utmost
+desire, and to be to him a never-failing well was a crown of stars.
+She seldom spoke; she was as silent as the earth below the rains and
+heats of heaven, and as receptive.  She neither asked nor pondered what
+was to be the end of this rapturous dream.  If she had, her utmost
+desire would have been that they should die together in some nuptial
+sleep, and lie still, folded under the snow.
+
+But Fate ordered it otherwise.  The day came when they heard the
+knocking of oars, and then while they lay clasped, listening, a great
+voice hailing the ship.  They looked at each other.  "The dream is
+over," Thorstan said.  "My love, the world is about us again."  She
+clung to him.  "Let us stay here--let nobody forbid us that."  "Nay,
+but I must go out and see who is coming."
+
+He dressed and went on deck.  A large man muffled to the eyes in a
+bearskin was below him in a boat, standing up in it holding on to the
+side.  He pulled open his hood and showed a red face, black beard and a
+pair of merry eyes.
+
+The two hailed each other, and then the new-comer said, "They told me
+in the Settlement that you were under the weather here.  It will have
+gone hard with you, I doubt.  And your lady with you!  Now I make known
+to you that I am Thorstan of this place, called commonly Thorstan
+Black, and at your service."
+
+Thorstan said: "Then I must be Thorstan Red, for Thorstan is my name,
+and the red is of Nature's doing, and my father's.  I am Eric's son of
+Ericsfrith.  I was making the western voyage, but was driven out of my
+course in a gale, and forced to beat up here against my will.  My men
+are in the Settlement, but I and the good wife could find no better
+quarters than these."
+
+"I will show you better," said Thorstan Black.  "I knew nothing of your
+coming till last night when a man came up asking for fuel.  You shall
+come off with me now if you will.  In a week's time you will be able to
+walk ashore.  My mistress will be glad of your company, and so shall I
+be."
+
+"Thank you for that," said Thorstan.  "We take your offer gladly."  He
+asked him up, but Thorstan Black said he was very well where he was.
+
+Gudrid was dressed when he came down for her.  The dream was broken,
+and neither of them spoke of it.  Their preparations were soon made,
+and then they left the ship.
+
+Thorstan Black rowed them ashore with strong and leisurely strokes.  He
+told them that he lived over the ridge beyond the Settlement.  He had a
+sleigh of dogs waiting for him, packed up Gudrid, put Thorstan one side
+of her and himself the other, cracked a great whip, uttered a harsh
+cry; and they were off.  The dogs panted and strained at the ropes;
+sometimes one yelped in his excitement.  And so they came to a
+broad-eaved house, and were welcomed by the good wife, whose name was
+Grimhild.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+The winter fell upon them in bitter earnest within the next fortnight.
+The snow was up to the top of the windows, and being there, froze hard,
+and had to be cut away with an axe.  That was how they made a road to
+the byres where the stock were, and where they must be fed.  The two
+Thorstans worked hard at this and at fuel-getting, and hewing of wood.
+Gurth the reeve helped them, but he was ailing already with the
+sickness, and not much use.
+
+Grimhild, a strong-faced, huge woman, managed all the house, but Gudrid
+helped her now willingly.  There were no maids there.  In the evenings
+they sat by the fire and told tales.  It was as merry as might be, and
+with Thorstan Black there was always some fun to be had.  He was the
+lightest-hearted man and the happiest whom Gudrid had seen in
+Greenland, where mostly, it seemed, men had to fight with life at too
+long odds to have any heart left over for pastime.  Thorstan Black
+owned to it.  "There is no people but ours of Iceland, I do believe,
+who would hold out against this white death," he said.  "So fast as we
+come we die of it.  Then come others, and so the game goes on.  It is
+the fighting we love; we were always fighters--what with horses, or our
+young men.  But here we fight with the earth, sea and sky, and do
+little slaughter of our own kind."
+
+"It is the fog that kills us," said Grimhild; and Gurth smothered his
+cough and hugged himself over the fire.
+
+Gudrid said: "Why should you stay here?  I think it is a terrible
+country.  We shall go to Wineland as soon as the spring comes."  Then
+she told them of that good country--of the tall trees, and the clear
+sky, of the dew which was sweet to the taste, of the vines tumbling
+over the hot rocks, the birds' voices in the forest, and the strange
+stars at night.  Grimhild was moved by the recital.
+
+"Ay," she said, "I have heard tell of such lands, and you may see them,
+being young.  But this place has made me old, and almost broken my
+heart.  In a little while I shall ask no better than to be laid in the
+snow."
+
+Thorstan Black patted her on the back.
+
+"Courage, old lass," he said.  "You and I have seen the worst of it.  I
+think it may be better hereafter.  As for your land of summer all round
+the year, I know not that it would suit Icelanders.  If you take our
+hardihood from us, what have we left?  That which swills and eats
+heavily, and plays the mischief.  Nay, give me a dark ghyll in Iceland,
+with a river racing down its length, and the sea never far off.  That
+means more to me than your vines and soft winters.  As for this
+stricken land, we shall beat the sickness yet.  A man tempers himself.
+There should be a fine race here one day, of them who have got through."
+
+Gurth turned up the whites of his eyes.  He was very sick.
+
+
+By and by they had news from the Settlement, where things were going
+badly.  The sickness was very rife.  Many of Thorstan's men from
+Ericsfrith were dead of it.  They took down stores in the sleigh, and
+were much concerned at what they saw and heard.  The strangers from the
+east were all sick; six were dead, and could only be buried in the
+snow.  Thorstan promised that he would take all the bodies back to
+Ericsfrith if he had to heap the ship with dead men.  When they
+returned to the homestead the first thing they heard was that Gurth was
+dead.
+
+Gradually, as the winter thickened, gloom began to fall upon the
+housemates.  The hall grew cold; it was as if there were no heat in the
+burning coals; as if the cold was become master of the fire.  Grimhild
+grew strange in her ways.  She was always listening, waiting for
+something.  She said she expected a visitor, but would never say who it
+was.  She became very silent, and tried to avoid the others.  Thorstan
+Black told Thorstan Red that he feared the worst.  "The trustiest
+woman!" he said.  "She has stood by me in sickness and health for
+twenty years--and now she turns her back on me--hunches her poor
+shoulders and will take no comfort from me.  That's a sure sign of the
+sickness.  You distrust your old friends first."  "Is that the way of
+it?" said our Thorstan, with fear in his heart.
+
+Grimhild grew more and more remote, but remained on terms with Thorstan
+Red, in whom she confided some of her growing fancies.  "The dead are
+unquiet," she told him when she had him out of range of the others,
+"and how should I be quiet?  They are all about us.  So soon as it
+grows dusk they come out of the snow.  I hear them quarrelling,
+murmuring, and some of them grieve.  I shall be with them soon--and
+perhaps you will see me there.  It has been bad enough other winters,
+but none so bad as this.  There are strangers here--that's how it is.
+We shall never quiet them till we have burned the bodies.  That's the
+only way."
+
+"They shall be burned, mistress," said Thorstan.  "I will see to it."
+
+She looked at him queerly, with one eyebrow arching into her hair.
+"You?" she said, then turned away her face.  "Well, well--Christ have
+mercy on us."
+
+When the fever took her and seemed to stretch her skin to
+cracking-point, she would not go to bed, and nobody could persuade her.
+She huddled by the fire, rocking herself, until the evening; but
+directly it was dusk she was restless.  The wind used to moan about the
+house, and she heard in it the voices of the dead.  She thought she
+could distinguish one from the other.  "Gurth is railing--hark to
+him. . . .  That was Wigfus answering, and that deep one is Kettleneb.
+Oh, let me rest--have done!"  She wandered forth and back, but was
+mostly in the kitchen, listening at the door.  Thorstan Black grieved
+for her and used to try to coax her back to the fire.  She scowled at
+him as if he were a stranger, and would not let him touch her.  Gudrid
+was afraid to go near her.
+
+Once when she was out there on a wild moon-lit night, the others by the
+fire heard her cry aloud; and then she called on Thorstan.  The two
+Thorstans looked at each other.  Thorstan Black said, "It's you she
+wants.  Go and talk to her."  Thorstan Red went out.
+
+Grimhild had the kitchen door open; dry snow was sweeping in upon her;
+the front of her gown was white with it.  "Look at them there," she
+said; "look at them.  Gurth is whipping them round the garth.  See how
+they huddle--heed their crying.  There, there--and there go I among
+them, wringing my hands."  She clutched his arm.  "Hush--and there go
+you."
+
+Thorstan's heart jumped, and then fell quiet.  "Do you see me there,
+mistress?"
+
+"You are standing there in the shadow of the byre.  He will not touch
+you.  Round and round.  No rest in the snow."  Then she turned to him
+and screamed: "Don't let him touch me!"  She caught at him and he tried
+to draw her into the house; but she struggled fiercely, and before he
+could stop her she was outdoors racing through the snow.  Thorstan
+shouted to his host, who came to him in a hurry.  "She's gone," said
+Thorstan Red.  Thorstan Black and he went out together, but by now she
+had passed through the garth and was deep in the snow beyond.  They got
+her home at last, but she was quite mad and fought against them all the
+way.
+
+They put her to bed and kept her there by main force until she was
+exhausted.  They were up with her all night, and she died in the small
+hours of the morning.  There was nothing for it but to bury her in the
+snow.
+
+Gudrid laid her out while Thorstan and his host were making the coffin.
+She put candles at her head and feet in the Christian fashion, with a
+cross of wood between her hands.  Then she knelt by the bed to watch
+the corpse.  It was piercingly cold, and she grew numb with it, and
+then drowsy.  It is likely that she dropped off to sleep as she lay,
+for she came to herself with a start and saw the corpse sitting up,
+staring with open and glassy eyes.  Her heart stood still, she neither
+felt nor thought.  How long they were, the living and the dead, staring
+at each other, Gudrid could never have told--she was incapable of
+moving, being frozen with terror and cold.  Presently the dead woman's
+mouth opened, as if she were going to speak; and then her head fell
+forward and she dropped.  Gudrid staggered to her feet and ran out of
+the house.  She found the men in the outhouse, and caught Thorstan
+Black by the wrist.  Her face told her story; it was no longer that of
+a sane woman.  Thorstan went back with her.
+
+That night they buried Grimhild in the snow; and Thorstan Red took the
+sickness.  He told Gudrid of it when they were in bed.  He held her
+closely in his arms and spoke with passion: "My love, I am sick, and it
+may go hard with me.  Remember now what I say--that the thing which I
+may be is not I.  Be not afraid of it.  You have had the best I could
+be--and it was you who made me.  Remember what we have been, and think
+of me as dead already.  And when I am dead, take my body back to
+Ericsfrith."
+
+She clung to him, but not with tears.  Tears were denied her now.  The
+cold had mastered even them.  For now she knew what must come.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+The Greenland sickness took mainly the same course, varying with the
+patient's personal quality.  It began with a high fever, intense
+surface irritation; there ensued violent rheumatic pains, mental
+alienation, delirium, madness and death.  It was characteristic, as has
+been said, that the sufferer turned from his kind, and turned markedly
+from whom he knew best.
+
+Thorstan made his preparations carefully, and instructed Gudrid.  As a
+wife who may be allowed a last word with her husband condemned to die,
+she took and gave her kisses.  The time was too great for tears, the
+heart too faint for strong embraces.  All she could do she did.  She
+would obey him, she would not show herself; but she would be always at
+hand.  She sat mostly at the head of his bed in the wall, hidden by a
+curtain, but ready to fetch and carry; to bring him food which Thorstan
+Black could give him; hot stones for his feet, hot rags to ease the
+pain in his limbs.  He hardly opened his eyes, hardly ever groaned; but
+when the fever ran high he talked incessantly, in fierce and rapid
+whispers--and she heard told over again the week of rapture and dream
+under the snow in the empty ship.  She suffered greatly under this
+affliction, both by the memories it evoked and the knowledge that such
+things could never be again.  Her modesty might have been offended; but
+Thorstan Black was very kind to her.  He used to go gently away when
+the sufferer began to speak, and would contrive his returns so as not
+to intrude on any privacy.  Her heart was full of gratitude to the
+black-bearded giant, so huge and so gentle.
+
+The fever seemed to eat Thorstan up; he became so thin that his cheeks
+sank away into hollows, and his bones stuck out so sharply that the
+skin cracked.  Gudrid began to have horror of him.  She thought that
+her lover was dead, and that this was some terrible mock-image of him
+sent there to haunt her.  She seemed to become younger as he grew more
+like an old man.  She was afraid to be left alone with him.  Love had
+been frightened out of her, and even pity scarce dared to be there.
+She could not believe that this was the man who had so keenly loved and
+worshipped her body, and by his music had uplifted her soul.  She had
+seen Thore die and had been compassionate to the end.  She remembered
+how she had kissed him in the very article of death, and shuddered as
+she thought of kissing this living corpse.  Her eyes besought Thorstan
+Black not to leave her, and he rarely did--for by this time her
+husband's weakness was such that, whatever he may have said in his
+fever, he could hardly be heard.
+
+Towards the end--as Thorstan Black knew it must be--he persuaded Gudrid
+to lie down at night while he kept watch by the bed.  And so she did.
+The poor girl was worn out, and went to sleep almost at once.
+
+About midnight she was awakened.  Thorstan Black stood by the bed with
+a taper.  She gaped at him, cold to the bones.
+
+"Come, my dear," he said.  "He is asking for you."  She said nothing.
+Then in the silence she heard her husband's voice, calling "Gudrid,
+Gudrid, Gudrid."  She fell trembling, and knew not what she said.
+Thorstan Black put his cloak over her, and helped her out of bed.  Her
+knees shook.  "Is he dead?  Is he dead?  Oh, don't leave me.  I'm
+frightened--he looks so strange--don't leave me, Thorstan."
+
+"No, my dear, I won't leave you," he said, and put his arm round her,
+for she seemed about to fall.  "Come," he said, "I'll take you, and
+stay by you."
+
+She mastered her fear.  "Yes," she said, "I must go.  Oh, but you are
+so good to me."
+
+"Don't go if you are afraid," said Thorstan.  "He may be dead by now."
+
+"No, no," she said, "not yet.  I must hear what he says, for it may be
+he knows what the course of my life must be.  If God will help me, I
+will go.  But you will come too--you promised."
+
+Thorstan thereupon lifted her up in his arms, and carried her into the
+room where Thorstan Ericsson lay.  He went to the side of the bed and
+sat down, holding Gudrid on his knee.  So they waited fearfully for the
+dead man to speak.
+
+Thorstan Ericsson sat up in his bed; his eyes were so deep in his head
+that nothing showed of them but dark caves.  His mouth was open, as if
+his jaw had dropped.  But no sound came from him.
+
+Then Thorstan Black said: "My namesake, you called to Gudrid, and I
+have her here beside you.  What do you desire of her?"
+
+The dead man spoke.  "Gudrid, are you there?"
+
+"Yes, Thorstan," she said quaking.
+
+"I will tell you, my wife, that you need not grieve for me, nor fear
+me, for I shall never hurt you now--nor could I have the heart.  I am
+come to a good place, and am at peace.  Now you are to know that you
+will be married to an Icelander who will be kind to you, and give you
+what your heart desires.  But your life will be longer than his, and
+your end will be pious--and that, too, you will desire before you reach
+it.  And I pray you to take my body back to Ericsfrith and give me holy
+burial.  Farewell, Gudrid, and have no fear for me."
+
+Gudrid, cold as a stone, sat on Thorstan Black's knee as if she had
+been a child, and stared at the figure of her love.  She could not say
+anything to him, she dared not touch him.  His head sank forward, and
+he fell back in the bed and lay still.  Thorstan Black touched him.  He
+was stone cold.
+
+The good giant thought now of Gudrid only, and talked to her gently for
+a long while, comforting her.  He promised that he would never forsake
+her until he had brought her safely home to Ericsfrith.  He would take
+Thorstan Ericsson to his own ship, and all the bodies of the crew who
+were dead should be put with him there until such time as they could
+sail.  "And as for you, dear child," he said, "remember that you and
+that true man have had the best that life can give you--for than wedded
+love there is no more blessed thing.  Think of me, my child, who lived
+happily with my good wife a twenty years, and think that you are better
+off maybe than I.  For love such as yours is not a thing that can
+live--no, but it must needs change as it grows older.  You change, and
+the world comes in between; and so it changes too.  Now you have had
+love at the full--and it is ended at the full.  You should be thankful
+for that.  And be thankful too that he is at peace, and his fate
+rounded--and nothing for him now but folded hands and quiet sleep.
+Why, look at him now, Gudrid.  Even now he smiles quietly, as who
+should say, I have done with it all.  Look at him, and have no more
+fear of so gentle a thing."
+
+Gudrid turned her haunted eyes towards the dead man.  It was true.
+Thorstan smiled to himself wisely.  And now she could see that his eyes
+were shut.  She slipped off Thorstan Black's knee and knelt beside the
+bed.  She looked at her dead lover, and without remembering her fear or
+thinking what she did, she put his hair off his forehead and tidied it.
+Then she leaned over him, looking tenderly down at him, and stooped and
+put her lips to his forehead.
+
+Thorstan Black left her, and returned presently with candles and a
+cross which he had made.  So they laid out Thorstan Ericsson, and
+Thorstan Black watched him all the rest of the night.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+She stayed out the long and bitter winter alone in the house with
+Thorstan Black.  No man could have been kinder to her than he was.  She
+felt with him the happy relation which there is between a father and
+his married child, when you have the equality which comes of
+experiences shared and have not lost the old sense of degrees--but that
+lingers still like a scent which recalls times past.
+
+He was as good as his word, when the spring came.  The bodies of all
+the crew were redeemed from the snow and put aboard ship; the
+settlement at Lucefrith was broken up.  He gave the survivors their
+freedom, and free passage to Ericsfrith; for he himself intended to
+settle there when he had restored Gudrid to Brattalithe.  So they set
+sail, and made a good passage, and came into the frith on a day of
+fresh southerly wind and strong sunshine.  Gudrid, standing on the
+afterdeck, looked at the little town and the green fields about it, at
+the snow-peaks whose shapes she knew well, whereunder, as she felt, her
+life had been passed; and then she saw old Eric in his red cloak being
+helped into his boat, and Freydis, bareheaded, with her yellow hair
+flying in the wind, and her strong arms folded over her chest--and felt
+the comfort of home growing about her, and the dew of happy tears in
+her eyes.
+
+Eric's eyes looked anxiously up at her.  "Is all well, daughter?" he
+called out in a brave voice--but she could only answer with her own wet
+eyes.  He was hauled on ship-board, and soon had her in his arms.  Her
+hidden voice and shaking shoulders told him the rest.  "There then, my
+sweetheart, it is done.  Yet cry your fill.  I have a fine son
+left--and you into the bargain.  Come home now, and leave me no more."
+So said old Eric Red, a man not easily downed by fate.  He made
+Thorstan Black free of Brattalithe for as long as he would, and
+promised him the best land that he had.  So they all went ashore, and
+Freydis hailed Gudrid and made much of her.  Freydis was not changed at
+all.  She was very fond of Gudrid, and for her sake put up with her
+father and mother who, without Gudrid, would have fretted her to a rag.
+Leif came in that evening and embraced Gudrid like a sister.  He heard
+her dreadful story and shook his head over his brother's fate.
+"Thorstan was born to misfortune," he said.  "He had the second sight,
+and there is no worse gift for a man than that.  Brave as he was, that
+foreknowledge always baulked his effort.  But he was a fine man.  You
+have had the best of us, Gudrid."
+
+"I love you all so much," she said, "that I must have been happy with
+any one of you, since he would have made me free of the others.  I
+would not have my Thorstan back again.  He told me that he was at
+rest--and how can you look for rest in this life?"
+
+She went to see Theodhild in her hermitage.  To her only she told
+Thorstan's prediction, that she should be married yet again, and
+outlive her husband, and then find the life that she loved the best.
+Theodhild nodded her head.  "That was a true saying of my son's.  You
+will find the only rest there can be in this life."  Gudrid asked her
+more, but she would not tell her.  "I know, I see," said Theodhild,
+"but God will reveal it to you when the time comes."
+
+Gudrid, who had left Ericshaven still a girl in her bloom, had come
+back to it a woman, made so by pity and terror.  Her beauty was now
+ripe, and her mind in accord with it.  They held her at Brattalithe for
+the fairest and wisest of women.  She was rich, too, for she had her
+father's and Thore's estates, as well as her share of Eric's wealth
+which had been Thorstan's.  She sold her father's house and land to
+Thorstan Black, who settled down there, and came to great honour in
+Ericshaven, as he deserved to do.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+The spring and summer of that year passed quietly enough at
+Brattalithe, but after harvest a fine ship from Norway came into the
+haven and the owner came ashore.  Eric Red, Lief and Gudrid rode down
+to town to meet him and hear the news.  He soon explained himself, for
+he had a copious flow of speech.  He treated Gudrid with great
+deference, thinking her the lady of the land, and when it was explained
+to him that she was nobody's wife, but a widow, he smiled, saying, "So
+much the better," and continued to treat her as before.  He was a large
+man, broad-faced and broad-shouldered, with light-blue eyes, and much
+fun in them.  He looked at you when he spoke as if he wished to make
+you laugh, but hardly hoped it.
+
+His friends called him Karlsefne, which means "a proper man," and his
+real name was Thorfinn Thordsson.  "Thord of Head was my father," he
+told Gudrid, "and was called Horsehead, not without reason, for I will
+tell you that no man born could be more like a horse to look at than my
+father was.  He was the son of Snorre who was a Viking in Earl Hakon's
+day; and that Snorre was the son of Thord, the first of Head."  It
+seemed that he was well-to-do, and that he had on board his vessel,
+besides a crew of forty hands, a notable cargo of goods.  He offered
+Gudrid what she pleased to take of it.  "I do that," he told her, "to
+win your good will, for I see very well that you rule the roost
+here--and rightly enough.  I have never been to Greenland before, and
+tell you fairly that I never knew there was the like of yourself to be
+found here.  If I had known that I should have been here long ago--and
+then, who knows?  Maybe you would not be a widow this day."  He said it
+as if in joke, but yet he meant it.  He was greatly taken with her
+beauty.
+
+Eric offered him winter quarters at Brattalithe and he accepted it
+gladly.  His goods were landed, and stood in Eric's warehouse, his ship
+was laid up for the winter, his men boarded in Ericshaven.  As for
+himself, he was very soon at home in Brattalithe, and everybody liked
+him well.  He was a good poet, and sang his own songs; he told tales,
+he made jokes--but was always good-tempered.
+
+Towards Christmas Eric Red, who was now very much aged and apt to worry
+himself over trifles, became sad and depressed.  They thought that he
+was grieving for the two sons he had lost, but he would not talk to any
+of them of his troubles.  Karlsefne asked Gudrid what was the matter
+with his host.  He always talked to her when he had a chance.
+
+She told him what she thought: "He is an old man now, and cannot help
+remembering his two sons."
+
+"That is not like an Icelander," said Karlsefne.  "You yourself, lady,
+show the spirit of our people better.  You don't fret yourself vainly.
+You were wedded to a good man.  You were happy in him; he died.  Well,
+you have had what you have had, and if there is to be no more, you will
+wait your turn.  Is it not so?"
+
+"It may be," Gudrid said.  "I have learned not to build too high, by
+falling so far.  And I think my Thorstan is at rest.  He would not be
+if he were here now."
+
+"Very likely not," said Karlsefne, "if he was of a jealous turn.
+Moreover he was a poet, one who can always see in his mind a state much
+better than that he lives in.  That's no way to be happy.  But I will
+talk to Eric Red.  He is friendly to me."
+
+And so he did.  "What is it, host, which makes you so heavy?  Your
+friends say you brood over the past, but I tell them that is not
+likely."
+
+"No, no," said Eric, "that's not the way of it at all.  The present is
+bad enough."
+
+"You are treating me nobly," said Karlsefne.  "I should be a churl if I
+did not tell you so.  What else do you need?"
+
+Then Eric said that he was aware how his house was diminished by
+misfortune.  "I had a wife, but she has cut herself adrift; I have a
+daughter, but she has turned sour to me.  Two of my sons are dead, look
+you.  Now the time was when with a great houseful I could give a feast
+with the best.  A man is best judged by his children.  If they are free
+and high-hearted, he is judged a good man.  But now I must receive you
+with broken rites, and it hurts me to the heart that you shall sail
+away in the spring of the year, and say to your friends: 'Old Eric is
+down in the world.  A sadder Yule than that have I never spent.'  I do
+what I can, but that is heavy on my mind."
+
+"Nay, nay, friend," said Karlsefne, "that will never be the way of it.
+I am better off than I hoped for--you are treating me like an earl.
+Now if we are to do better and all be kings together, remember that I
+have a well-found ship out yonder, with stores of corn and meal, and
+malt for brewing; mead also, and smoked salmon are on board--whereof
+you shall make as free as you will, and provide such a feast as
+Greenland knows nothing of yet.  But what a man you are to be fretted
+by such a thing as that!"
+
+Eric said that he had lived in a great way all his life, and had not
+been used to stint his friends of hospitality.  He thanked Karlsefne
+heartily, shook hands with him, and said, "Ask of me what you will,
+friend, and it shall be agreed to."
+
+Karlsefne laughed.  "Maybe I shall ask a great thing of you before I go
+to sea."  He had made up his mind that he would have Gudrid from him if
+he could get her, but did not wish to precipitate matters and risk a
+refusal.  "That fair woman has a delicate mind," he thought, "and is
+very religious.  It will be well to make myself her friend before I
+offer to be her sweetheart."
+
+The talk at the feast turned again to Wineland, and Leif Ericsson was
+eloquent about the sweetness of the air, the fertility of the soil, and
+the open winter weather which he had found there.  Then Karlsefne asked
+Gudrid whether she would not like to go thither.
+
+She shook her head.  "Not now.  Thorstan and I were on our way when the
+fate turned against us, and he died.  It has brought us no luck yet.
+Two of Eric's sons have died for the sake of Wineland.  But you," she
+said, looking in his face, "you will go.  I think you are a lucky man.
+You have luck in your face."
+
+"Eh," said Karlsefne, "I have thought myself pretty lucky so far; but
+now I am not so sure.  I have been building on my luck since I came
+here.  But I may get a fall."
+
+She laughed.  "You are bold, I can see, but yet you are careful too.
+You do not build except on good footings."
+
+"If you think me bold, lady," he said, with raised brows, "you will
+think me too bold perhaps presently.  Remember, when that time comes,
+that if a man sees his profit within his reach he is a fool if he don't
+stretch out his hand."
+
+"He may be a fool," she said, "to think it so near."  Her colour was
+high, her eyes shone.  His own, narrowed and intense, held them.
+
+"Do you know the name I give you in my private mind?" he asked her.
+She shook her head.
+
+"I call you Constant-Kind."
+
+"And why do you call me that?  Do you think I am kind to every one?"
+
+"I think that you have been," said Karlsefne, "and I believe that you
+would not willingly deny a service if you could do it."
+
+"And what service do you ask of me?"
+
+"Ah, I ask none as yet.  But maybe I shall."
+
+
+Certainly she knew what he wanted, and wondered whether he was the man
+predicted.  Thorberg had prophesied an ugly man for one of her
+husbands.  That could not be said of Karlsefne.  He was not handsome by
+any means, but so full of fun that he would pass anywhere as
+well-looking.  She had no love to give him; all that was buried with
+her doomed Thorstan; and yet she could see life to be a very pleasant
+thing with him beside her--a warm, sheltered, pleasant thing.  She was
+rather of Freydis's opinion after an experience of two kinds of life,
+that a woman was happier in being loved than in loving.  She had not
+thought so when Thorstan was her lover.  Then her triumph and pride had
+been that she could give him inexhaustibly what he needed--but look how
+that had ended.  She said to herself: "He will be kind to me, because
+he is kind by nature.  I believe that is my nature too.  Therefore I
+can give him what he wants, and find some comfort in it.  I have known
+the highest, and that is enough for me.  That will never come again.
+Let the other suffice, if it will satisfy him."  With that she put the
+thought away in her heart, wishing to leave it there; yet she could not
+resist taking it out and looking at it now and again.  It was still
+good to be loved, good to be desired, good to be the centre of a man's
+thoughts.  Every time she looked at her hoard it seemed a little
+brighter.
+
+
+Karlsefne took his time.  It was close upon the spring when he asked
+her if she would have him.  She met his looks calmly, and told him what
+she felt about it.  "I am not very old yet," she said, "but I have had
+a great deal of experience.  I have been married twice, and loved
+deeply once.  That can never be again."
+
+"Nay," he said, "I don't ask impossibilities of you.  But I have love
+enough in my heart for the two of us.  Do you trust me?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "I do trust you."
+
+"Why then," said Karlsefne, "will you give yourself to me?"
+
+She thought.  "You shall ask Eric if he is willing," she told him.  "He
+loves me, and he is an old man.  Since my father died he has been
+father to me.  I have had nothing but love and kindness from him and
+his family.  I will not leave him now, if he needs me--for he knows,
+and I know, that if I leave him again it will be for the last time."
+
+Karlsefne drew near her and put his arm about her.  "I will ask
+him--but if he agrees you will come?"  She smiled and nodded her head.
+Then, "Will you kiss me?" he said.
+
+"Is that in the bargain?"
+
+He drew her close to him.  "Oh, Gudrid, kiss me once.  I'm on fire."
+So then she kissed him.
+
+
+Eric looked rather chap-fallen.  "You are asking me for the jewel on my
+breast," he said.
+
+"That I know very well," said Karlsefne.
+
+"She is not only a fair woman, but a wise and good woman.  She is
+sweet-mannered, and sweet-natured.  The soothsay about her is that she
+will rear a great race."
+
+"She shall, if I have anything to do with it," said Karlsefne.  "You
+know the name they give me."
+
+"I think highly of you," Eric allowed.  "Everything speaks well for
+you.  But I will tell you this.  If my son Leif were not entangled with
+a foreign woman, an earl's daughter by whom he has got a son, it would
+have been my joy to see him take Gudrid and rear that great race to my
+name.  But it may well be that she will fulfil her destiny with you
+rather."
+
+"I believe she will," said Karlsefne.  "The moment I clapped eyes on
+her I said to myself, 'There stands before you the sweetest woman that
+lightens the world.'  And I have had no other thought or desire since
+which has not drawn me to her.  If you will give her to me you will do
+me the utmost service one man can do another.  And she will come to me
+if you say the word.  I tell you that."
+
+Eric said it should be as he wished.  The last feast that fine old man
+was ever to see was that which he made for Gudrid's wedding with
+Karlsefne.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Directly he was married Karlsefne began to talk about the Wineland
+voyage, first to Gudrid, and then to the company at Brattalithe, where
+he still lived.  Gudrid was eager to go.  She had always wanted that;
+and when she found herself with child, that did not deter her--nor her
+husband either.  "I am a prosperous man," he said, "and bring good
+fortune with me.  If you are not afraid, why should I be?  Let us trust
+to our luck, my Gudrid."  She believed in him more than in any man she
+had had to do with yet.  He seemed to her a more fortunate man than
+Leif himself.  So it was agreed upon.
+
+Whether it was the lucky star of Karlsefne or not which prevailed,
+there was more stir about this expedition than had been about any.
+There were to be two ships fitted for it.  First of all, Freydis said
+that she intended for it--she and her husband Thorhall; then another
+Thorhall, him they called the Huntsman, offered himself--a tall,
+oldish, glum fellow, liked by nobody and trusted by few, but a man of
+great strength and courage, too able to be refused.  Then came up Biorn
+from Heriolfsness offering himself and his ship.  Altogether there were
+some hundred and forty people to be carried, of whom five only were
+women, and goods in proportion.
+
+Karlsefne, saying that you never knew how things would go, carried
+livestock in the holds of both ships.  He took ten head of cows, a
+score sheep, some goats, and a bull.  He took ducks and hens, a dog or
+two, and some ponies for the women to ride.  But he had some stranger
+stock yet, human stock, which Leif gave him.  They were two Scots, a
+male and a female, whom he had had from Thorgunna's father in Orkney
+and had kept ever since, hoping they would breed; but they did not.
+They were wild, small, shaggy creatures, about the same height--the man
+was called Hake, the woman Haekia.  They were said to be incredibly
+swift in running, and were certainly hardier than most human kinds.
+Summer and winter they wore but one garment, a long, sleeveless garment
+with a hood, which fell straight from the shoulders, and, being slit
+from the thighs, was fastened between their legs.  It had no sleeves;
+their arms were bare to the shoulder.  They called it in their own
+tongue _gioball_.  You never saw one of these creatures without the
+other; they were inseparable--and yet they were never seen to speak to
+each other, or to use any kind of endearments.  They would not eat if
+any one were looking at them, nor sleep except they were alone and in
+the dark.  Gudrid tried to make friends with them.  They sat still,
+looking down or beyond her; but never would meet her eyes.
+
+So much for the company which, when all preparations were done, sailed
+at mid-summer from Ericshaven, with Karlsefne as leader.  Gudrid shed
+tears at the parting with old Eric Red, knowing that she would never
+see him again.  "Farewell, sweetheart," he said to her; "you leave this
+world the better for having had you in it."  He rode his old white pony
+down to the quay, and sat there watching the ships go out with the
+tide.  His red cloak was the last she saw of the haven.
+
+The voyage was smooth, with a fair wind all the way.  First they went
+round to the West Settlement, and Gudrid looked out for Lucefrith where
+her darkest days had also been her brightest.  She could not have told
+it for herself, but Karlsefne showed it to her.  The black cliffs now
+looked warm grey in the sun, the sea was green, sparkling with light;
+the creek was smooth flowing water lipping on silver sands.  Karlsefne
+told her that nobody lived there now.  "Mariners run in there in
+summer-time for water, and see the green flats and the mountains in a
+haze of heat.  They say: 'This is a sweet and wholesome country.  We
+will dwell here and work and be happy.'  Then the winter comes upon
+them suddenly, white fogs, madness and death.  You, my child, know as
+much of that as you ought."  She shivered, and leaned her head against
+him.  There was great store of comfort in Karlsefne; she esteemed him,
+she trusted him, she believed in his star; but Thorstan Ericsson had
+given her wings, and she had shed them into his grave.  She would never
+fly again among the stars.
+
+They took in water from the West Settlement and then sailed to the Bear
+Islands--small rocky, flat lands lying low in the great western surges.
+Thence with a north wind they came into the ocean and were two days
+without sight of land.  But on the morning of the third day they saw
+land ahead, and came within reach of it, and cast anchor in a broad
+bay.  This was the country to which Leif had been before and called
+Helloland.[1]  Karlsefne had boats manned from either ship, and stayed
+a couple of days to explore.  It was a litter of rock, very barren, and
+full of white foxes.  They found plenty of fish, and laid in a good
+store; but that was no country in which to settle, so they left it,
+going south before a good northerly wind.
+
+In two days' sailing they made out a land ahead, full of trees and
+dense undergrowth.  That was certainly Leif's _Markland_.  South-east
+of it, at no great distance, there was a large island.  They saw a
+great bear prowling the shore, and gave his dwelling-place the name of
+Bear Island, out of compliment to him.  Karlsefne did not stay to
+explore it.
+
+They ran on still before the wind for another two days or three, saw
+land again, and made for it.  This was a headland running far out into
+the sea, which they made and passed, then ran in close to the shore and
+coasted for some days without finding any haven.  This was a very long
+strand, great stretches of white sand with nothing to break them up.
+Behind the dunes they could see the tops of great trees.  It was judged
+that the whole country was low-lying and probably swampy.  Ferly
+Strands was the name they gave to this interminable shore.
+
+But yet it was not interminable, for it broke up at last into bays and
+creeks, with many islands which had beautiful trees on them, and rich
+herbage down to the sea-line, Karlsefne said that they would run in
+hereabouts and live ashore for a while.  "We will send out our runners,
+to see what they can find out for us," he said.  That was agreed upon.
+
+
+
+[1] Believed to be Newfoundland.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+They landed on the mainland on hard white sand, but beyond that there
+was turf, with patches of tall waving grass, then a belt of timber, and
+beyond them, as they soon made out, an infinite rolling country of
+woods and clothed hills, with lakes here and there.  Gudrid was
+enchanted: the nimble and sweet air, trees taller than she had ever
+dreamed of, space, emptiness, silence: she stood with a finger to her
+lip, looking up and all about, and sometimes at her companions to see
+if they were not under the same spell as she.  But the men were too
+busy choosing a good place for the camp, and Freydis was with them.
+
+Karlsefne had no mind to be surprised by savages, so sent out men to
+cut wood.  He intended to have a stockade round his camp in which at
+least the women could be defended.  There were but five of them, it is
+true, but they were all married, and therefore precious.  The men who
+were not married always hoped that they might be.  Who could say what
+might be the lot of any adventurer?  Let a married man die by all
+means--but not a wife.  Tents were put up, a double stockade fixed
+round them; hammocks were slung.  Very soon they had a fire going, and
+a pot over it.  Gudrid, Freydis and the rest of the women saw to that.
+Karlsefne arranged for the watch.
+
+The ships were left well manned, and a company from the landing-party
+put into each boat, and each boat at a sufficient distance from its
+companion.  These crews were to be relieved by watches.  Sentries also
+were posted about the stockade.  They had found no signs of
+inhabitancy; but Karlsefne was very careful.
+
+They had their meal in the open under a clear sky.  The stars came
+out--larger, wetter stars, Gudrid said, than they had at home.  Far off
+in the forest they heard beasts bellowing, and supposed them wild
+cattle.  The bull from Karlsefne's ship thundered his answer to the
+challenge.  They heard wolves at dusk, a chorus of them, and the
+barking of wild dogs.  No sound of men came near them, nor were they
+disturbed in the night.  In the morning Karlsefne sent a boat over to
+fetch the Scots.
+
+They came, and fixed Karlsefne with intent blue eyes while he told them
+what they had to do.  He showed them the sun, and with a sweep of his
+arm drew his course into the south.  He made them understand that they
+were to run due south for three days, and then work back to the camp
+with whatever they could carry out of the country.  They followed every
+sign he made, they looked at each other and spoke together, fierce,
+curt speeches.  It was certain that they knew what they had to do, for
+without hesitation they began to do it at once.  They looked at each
+other, then set off at a trot towards the creek below the stockade.
+Arrived there, they stripped off their single garments, folded them and
+put them on their heads; they swam the creek, which was a good
+half-mile broad, clothed themselves on the further shore, and then
+began to run towards the south.  They ran like deer, incredibly fast,
+with high and short bounds, as if exulting in their legs, and very soon
+they were out of sight.
+
+They waited for them three full days which were spent by the men in
+hunting and fishing.  Game of all kinds was plenty.  Karlsefne had a
+pony out and put Gudrid upon it.  He took her a long way into the
+forest and made her happy.  She said to him: "You are kinder to me than
+I deserve, my friend."  His answer was: "It is not hard to be kind to
+you, for you answer to the touch like an instrument of music.  I win
+melody from you that way which enchants me."  She said: "Believe me to
+be grateful.  Believe that I give you in return all I have."  "My dear
+love," said Karlsefne, "I know that.  You have given me of your life.
+I never forget it."  And then it was her turn to say: "It is not hard
+to give you that."  So they were a happy couple.
+
+Freydis too was expecting a child, but took it hardly, as she did
+everything else.
+
+At sunset on the third day from starting the Scots came back.  Their
+faces and arms were glistening with sweat, but they breathed easily and
+were not at all distressed.  One of them carried a fine bunch of
+grapes, the other some ears of corn.  It was wheat, but redder than
+what they had in any country which Karlsefne or his friends knew about.
+They collected from the Scot that it was wild wheat, and that the
+country where it grew was fruitful and good.
+
+There was a debate about this expedition, the first of many.  Karlsefne
+was sure that the scouts had found Wineland where Leif had once been;
+Thorhall the Huntsman thought not.  Karlsefne was for going up the
+creek as far as a ship could go, and there to land their stock and
+spend the winter.  Biorn, who was afraid of attack by natives, desired
+to keep to the open sea.  It was compromised finally.  Biorn's ship
+would remain in her present anchorage, but Thorhall would go up with
+Karlsefne.  Thorhall was a man ill to deal with in any event.  Neither
+company wanted him, but Karlsefne's company wanted him least--therefore
+he chose for that.  Most of the stock and all the women but one were of
+that ship.  Gudrid's child should be born about Christmas time.  Her
+husband was keen to have a good harbourage for her, and all settled
+down before the time came.
+
+So for a while the two ships parted company, and Karlsefne, having all
+his party safe aboard, hauled up his anchor, spread his canvas, and
+sailed into the creek on a flowing tide.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+Right in the mouth of the creek there was an island which they named
+Streamsey, because the currents about it were so many and so strong.
+It fairly swarmed with sea-birds, which hung over it like a cloud.  It
+was very difficult to find a passage, but they managed that with hard
+rowing, and once past it, found plenty of water, and a noble country on
+either hand.  They went up three days sailing, and there, where the
+woods fell more sparse and there seemed plenty of herbage for cattle,
+Karlsefne decided to make his winter quarters.  The stock was
+disembarked; the stores, and the tents.  They built themselves a
+stockade all round the camp, and hoped to have a good winter of it.
+
+The winter came late, but was severe.  There was great scarcity of
+pasture, the fishing fell off; they had to kill some of their cattle,
+but dared not depend upon that.  There was trouble with some of the
+crew, begun by Thorhall the Huntsman, who began to preach heathenry to
+them, getting a few at a time in the woods and talking, and singing old
+songs.  Karlsefne was full of business all this time, with parties out
+exploring the country, and so did not see what was going on in and
+about the camp.  Then, one day, news was brought him that a whale had
+come into the creek and was stranded in shoal water.  The men, short as
+they were of food, were eager to get at it.  Karlsefne went out to see
+it--a huge beast, greyish and arched in the back.  He did not know what
+sort of a whale it was, but the men were set upon it, and Thorhall
+vehement.  "Get at it, get at it--what do you fear, man?  I tell you it
+is a godsend," he said.  He had been very queer in his ways for a week
+or more, and one day had been found upon a cliff overhanging the water,
+with his arms stiffly out, his chin towards the sky.  His eyes had been
+shut, his mouth open, his nostrils splayed out.  He had writhed and
+twisted about, talking in a strange tongue.  They were some time
+bringing him to his senses, and had no thanks from him for doing it;
+but they had fetched him home and put him to bed.  He had lain there
+with his head covered up until the news of the whale was brought in.
+That caused him to leap out of his bed.  He was the most eager of them
+all to cut up the great beast.
+
+Karlsefne gave the word, and they fell on the whale with hatchets and
+knives.  Soon the pots were bubbling and the steam filling their
+nostrils.  Karlsefne would not eat of it, and would not allow Gudrid
+any; but the rest made a feast.  It was rich and savoury, very fat;
+this was the hour of Thorhall's triumph.  He came and stood by the
+messes as they ate, with gleaming eyes.  "Does this not prove to you
+that Redbeard was your friend?  What had your white Christ brought you
+but death and misery?  Now by my incantations I have brought Thor round
+to look on you with favour again.  This is my doing, and your leader
+here thought I was mad and tied me down to a bed."
+
+Some men stopped eating as they heard him; some turned away and would
+not begin to eat.  Karlsefne, when he knew what was going on, came down
+like a flame of fire.  "What is this he says?  That this is his
+doing--with prayers to Thor?  And you of the new faith and the true
+faith, eat of what he offers to his idols!  Cast that beastliness to
+the sea, and be done with it."  Some of the eaters were ill already,
+and many were to be so; but Karlsefne was obeyed.  The cauldrons were
+emptied over the cliffs, and the birds gathered from all quarters.
+They went hungry, and suffered much that winter; but by leading the
+cattle far into the woods they managed to keep them alive, and Gudrid
+did not fail of milk.  Her boy was born on Christmas Eve, and
+christened by Karlsefne himself.  He named him Snorre after his own
+grandfather.
+
+After that things went better.  There came rain which broke up the ice
+and thinned off all the snow.  They began to get fish again; mild
+westerly winds enabled them to go farther afield.  Biorn came up from
+his anchorage to see Karlsefne, and debates about the future were
+renewed.
+
+Karlsefne was now bent on going south, and Biorn, with Thorhall,
+equally set upon the north.  It was clear that the two ships must part
+company; and so they did as soon as the spring weather was come.  The
+tale has little more to say of Biorn and his party.  It is supposed
+that they fell in with bad weather in the north, and that they were
+driven over the ocean.  Thorhall was heard of long afterwards in
+Ireland, as having fought and died there.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+But Karlsefne, the prosperous man, did well.  He sailed along the land
+in and out of beautiful wooded islands until he came to the mouth of a
+great river.[1]  He entered that on the flood and sailed up for many
+days.  It was a broad and noble river which came, as they discovered,
+out of a lake.  Here was such a land as they had never seen before, so
+beautiful, so fruitful that they had no desire to seek further.  They
+called this land Hope, for here was the utmost they had dreamed of.
+There were broad acres of wheat growing here, self-sown; upon the
+slopes of the hills wild vines were thick and full of bud; the streams
+were full of fish; there were deer in the woods, and everywhere in the
+early mornings the piping of birds.  Karlsefne said: "My Gudrid, we
+have found Wineland the Good.  Here we will stay awhile."  She was
+happy to be in so good a place.
+
+They made their camp on the shores of the lake, and built themselves
+houses of timber, with a stockade and trench about the whole
+Settlement.  There was abundance of food for the animals, abundance for
+themselves, with promise of a harvest both of corn and of wine.  No
+signs of human occupation had been found as yet.  They began to think
+that they had Wineland to themselves, and used to go far afield, even
+to being out for days together and sleeping in the open.  But Karlsefne
+kept his eyes wide for some possible attack, and was proved to be right.
+
+Early one morning when he went down to the lake shore he saw boats upon
+the quiet water.  He counted nine of them.  They kept close company and
+came on steadily.  He looked beyond them but could see no more.  "With
+no more than nine of them, this won't be a long affair," he thought to
+himself; but he went back to the Settlement and called out his men.
+Then he went into his own house and called Gudrid to come.  "Are you
+minded to see some of the Winelanders, my Gudrid?  Bring your baby with
+you, and I will show them to you.  I don't think they mean us any
+harm."  Gudrid went with him without question.
+
+By this time the settlers had lined the shore, and the hide-boats had
+drawn up within bowshot and were making signals.  A man stood up in
+each boat and waved a pole over his head.  He swept it round in
+circles, and moved it from east to west, following the course of the
+sun.  "What do they want with us?" says Karlsefne.  "Not war, I think.
+Now who will come out to meet them with me?  We will show them a white
+shield, but there shall be weapons at the bottom of the boat."  He soon
+had a crew, and was soon afloat.
+
+The native boats scattered out in a half-moon as the adventurers came
+on.  Karlsefne saw that he was being hemmed in, but having the notion
+fixed in his head that no harm was intended, he did not give orders to
+cease rowing, and stood up in the bows himself with his white shield
+displayed.  When he was within speaking distance he bade his men rest
+on their oars.  By and by, as he had expected, curiosity did his work
+for him.  The hide-boats came in and in, each of them holding five or
+six men.  In one at least he saw a woman with a baby.  "If they bring
+their babies out to see us, it's no more than I have done," Karlsefne
+said.  "They mean peace, and they shall have it."
+
+He invited them forward with open arms, and all signs of friendliness,
+and presently they were all crowded about.  Small people they were,
+very dark brown, very ugly, with flat faces, coarse black hair twisted
+and tortured into peaks and knots.  They had broad fat cheeks and
+enormous eyes.  Their talk was like the chattering of birds.
+
+Karlsefne invited them to shore, and very cautiously their boats
+followed his.  They landed and were induced to mingle with the large
+company they found there.  Gudrid and her baby were the great
+attractions.  The first man who saw her suckling it stared and jumped
+about.  He called shrilly to his friends behind, and a body of them
+came to join him.  They pushed forward the brown woman with her child.
+Gudrid, not at all put out or frightened, held out her hand.  The woman
+stared hard at her white breast, then opened her gown and showed her
+own.  She gave her baby suck and grinned community of nature in
+Gudrid's face.  Gudrid, with one of those happy motions of hers, looked
+round to see if Karlsefne was by, and finding that he was, put up her
+hand into his.
+
+That shot told.  There was much commotion among the brown people, much
+bickering and stirring; and presently they pushed one of their own men
+forward, and joined his hand with that of the mother.  Joyful
+murmurings arose.  Everybody understood.  Now it was Freydis's turn.
+She stood disdainfully apart, with folded arms, but her colouring and
+shape betrayed her.  Here was plainly to be another mother soon, as
+they did not fail to tell each other.  Then nothing would do but her
+husband must be found for her.  His friends dragged him out and put him
+beside her, no more willing to go than she was to have him.  "Handfast
+her, you dog," said Karlsefne.  "How else will they believe you?"  So
+that was done.  Freydis fumed and burned, as handsome and furious a
+young woman as you could have hoped to see.  All went so well that
+Karlsefne was moved to hospitality, sending a man off for milk and
+fish.  They crowded about for their share, and growing bold by degrees
+handled the women's gowns, the men's weapons, and were for spying into
+the stockade.  The bull, who was feeding in there, snorted and puffed
+up the dust; presently, wagging his head, he came towards them and sent
+them flying back.  Karlsefne, by signs, tried to make them understand
+that he was ready to barter if they were.  He touched the fur with
+which they were all clad, and pointed to the milk bowls.  When they saw
+what he would be at, they in turn fingered the weapons which every man
+had about him.  Clearly they had not the art of forging steel.  It was
+long before they would leave the shore, and when they did go it was
+with one consent, without any words passing.  Quite suddenly they
+turned about and ran down to the shore, launched their canoes and were
+out in the water like a horde of rats.  They rowed down the lake, as if
+towards the sea.
+
+Nothing more was seen of them for some time, but presently they began
+to come in numbers, always very friendly and willing to barter.  They
+brought furs with them--fox and marten, beaver, as well as coarser
+kinds, bear and wolf and elk.  Karlsefne would exchange no weapons; but
+milk he offered, and that they drank greedily and on the spot, and
+cloth too, of which he had a good store.  Red cloth took their fancy
+most; they seemed as if they must have it, it was a kind of lust.  The
+breadths he could spare them grew narrower and narrower; they pushed
+out their furs for it with no consideration of what they got in
+exchange.  At last it became a kind of madness, and Karlsefne said it
+had better stop.  "They take it like strong water; one of these days
+they will be killing men for it."  It was a prophecy on his part--for
+they came in greater and greater numbers, and when there was no more
+red cloth for them, they howled and chattered and looked dangerous.
+Karlsefne and the men with him faced them with the best heart they had,
+but he ordered a retreat to the stockade, and when he was pretty near
+the entrance bade a man go in and bring out the bull.  That answered.
+The great beast stood in the doorway pawing the ground and breathing
+hard.  When he saw what was in front of him, down went his head, and he
+charged.  The savages scattered all ways and saved themselves.  In a
+few moments the lake was black with canoes; it was, the tale says, as
+though the water was covered with floating charcoal.  Karlsefne did not
+like the look of things at all.  He doubled the watch on the ship and
+strengthened the stockade; but did not wish to frighten Gudrid, who was
+so happy with her child, and beginning, as he could see, to love
+himself.  He knew that she loved him, because at all sorts of times he
+found out that she had been looking at him while he moved about, busy
+over something or other.  He taxed her with it one day.  "I think that
+you love me, Gudrid."
+
+She put her head on one side.  "What makes you think so?"  He told her;
+so then she owned to it, and he wished to know why.  She said that she
+could not tell, but in such a way that he saw that she could, and
+wished him to know.  So then he pressed her.  "Tell me, Gudrid, why you
+love me."  She touched her child's head.  "Because you are strong, and
+good, and brave.  And because you gave me this.  A woman must love her
+child's father."
+
+"Ask Freydis that," said Karlsefne; and she answered him; "Freydis
+loves more than she chooses to say.  When Freydis has a child, you will
+see that she will love it."
+
+"But not her man on that account," he said.  "It is only a heart like
+yours, my Gudrid, that can love because it loves.  For I see very well
+that you love me because you love this boy, and did not until he came."
+
+She looked gently at him, half excusing herself.  "I liked you well,
+and was grateful."
+
+"Ah, yes, maybe," he said, "but that was not how you loved Thorstan
+Ericsson."
+
+She said: "I was younger then, and I loved him so much because our time
+was short.  But I love you better than I loved Thorstan, because of the
+peace you have put in my heart."
+
+
+
+[1] The Hudson River.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+There was no further visitation from the savages for some time.  The
+leaves fell, the nights grew short, and there came a spell of cold; but
+if this were winter it was one which no Greenlander could fear.  The
+sky was blue, the sun warm on the skin; there was no snow, and the
+frost a mere white rime which melted in an hour.  Their cattle never
+failed of feed, and as for themselves, they had so well harvested the
+wild wheat and the grapes that they had nothing to fear.
+
+The winter, to call it so, was well advanced before the savages came;
+but one day they were reported in large numbers on the lake, and
+Karlsefne gave orders how they were to be received.  None were to be
+let inside the stockade; all the men were to have their weapons; such
+stuff as they had for barter was to be held up from within the defences
+and thrown over in exchange.  He himself with a few of the best men
+should stand in the entry.
+
+Now while they were waiting for the savages and could still see some of
+them out on the water, while others were disembarking on the shore,
+Gudrid was sitting just inside the door of her house with her child
+asleep on her lap.  She sat full in the sun, and was quiet and happy,
+as she generally was.  Presently there passed a dark shadow across the
+open door.  Gudrid looked up quickly.  A woman stood there inside the
+pillars of the porch and looked fixedly at her.  She was dressed in
+black, drawn very tightly across her; she was about Gudrid's own
+height, and had a ribbon over her hair--which was of a light-brown
+colour, and not coarse as most of the savages' was.  She was a pale,
+grave woman, and had the biggest eyes Gudrid had ever seen.  They were
+wide open, grey, and had a world of sorrow in them.  Gudrid was not at
+all afraid, because she thought the woman looked too sad to be wicked
+or ill-disposed; besides, she did not believe that any one could be
+ill-disposed to her.  So she smiled up in her face and waited for her
+to speak.
+
+When she did speak it did not seem at all remarkable that she should be
+perfectly understood.  "What is your name?" she said plainly.
+
+Gudrid answered her simply, "My name is Gudrid.  And what is your name?"
+
+"My name is Gudrid," said the woman, and the real Gudrid laughed softly.
+
+"Come then, Gudrid, and sit by me," she said, and held out her hand.
+The woman stared mournfully at her, and seemed to have trouble in
+speaking again.  She turned her head about as if her throat hurt her.
+Then she said, "No, I cannot--I may not."  Again she struggled, as she
+said, "Go from here.  Do not stay."  There came a loud cry from the
+stockade, and Gudrid started and got up.  She went to the door and
+looked out.  The woman was not there.
+
+By that time she was very much frightened, and saw them fighting at the
+entry.  The outside of the fence seemed thick with savages, and
+presently some of them rushed the opening and came in.  Freydis was at
+the door of her hut and saw them.  Her face flamed.  "Have at you,
+devils!" she shouted, and snatched up a double-handed sword.  With this
+she went stumbling towards them, being so far on with child that she
+could scarcely walk.  She had the long sword in one hand, but needed
+two to swing it.  Her shift incommoded her, so she ripped it open and
+let it fall behind her.  Then bare-breasted she whirled the great sword
+over her head and began to lay about her like a man.  Her yellow hair
+flew out behind her like a flag; her face was flame-red, and her eyes
+glittering like ice.  The savages fell back before her, and at the
+entry were caught by Karlsefne, returning from chasing a horde of them,
+and all killed.  The others had gone or been driven off.  Two of the
+Icelanders had been killed, and many were hurt.
+
+After this they had a council what had best be done.  Gudrid told her
+story.  Nobody had seen the woman but she, and nobody could make
+anything of it.  Freydis thought that she was a ghost, but Gudrid was
+sure of her reality.  "I think myself," she said, "that she was a woman
+of our own people either stolen by the savages from a ship, or cast
+ashore from a wreck, or lost by some adventurers of a former day.  I
+never saw any woman with so much horror in her face.  I would do a
+great deal if I could find her again.  But the fighting began, and she
+went away without my seeing her go."
+
+"I should like more to know how she came in," said Karlsefne, "than how
+she went out.  But whether she lives or is dead she had a warning which
+we had best take heed of.  I am for going home myself."
+
+Freydis said that she should stay.  She liked the country and was
+minded to live in it.  Others were of her mind.  About a hundred chose
+to settle there with her and her husband.
+
+There arose then the question of a ship, and Karlsefne said that he
+could not go home and leave them there with no means of escape.  He
+said that he would go out in his own ship and look for the others, but
+Freydis would not have that.  "Leave us here; we shall do well enough,"
+she said.  "As for the ship that has Thorhall the Huntsman in it, I
+would far sooner have none than his, with him in it."
+
+"We have tools enough here, and timber enough," Karlsefne said.  "We
+will build you a ship as soon as look at you."  So it was settled they
+were to build a new ship before they left.  That night Freydis's child
+was born.  It was a girl, and she called it Walgerd.  That had been the
+name of Thorstan's daughter, who had not lived.  Gudrid wondered why
+she chose that name.  She could never understand Freydis--nobody could;
+yet she had been right about her in one thing.  Freydis loved the child
+more than life itself.  She was so jealous of it that she was uneasy
+when any one came in to see her, and used to lean right over it and
+hide it out of sight.  Her yellow hair fell over her face, her eyes
+showed fire.  She was like a wild beast guarding her young.  As for
+Thorhall, her husband, she warned him out of the house, and he never
+dared put his head inside the door.  She allowed Gudrid the entry,
+sulkily, it is true; but that was only her way of doing things.  She
+was glad of her in her heart.  "I am even with you now," she said, with
+her face to the wall.
+
+"I am glad of it," Gudrid said.  "I always wished you happy."
+
+"I have never been so, since I became a woman," said Freydis, and
+Gudrid did not know what she meant.
+
+"I was happy enough," she went on, in a grumbling, even voice--as even
+it was as the constant running of water in a drain--"when I was a
+child, running and sporting with the boys.  I loved all the things that
+they loved--I could swim as well as any, and ride, and fight with
+stones.  But when they began to find me a girl, and to hold me and try
+to be alone with me, I had horror.  They made me ashamed.  And worse
+was to come--and I almost killed a young man for it--and after that I
+hated men, as I do still."
+
+"They mean no harm," said Gudrid.  "They do after their kind."
+
+"But their kind is not mine.  To be held in a man's arm is horrible to
+me."
+
+"It is good to me, sometimes," said Gudrid.
+
+"But when I saw you with Thorstan's child about to be born--and saw how
+rich and sedate you walked the ways, and how peace sat upon your
+forehead like a wreath, then I grudged you."  Freydis turned round in
+the bed and showed her burning face.  "And I said, 'This woman has a
+secret joy, and for all she is so quiet and still she is stronger than
+I.'  And when the child died I was glad.  I said, 'Now we are level
+again, but I will be better than you, for I will have a child which
+shall live and be strong like me.'  But you have had yours first, and
+it is a boy.  So you are better than me still."  Then her eyes filled
+with hot tears, which made her eyelids blink.
+
+"Oh, Freydis," Gudrid said, "you don't grudge me my boy?"
+
+"No, no, it is not that.  It is that I am ashamed.  You are good, and I
+am very bad.  I hate myself now."
+
+Gudrid kissed her.
+
+"Tell me, Freydis, now," she said, "why did you call your girl Walgerd?"
+
+Freydis did not want to answer, but presently she said: "I should have
+called her Gudrid if that had been lucky.  But we must not use the
+names of living persons for the new-born, so I called her Walgerd,
+because yours had been called so.  I went as near to you as I could."
+
+It seemed to hurt Freydis to talk about it, but Gudrid kissed her
+again, and went away feeling happy about her.  "It is good to be loved,
+even by Freydis," she said to Karlsefne, whose answer was, "Who could
+help loving you?"
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+But before the ship-building was began Freydis changed her mind, and
+said that she would go home with the rest.  Nobody caring to stop alone
+out there without some chieftain over them, it came to it that all must
+go home in one ship.  They killed what stock they could not take alive,
+and sailed out of the river at the beginning of summer.  Gudrid's boy
+Snorre was just two years old, and Karlsefne was anxious to be safe at
+home before he had a brother or sister.
+
+They waited about at the river's mouth for a fair wind, then set all
+sail and ran before it northerly along the coast.  So they came again
+to Markland and stayed there for certain days.  It was there that
+Karlsefne and some of the crew, on shore after game, surprised some
+savages in a hollow of the woods: a bearded man, two women and two
+children.  He saw them, unperceived himself, stalked them with art, and
+made a dash into the midst of them.  He caught the two children, but
+the others disappeared into the earth.  He brought them home with him
+and gave them to Gudrid.  "Can you have too many children?  I don't
+think so."  She took them gladly and brought them up.  They were brown
+all over and naked; they had black eyes round and staring as beads, but
+a ring of blue all about them, as blue as that on a thrush's egg.  In
+time she taught them her own tongue, and in time had them baptized--but
+that was not until she went to Iceland.  When they sailed from Markland
+the wind still held good, and they came safely into Ericsfrith, and
+picked up their moorings in the haven.  It was as if they had never
+been away.
+
+Leif came down to welcome them, and they stayed with him the rest of
+the year.  Eric Red was dead, and Leif not married.  He had his son
+with him born in Orkney, but Thorgunna herself had not come, and Leif
+would not marry any other woman.  Theodhild his mother kept house for
+him--it was no longer the great hospitality which old Eric had loved to
+maintain.
+
+They heard of the fate of Thorhall the Huntsman lost in Ireland, and of
+Biorn who had sailed with him.  Their ship had been driven out of her
+course by tempest, and had drifted into a strange sea which they called
+The Maggoty Sea.  Here the water was full of worms, which fastened on
+the ship and ate the timbers, so that she became rotten under them.
+They had a boat with them which the worms would not touch, and cast
+lots which should go in her and which remain.  Thorhall drew a good lot
+and Biorn another; half the crew got into the boat.  But then, as they
+were casting off, a young man who had been with Biorn in Iceland and on
+many voyages looked over the side and said, "Biorn, do you leave me
+here?"  Biorn said, "Why, what can I do?"
+
+"You should keep the promise you made to me when I left my father's
+house to go along with you," the young man said.
+
+Biorn looked about.  "Well," he said, "what would you have?"
+
+The young man answered, "I would have you take me in the boat."
+
+"Would you have my place?  Do you mean that?"
+
+The young man did not answer him, but said, "Well, I am young to die."
+
+Then Biorn said, "In with you, then.  Death is a hard thing for young
+men."  So they changed places, and Biorn saw the boat out of sight.  It
+was wrecked on the coast of Ireland, and many of the company drowned.
+
+
+Gudrid's son Biorn was born at Brattalithe and named after a brave man;
+and then it became a question for Karlsefne what he had better do.  He
+had had from Gudrid a fine estate in Greenland, but he had one of his
+own at Rowanness in Iceland, and wanted to take her there.  He told
+her: "I had the only good thing in Greenland when I had you; and you
+were not born here, and do not belong here either.  But it shall be as
+you please."
+
+She said at once, "Let us go home to Iceland," and as she said it her
+face fell and she looked sorrowfully at him.
+
+"What is it now, sweetheart?"
+
+"I remember," she said, "what was foretold of me when first I came to
+Greenland, and all of it has been fulfilled but two things.  Now I am
+afraid again, though it was so long ago."
+
+Karlsefne laughed.  "And one was that you should end your days in
+Iceland?"  She nodded, fearing the rest; but he went on--
+
+"And the other was that you should outlive me?"  She nodded again; but
+he looked at her and laughed, until she did too, but ruefully.
+
+"Let be all that, my dear," he said.  "Death is not so fearful a
+thing--and the longer we live the less fearful it is.  But I will tell
+you this, my Gudrid: I should be a miserable man were you to die first.
+And what would these children do without you?  I call that comfortable
+soothsay, for my part--but I am not for dying yet awhile."
+
+
+He was not; for the rest of his tale is as prosperous as its beginning.
+He settled down in Iceland upon his own land, and did well by Gudrid
+and her children before his time came.  As for her, it is said that
+when she had seen her sons out in the world, and married her daughters
+seemly, she turned to religion.  A pilgrimage to Rome is reported, and
+that she became a nun.  Thorberg had predicted of her that she should
+find the life which she loved best, and may have meant that of
+religion.  The fact appears to be that Gudrid was a sweet nature and
+could be happy anywhere if she were allowed to love.  And if it is not
+permitted always to love men, a woman can always love God.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Gudrid the Fair, by Maurice Hewlett
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