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diff --git a/78969-0.txt b/78969-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0cad795 --- /dev/null +++ b/78969-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5668 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78969 *** + + + + +A LOVERS’ TALE + + + + + A LOVERS’ + TALE + + BY + MAURICE HEWLETT + + CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + NEW YORK :::::: 1915 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY + CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + Published March, 1915 + +[Illustration] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--THE BROTHERS IN MIDFIRTH 1 + + II.--THE WHALE 5 + + III.--CORMAC GOES TO NUPSDALE 10 + + IV.--CORMAC WILL NOT BUDGE 22 + + V.--CORMAC IN LOVE 30 + + VI.--DOINGS AT TONGUE 44 + + VII.--FIGHTING AT TONGUE 58 + + VIII.--THE SPAE-WIFE’S CURSE 72 + + IX.--THE PLIGHTING 86 + + X.--THE DAY OF THE WEDDING 106 + + XI.--BERSE COMES IN 124 + + XII.--STANGERD’S WEDDING 135 + + XIII.--CHASE 150 + + XIV.--PARLEY 167 + + XV.--CORMAC MAKES READY 176 + + XVI.--BATTLE 185 + + XVII.--BERSE GOES HOME 196 + + XVIII.--DOINGS AT THE THING 209 + + XIX.--STANGERD FREES HERSELF 218 + + XX.--TOOTHGNASHER 232 + + XXI.--THORWALD THE TINSMITH 243 + + XXII.--CORMAC COMES BACK 254 + + XXIII.--STANGERD GOES TO THE FLEET 267 + + XXIV.--THE NIGHT IN THE WOOD 273 + + XXV.--THE END OF IT 290 + + NOTE 294 + + + + +A LOVERS’ TALE + + + + +A LOVERS’ TALE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE BROTHERS IN MIDFIRTH + + +Into Midfirth runs the Mell river through mudflats and marl to mix +green water with the salt waves. On either side the land is rich and +wet, giving fine pasture, and you can hardly see the snow peaks beyond +the fells from which Mell comes down cold and green and clear. There on +the brae stood Melstead, and there it stands yet. Once it was the house +of Ogmund and his wife Dalla; but he died before the tale begins, which +begins with Dalla, a widow and blind, and her two grown sons--Thorgils +and Cormac. + +Dalla had been a fine girl when she married Ogmund, as he himself was +a fine man, who had been a fighter and a Viking in his day. Between +them they had this couple of fine sons, of whom Thorgils, the elder, +favoured his father, but had little of his quality. A broad-shouldered, +fair-haired, sleepy young man he was now, steady at his work, and +in his ways mild and quiet. He thought twice before he spoke, and +therefore seldom spoke at all. If everybody did that, the world would +be a peaceful place and much work done in it; but it would be very +dull. Cormac took after his mother in looks, being vivid black and +white. His hair was jet-black and curled freely, his face was very high +in colour, that ran off to white in his forehead and neck. His eyes +were light grey and rather fierce. He was a wild young man, but very +friendly after the bout. He had no idea how strong he was; but his +brother knew, though they were very good friends for all that. He had +a keen eye for the flight of a bird or the play of a fish, knew the +weather by the smell of it, and could sing and make verses. Sometimes +he made verses because he had been moved; sometimes he was moved +because he had made verses; and often he did not know which way it had +been with him. Although he had no notion of setting up for a poet, he +thought about himself and his sensations a good deal, and had found out +already that he did not greatly care to do anything unless he could +watch himself doing it, and watch the thing done as it suffered the +doing. That’s a poet all over; but he didn’t know it. It gave him the +conclusion, however, that he was very unlike his father, the Viking, to +whom the killing of a man was not at all the same as the killing of a +pig. But Cormac, who had never killed a man yet, fancied that, to him +at least, there would be no essential difference. His father again (he +had heard) had loved many women, while he had loved never a one. But +his father had been very jealous in his loves, and had killed almost as +many men because they had intermeddled in his love-affairs. Now Cormac, +thinking that over, felt very sure that he should never be jealous if +he were a lover. He theorised at large about it; he gave the subject a +great deal of attention. Love-making must enhance a woman, he thought, +even in the minds of her lovers. If she was beautiful, it was surely +her due. If she was plain, it would provoke desire. What more lovely +sight could the world offer a man than to see the woman he longed +for the burning-point of the world’s longing? He kept these ideas to +himself because he had nobody but his mother to whom he could have +imparted them. She would have laughed at him and made him angry. + +When this tale begins, Cormac was a full-grown man, strong for his age. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE WHALE + + +When the whale came ashore at Watersness, Thorgils heard of it first. +He went down to look at it, and found it was upon his land. It lay +there, a mountain of distress, and the flies about it were as thick as +a snowstorm. At home that night he spoke of it to his mother, and said +that one of them must set to work cutting it up next day, or all would +be spoiled. It was late autumn, very close, still, and hot, as it often +is before the weather breaks up. Dalla said: “Cormac will never go to +such a work. He hates to foul his hands.” + +“Then I must do it myself,” said Thorgils; “but I had been going on to +the fells to round up the sheep. It is fully time.” + +“Send Cormac after the sheep,” Dalla said, “and let Toste go with him, +and send some of the hands.” + +Just then Cormac came in. They heard him whistling outside in the dusk. +He stayed there a good time whistling, singing scraps of songs, then +came in and looked at them, scowling from under his black brows. He +looked as if he had been expecting to find nobody and was annoyed by a +sudden roomful of people. But they took no notice of him, and his face +cleared. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He threw +his head up and laughed richly and snugly, as if to himself. + +Dalla heard him. “What are you laughing at?” + +“You,” he said, and she asked: + +“Why so?” + +He came and kissed her. “Because I love you, I think.” + +“That’s an odd reason,” she said, turning up her sightless face. + +“No, it’s not,” he said; “it’s a very good reason. Whenever I come upon +something I love, and find it, all closed in and ready to my hand, it +tickles me. I laugh and think to myself, ‘There’s that pretty thing, +snug against when I want it.’ And then I go away and do what I’ve got +to do, and remember that it’s there all the time.” + +His hand was stroking her face, and she moved about to get the feel of +it. She was very pleased. “Your brother here thinks you a madman; but I +understand you,” she said. + +“So does he, when he wants me,” said Cormac, and sat down to his supper. + +“I shall want you in the morning,” Thorgils said after much reflection, +and told him about the whale. Cormac made a sour face. + +But he took a long draught before he spoke, and then he said: “That +will be a dirty business, Thorgils. Can’t you give me one more to my +liking? You know I do ill what I have no taste for.” + +Thorgils said: “Well, you can round up the sheep on the fells if you +please. It matters little to me. These things have to be done. There’s +snow coming when the wind changes. It is banking in the north-west even +now.” + +This was a long speech for Thorgils, who had no more to say after +it, and soon went to bed. Cormac sat up, telling his mother tales or +listening to her stories of his father when he had been seafaring in +Ireland; and before he himself went to bed he must needs go out of +doors again. There was a full moon shining in splendour over the firth, +and the sky was wonderfully clear. You could see over the fells to the +white cap of Eiriks-jökul gleaming in the Southern sky like a dome. +Below that, and three days’ journey short of it, were the fells where +the sheep lay, and Cormac must be betimes in the morning. He would go +with Toste, who was the Melstead reeve and worked the dogs. + +But though he shortened his night by it, Cormac nevertheless walked +about the shore under the glory of the moon; and many a verse he made +and sang to himself as he looked over the full, flowing water or marked +the ducks bobbing about like a fisherman’s floats in the broad path of +light. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CORMAC GOES TO NUPSDALE + + +They rode out at sunrise, Cormac and Toste, with the dogs and +house-carles, and worked all day fetching in the sheep. It was hard +work; and the dusk came down early and found them still at it. Toste, +who knew where they were, said that it would be well to put into +Nupsdale-stead for the night. “They’ll feed us well, and we shall hear +some good talk,” he said. + +Cormac said it was all one to him where he stayed. He was ready to +sleep out on the fell, or go home, as Toste pleased. + +Toste was for Nupsdale-stead. He knew the master of the house, and was +known of him. “They will make you welcome, too,” he told Cormac, “and +you’ll see the finest girl in the country, I believe.” + +“Who’s that, then?” says Cormac. + +“Why, Stangerd, Thorkel’s daughter of Tongue. She’s been fostered +there these four years, and was like a spoiled hawk when I saw her +last, three years back, I daresay. She will be of a likeable age by +now--sixteen years old or thereabouts. A handful, I’ll warrant her--a +breaker of hearts.” + +“We’ll go to Nupsdale-stead,” Cormac said. “I should like to see her.” + +Toste went on with his meditations aloud. “A burning girl--a big girl. +She’ll set you afire. There’ll be a pair of you.” + +Cormac laughed, and threw his head up. Then they went on through the +acres to the homestead, which was a spacious place well sheltered from +the wind; and soon they heard the dogs give tongue from the roof, and +soon it was their business to fight them off, and keep their own from +dismemberment. + + * * * * * + +They were well received in the hall, where they found a company sitting +at drink, a good fire, and a table where there would be supper by and +by. Cormac looked about for the finest girl in the country; but there +were no women in the hall: a son of the house served the newcomers with +drink. At the further end was the high seat with two great pillars +carved with the heads of Odin and Thor; and on each side of that +curtains were hung so that there could be a passage all round. + +Presently, as they sat listening to the talk, Toste gave Cormac a +nudge, and when he got his attention, looked towards those curtains. + +Cormac nodded. “I know,” he said. “There are two of them there.” + +Behind the curtains were two pairs of bare feet shining in the light +from the fire, and a hand stirred the folds, as if to keep them +together. + +Cormac watched them for a little, then began to sing softly, as if to +himself: + + “O eye-deceit or heart-deceit, + Lo, there, my blessing or my bane! + A lover at a lady’s feet + Holding his heart, and there a pain! + + A lady’s feet, and there a lover: + A patch of snow left by the rain + Afield, or two tufts of white clover-- + And near beside a young man slain.” + +Then the white feet drew back; but presently Cormac saw another +thing--or Toste did and showed it to Cormac. The heads upon the high +seat pillars had had empty eyes; but now the eyes of Thor were agleam. + +“She is looking at you,” said Toste. + +Cormac nodded. + +“She has bright eyes. The fire plays with them.” + +Then he sang again: + + “The fire plays with my lady’s eyes, + And they make music in my head. + The sea-blue bird that flashing flies + Like a sword down the river-bed, + Links the green earth and azure skies; + And so with me is Stangerd wed, + When light with light is handfasted.” + +Whether she heard him or not, her eyes remained shining in the empty +sockets of Thor, and Cormac watched them. By and by the sockets showed +empty; and not long after that, Stangerd and a companion came into +the hall at the lower end and sat down together on a bench and looked +guardedly at the company. Stangerd was a tall and big girl, with +corn-coloured hair, very fine and abundant, and, as Toste said, she was +fire-hued and bold-looking, with blue eyes. She was bold-looking, and +had bold, free movements. Cormac looked at her, and spoke to himself. +He looked and muttered, looked and muttered. Then he broke out so that +Toste could hear him, and others beside Toste. Stangerd herself could +tell that he was talking verses, and be sure that they were about her. +As for her friend, she revelled in it. + +Cormac sang: + + “O mood of mine--O fever song + Begot when I cast eyes upon her! + When eyes gave me this burning lass, + Daughter of Thorkel of the Tongue-- + A goddess’ maid, a Maid of Honour, + Flusht in the face, with hair like brass, + Or corn that yellows to the sickle, + Full tall and free, and bold, and young; + Deep-bosom’d, too, with deep blue eyes + Like slumb’ring pools--a girl of size, + Whom seeing no man, you’d say, would stickle + To take to bed and make a woman-- + Heart shows her me a spirit not human....” + +There he stopped, not because all men were considering him and his +muttering and his fixt eyes, but because words failed him. He still +looked at Stangerd, but could not see her for the fiery mist which +enwrapt her. + +Toste said, “That’s a splendid girl, that girl of Thorkel’s. There +won’t be such another in the country. Yet he would be a bold man who +would wive her.” + +“Why so?” Cormac asked him in a stare. + +Toste said, “Look at the colour of her; look at her ease and boldness. +She is the sort that will ask and have.” + +Cormac said, “All that is as it may be. What she wants should be hers +by right. She is good to look upon--and that is enough for me.” + +“You seem to find her good,” said Toste, “and you may look your fill. +You’ll never look her out of countenance. She’s a match for you.” + +Cormac could see that the two girls were talking about him, for they +looked sideways as they whispered together, but kept their faces turned +away from him. He could not hear what they said. + +Stangerd, it seemed, did not approve of him very much, but the other +girl praised him. + +“A fine young man,” she said, “with a fine way of looking at you, +without offence. He looks at you as if you were a flowering tree.” + +Stangerd said, “He’s like a magpie--all black and white. And I dislike +a curly-headed man.” + +“He has good eyes, sweetheart,” said the other girl. “He misses +nothing.” + +Stangerd shrugged one of her shoulders. “Black eyes, he has. They are +treacherous. They see much and show little.” + +“They see you, my dear,” said the other, “and so much, at least, they +show. If I am not a goose they show you a deal more than that.” + +Stangerd felt their scrutiny, and endured it for a good while; but +presently she began to blush, and then must move, complaining of the +fierceness of the fire. + +The men brought in the food for supper; and then, as the custom was, +the women of the house waited on the men, pouring them their drink. +Cormac’s eyes followed Stangerd about from man to man. He said very +little at table, but seemed as if he was bewitched. When she came to +his side and stood above him to pour out the liquor, he did not look at +her, but frowned at his platter. Nor did he watch her any more until +she went out with her foster-mother and the other girls of the house. + +He drank deeply from his horn, and then looked at Toste as he sang: + + “Full in the hall, rob’d in her white + She sat at ease with her arms bare, + And gaz’d before her at the light, + Dreaming--and her blue eyes astare + Encompast me and gave me sight + Of their mystery and intent-- + And when about the board she went, + Serving the men with mead, and came + And stood above me till I bent + Before her, as before the flame + The bushes in a forest bow + And show all white--I had her name + As if ’twas written on my brow: + A Valkyr, Chooser of the slain! + A storm-fraught spirit, fierce as pain, + With whom to clasp and kiss, or grapple + As man with woman, that were thought + To deaden a deed--as if you brought + The lovely Night to bed, or fared + To play below the gleaming thrapple + Of the keen daughter of the snow, + And froze when her white hills she bared. + Not possible! Nay, let her go, + Mistress of Destiny, unmov’d + Her way of the gods, her way of woe, + But ever lovely, ever lov’d, + Treading the necks of beaten men!” + +Toste said: “You are badly hit, I see.” + +Cormac made no answer, and fixed his eyes upon the girl until she left +the hall with her companion. The master of the house, who was fostering +Stangerd and had observed the effect she had had, came over the hall +and sat by his two guests. He pledged them, and encouraged Cormac to +talk. + +That was not at all hard, as the young man was excited, and had drunk +enough to loosen stiffer tongues than his own. He talked freely, but +very well. Men gaped, then laughed at him, then laughed with him. +Very often he broke naturally into verse; and soon his was the only +voice you heard. His father, Ogmund the Viking, was his best theme; he +had a way of picturing the scenes in which his life had been spent. +Once, he said, Ogmund rowed up a broad English river in his long ship +with a raven at the prow. His ship was called _Raven_. They rowed up +between great banks of grass and mud until they came to a town lying +on a sloping ground--a close-huddled town of red roofs, with a church +overtopping all. They sacked the town, and had all the plunder to +share--white women, children, cattle, flocks of sheep. They scorned the +men and killed most of them. They drowned the headman by tying him to a +stake in the channel at low tide. Cormac said that the sea came up at +him solid, in a wall of brown water, curling at the edge. It brimmed +about his chin, and then filled his mouth and his eyes. Then you saw it +dimpling over the top of his head; and then, for a long time, the wave +he made, swaying there, slanted over the flood from bank to bank. He +made a song about the women whom the rovers shared among them, and held +the company spell-bound. + +Stangerd lay awake listening to Cormac’s singing. + + “Now Stangerd lay abed within + The house’s inmost sanctuaries, + With both her hands between her knees, + And them drawn up towards her chin + Touching the fulness of her breast; + And her wide eyes could get no rest + That sought the dark and saw clouds float, + Clouds of crimson radiant mist + Which gather’d, mass’d and cours’d above her + More lovely than the wings of the West-- + If such wild heart should turn to love her, + What love-words would not such a throat + Pour for the overwhelming of her!” + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +CORMAC WILL NOT BUDGE + + +In the morning Cormac went out of the house to the water-trough, and +dipped his head half a dozen times; and that was the best of his +washing. Then he goes back into the hall and finds it empty, but voices +of women come upon him from beyond the curtains, and one of them is +Stangerd’s. Straight as a hawk he goes thither, and finds the women’s +room, and Stangerd there in her shift and petticoat, combing her long, +yellow hair. He had never seen such hair in his life; it was gold in +colour, and reached below her knees. Her arms and shoulders were very +white, but her neck was burning, and so was her face. He stood looking +at her in the doorway. The girl whom he had seen overnight was with +her--a pale, slim girl, with light grey eyes and a laughing mouth. +Stangerd went on with her affair, but this girl, called Herdis, nudged +her, and whispered: + +“Here is the fine stranger from the shore.” + +But Stangerd’s head was sideways to him, and her face averted. + +Cormac said to her, “Will you lend me the comb?” + +She looked up then, tossing her hair in a wave behind her. She looked +very boldly, but her colour was high. She held him out the comb without +saying anything, and began to rope her hair, that she might coil and +pin it with a pin. + +While Cormac was combing his hair, the girl Herdis stood between them, +and said to him, “What do you think of her hair?” + +Cormac said, “It is like the silk which the worms make, when it is +fresh carded.” + +“What hair were that for a man’s wife to have!” said Herdis. “And her +eyes--what say you?” + +Cormac said, “They are like the sea when the sun is behind you as you +stand wondering at it. They are bluer than the sky when you stand in a +narrow valley and look up.” + +Stangerd had a rope of her hair in her mouth, and was pinning a coil. +She looked from Herdis to Cormac without fear or confusion. Then she +took the hair from her mouth and said: “Have you not done valuing me?” + +Herdis laughed. “My dear, we have not yet cast up the figures, nor even +set them all.” Then to Cormac she said: + +“Do you set a price upon her?” + +Cormac, looking at Stangerd, said: + + “For all that body’s loveliness + I would give Iceland, and no less, + And all the lands that lie between + The land where the sun is never seen + And the roaring Western main; + And even so I should be fain + To search the world for more to give-- + Yet search I must if I would live!” + +Stangerd liked this song, and was more gentle in her ways. She looked +at Cormac with interest. + +“You are a skald,” she said. “I knew that yesterday. I heard you +singing in the hall.” + +“I sing when the words and music come to me,” said Cormac. “Last +night there was no trouble about it. I felt very greatly, and so sang +greatly.” + +“I heard you,” she said, “but not the words. What did you sing about?” + +“My dear,” said Herdis, “can you ask him that?” + +“Why not,” said Stangerd, “since I wish to know?” + +“He sang about you,” said Herdis. + +Stangerd asked him fairly: “Is this true?” + +“It is not true,” Cormac said, “in the way she means it. Your name did +not come into the song I sang. But the summertime came into it, and +the yellowing of the corn-acres, and the stillness of the heat on +summer mornings, and the hush of the noons, and the gentleness of the +evenings; and the rising of the harvest moon, full and hot, and the +brown intake she makes about her in the sky. All these things were in +the song--but your name was not in it at all.” + +Herdis took Stangerd’s arm, and the pair of them stood together before +Cormac. + +Stangerd asked him if he was going away that morning. + +“How do I know?” he said. “It may be that I shall be here talking to +you. It does not rest with me.” + +Stangerd smiled. “Does it rest with me?” + +“Yes,” said Cormac, “and with no other.” + +“Here is one coming,” Stangerd said, “who may wish to have a word in +it.” + +Toste came into the room. + +“It is time we were away, Cormac,” said he. “We have many a fell to +beat over.” + +The eyes of Stangerd and Cormac met. Then Cormac said: + +“It is written that I stay here this day. You will find me here when +you come off the hill.” + +“Now where do you get that written?” said Toste with a grin. + +Cormac said, “It is written in the heart of Stangerd.” + +“No, indeed,” said Stangerd, “I don’t read it there.” + +“But he does,” said Herdis, and Toste said: + +“A man can read his own runes, but not what is in the heart of a woman. +Well, I wish you joy of your day; it will be better than mine.” + +So then he went, and Cormac remained all day talking to Stangerd. + + * * * * * + +In the evening Toste came back for him, and he must go. + +Stangerd came to the door of the house with him. She did not wish him +to go, but she said nothing about it. They stood together at the door +without speaking. Stangerd leaned against the door-post, and Cormac was +near her, but not touching her. + +When Stangerd was moved her cheek-bones showed and the colour was +fierce and high over them, as if she had been burned there. So they +showed now. It grew dusk, but still Cormac could see those patches of +red in her cheeks. + +He said, “It grows late, and I must go after Toste. When shall I see +you again?” + +She said, “I am always here. You will see me when you come to look for +me.” + +Cormac said, “That will be very soon, I am thinking.” Then he said, +“Good-night, Stangerd,” but did not touch her with his hand. + +She said, “Good-night, Cormac,” and stood there a long time after he +had gone in the gathering dark. + +Herdis came to her bed, and would have got into it, for she wanted to +know all about it; but Stangerd pretended she was sleepy, and would not +let her in. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CORMAC IN LOVE + + +Cormac was very silent at home, and remained silent for several days; +but he was intensely happy, feeling himself in bondage to Stangerd. +He made up more situations for her than you would believe, and was +not himself in one of them. In his fancy he saw Stangerd beloved by +everything in the world, and beloved by everything in turn. He was +happy enough in this possession of her without any other, and did not +make any attempt to visit her. + +After a while, he told his mother of his affair. Dalla looked rather +grave. + +“I hear she is a fine girl, much sought after.” + +“She is a beautiful girl,” said Cormac, “and most reasonably sought.” + +“I am thinking that she will be too fine for your winning, my son. +Thorkel will want a price for her. And he is no great friend of ours.” + +Cormac said, “There is no hurry. I shan’t speak to him yet awhile. But +I shall go to see Stangerd to-morrow.” + +“And what shall you say to her?” + +“That is as may be. If I feel called upon to say anything, I shall say +it. All that I need now is to see her.” + + * * * * * + +He went, as he had foretold. He reached Nupsdale about noon and, as +he leaned over the wall of the intake, saw Stangerd through the open +doorway of the kitchen, and two men with her, watching her while she +worked. He watched her for a long time, speculating which of the two +fellows loved her more, and whether either of them loved her as he did. +He became very excited over his nearness to her, but had no immediate +need to be nearer. The homestead seemed to him a holy place; everything +about it was enhanced by her presence in it, moving familiarly about +it; the two young men, her companions, grew tall and splendid to him. +He felt more interested in them than he had ever been in any man. Then +he sang, as the song moved in him: + + “I love a lovely woman--well, + And if some other love her, good! + All goes to prove my hardihood, + All goes her magicry to tell. + For say she is a miracle, + Say that her beauty is my food, + Am I so surly in my mood + That what feeds me rings t’other’s knell? + Nay, should a hundred be about her, + And she of her great bounty feed them, + Is that to say my heart must heed them? + Not so. ’Tis they can’t do without her. + Women are so made, they grow stouter + Of heart the more their lovers bleed them.” + +He felt perfectly at ease. He wished the young men very well, hoped she +was kind to them, “as kind as she was to me when I was with her all +day.” The thought of that day came back upon him like a flood of sudden +warm weather. His heart beat. “Oh, I am a fortunate man--that such a +beautiful woman should be kind to me, and let me be about with her all +day!” + +Presently Stangerd, having finished what she was about, came to the +door and stood there; she leaned against the door-post. She saw Cormac +out in the meadow, but made no sign. He stood still looking at her, and +then leapt the wall and came directly to her. Two dogs rushed out of +the house, barking furiously; but he took no notice of them, and kept +his eyes upon Stangerd. + +She coloured up, but he did not. He came and stood before her. + +“When did you come?” she asked him. + +“A long time ago. I don’t know when it was.” + +“Why did you not come to the house?” + +“Because I was looking at you.” + +“Will you come in now?” + +“I will come in if you are going in. If not I will stay here.” + +“My foster-father will be in soon. He will ask me why you are here.” + +“You may tell him, if you please.” + +“What am I to tell him?” + +“That I am come to see you.” + +“No--I shan’t tell him that.” + +He laughed, but said no more for a time; nor had she anything to say. + +Then, suddenly, he said, “The sun is loving you.” + +“He is burning me,” she said, and put her hand up to shade her face. + + * * * * * + +The goodman came home to dinner, and was not very pleased. Whatever +he may have asked Stangerd, he took little notice of Cormac, but ate +his dinner grimly and soon afterwards went out. Cormac stayed with +Stangerd all the afternoon. It grew dark, and the moon came up over the +fiord. + +“Now it is her turn,” Cormac said. “She will light me down the fell; +but her eyes will be upon you all the time.” + +Then he said, “Will you come to the end of the court with me?” + +“Why should I come?” + +“The night is blue,” said Cormac. “I wish to see you in the night’s +arms.” + +Stangerd said nothing to this; but she went with him into the air, and +as far as the end of the court. + +He told her, “I shall come again to-morrow.” + +“You were wiser not,” she said. + +“It is necessary for me to see you.” + +“It was not necessary yesterday.” + +“It will be necessary to-morrow.” + +Again she had no answer, being neither able to agree with him nor to +deny. He left her without a touch or a look, and was gone like a +nightbird into the dusk that fleets far upon one stroke of his silent +wings. + +Stangerd remained where she was for a while. Many men had loved her, +but not in this fashion, to say at once so much and so little about it, +to be so plain and so dark. After this he came to see her most days, +and treated her in just the same way. + +Stangerd was a beautiful girl, richly coloured and finely formed. She +had been admired since she was ten years old, and had often been told +so. But she had never been admired as Cormac admired her, and had heard +nothing like his admiration. Most men expressed themselves indirectly, +by look or inference, by silence, by quarrelling with other men. If +they told her in so many words that she was a beauty, they did it +shamefacedly, and tried to make a joke of it. But Cormac from the first +told her so plainly, and seemed to devote himself to making clear to +her exactly how and exactly how much she was beautiful. He was, without +doubt, making it clear to himself, but she couldn’t have known that. +And everything that he told her was told in a plain, still voice, as if +he were speaking about the weather or the crops, as indeed he thought +he was. + +Naturally, she was very much interested. Who in the world does not like +to hear about herself? + +He told her some very strange things, too, which she did not at all +understand, but which none the less she accepted or passed over because +they came from him. She would have been highly offended if any other +man had so spoken. + +He said that everything in the world was her lover. He said that in +rhyme, and said it to her when she was sitting on the brae in full +sunlight, with him kneeling on one knee behind her. She felt his eyes +bent upon her, boring like two augers through the top of her head. + + “Great joy of Stangerd have I had, + Joy to the full of one man’s tether; + Greatly have loved her, hugely dared, + Riding the dales or upland heather, + Singing her bounty; being glad + Because her blissfulness I shared + With every other mother’s son + In this good world: for this is true, + Stangerd, the whole world joys in you. + + Let her have husbands, one, two, three-- + A dozen are no more than one: + All Nature is her lord in fee, + And bird and hill-flower, stock and stone, + And spearing grass and springing tree, + The clouds, the river and the sun + Hold Stangerd in coparcenary. + + For, as I look upon the thing, + Their beauty is a cup for hers, + And nothing worth considering + But what they tell as messengers + Of how she figures in their glass. + So the lark lift as she did pass + And said, ‘The world is bright with glee + Since Stangerd lookt and smiled at me; + Therefore I sing’--or grass, ‘Her feet + Press me in love!’--or flower, ‘How sweet + The breath of Stangerd when she goes + With parted lips!’--or tree, ‘Who knows-- + Passing, she laid a lingering hand + On me, and doubtful seemed to stand + Whether or no to take me to her; + Who knows but she will let me woo her + And be her lover in the dark + When the sap throbs beneath the bark?’” + +She sat very still while he was singing this, nursing her cheek in her +hand. Presently she said, “You say curious things in your songs. I +think I ought to be offended, but I am not. I should be offended if I +believed them, or if I thought that you believed them.” + +Cormac said, “You are wrong there. If you thought that I did not +believe them, you would have cause to be offended. But I know them to +be true. I read them in the face of things, I can’t be mistaken.” + +Then he sang on: + + “So did the cloud, a jealous lover, + Beshadow her, as he would cover, + And prove himself her bosom’s lord, + And make a guarded woman of her-- + Had not the sun with his bared sword + Rent him with gashes, and outpour’d + His courage on her; the which the river + Rejoicing saw: ‘O, thou brave giver + Of heart to horse, and horse to pasture,’ + Cried he, ‘I hail thee! Warm the blood + Of Stangerd, that she slip her vesture + And come to me, and know my flood!’” + +She grew very hot, and got up to go. She thought he was following her, +but he was not. When she turned to look for him behind her, he was not +there; and presently she saw him far down the fell, springing from +boulder to boulder, going down towards the sea. + +Another day he told her that she was too beautiful to be the wife of +one man. No plain-minded man, he said, would ever marry her, because +he would know that he had neither the power nor the right to engross +so rare a thing. When she frowned and bent her blue eyes upon him, and +presently asked him: “Why, what would you have done with me?” he said +that his own opinion was that she ought to be the wife of everybody. +Then he sang: + + “There were four brothers loved one lass-- + Ask not how much or when this was. + It was before the world took heed + Of more than how to serve its need. + + Their need was sore, her bounty such, + They askt not, nor she gave, too much: + They roamed the heath, they fought and kill’d; + They were as one long sword and shield. + + She kept the house; there was no strife + Within doors, such a sweet housewife + Was she, this kindly kindled lass, + Such wife as no man living has.” + +Then he turned his head and looked down upon her where she lay +wondering, with her face between her hands. “So should you be the +whole world’s wife, since you are as much more beautiful than she +was, as she in her turn outwondered the women of her day. You should +live in a temple by yourself, and be mate of every man who honestly +and respectfully commended himself. In that way you would be Goddess +and Bride of all Iceland and Goddess and Mother too. You would wear +the Girdle of Fricka. No other woman would be thought of at all--which +is as it should be. Some day soon I will make a song about that.” She +moved away, saying that he must not. + +What was she to make of it? She pretended to be angry, but was not so +at all, for she knew that he meant it for a high compliment. + +So the winter passed and the spring came on; and so the year wore to +the summer. Cormac spent most of the time with Stangerd, but did not +declare himself in any way that you could take hold of. It seemed +that he talked to Stangerd as if she were a beautiful landscape, a +cornfield in heavy ear, or the fell when the heather was in flower, or +a birch-wood in early spring, or the firth in the quiet of dawn. He +never scrupled to say that she was as lovely as any of these, or that +everything in nature loved her. It never occurred to him to say that +he, in particular, loved her. As for asking for her, Stangerd was sure +that such a thought had never entered his head. Meantime--she fed upon +his talk as if it were bread and honey. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DOINGS AT TONGUE + + +When Thorkel of the Tongue heard what was going on at Nupsdale, he went +up there after his girl. He did not see Cormac, but he called Stangerd +to him, and said: “I hear that Cormac of Melstead is often up here +after you. Now come you back with me, my girl.” + +Stangerd said that she was ready. + +“Yes,” said her father, “it seems to me that you are ready for many +things. All in good time and one thing at a time. Let all be done in +order and with decency.” + +So he brought her home to Tongue, and it was not long before Cormac +heard that she was there, and went to see her. + +Thorkel saluted him fairly, and passed the time of day with him, +thinking that he would judge for himself how things were going to +turn out. Cormac sought out Stangerd and talked to her so long as the +daylight lasted. Thorkel watched him closely, and didn’t know well what +to make of it. He didn’t know, for one thing, why Cormac irritated him +so much; but presently he found out. It was because the young man did +not know he was there. It was because he behaved as if the whole house +held nobody but Stangerd and himself. Thorkel’s house, mind you, and +(if you come to that) Thorkel’s daughter. No man could be expected to +like that. + +And so it went on for a time, and Stangerd used to watch for Cormac’s +coming, and to take it as a matter of course that he should be with +her in whatever business she might have, and sit with her, and talk. +Many men were in the hall at Tongue, for it was a busy place. But when +Cormac was there, Stangerd saw no other person, and Cormac saw none +but her. The world indeed held but the pair of them, as it seemed. + +Thorkel said little, but he did not like it, and did not like Cormac, +who seemed to him too free of his house and child. He was a shrewd man +of few words, and did not believe in Cormac. Such words as he let out +were not hard to understand, and there were those about him who made +the most of them. + +There was a rough man named Narve who was about the place, and there +were worse than he. The two sons of Thorveig the spae-wife were very +often at Tongue after Stangerd: the eldest of them was called Ord, a +blusterous young customer always at rough play. Stangerd had no liking +for him, and Cormac at this time no jealousy at all; but Ord was very +jealous. + +However, Narve, who was a fool, was the one that began. He said to +Thorkel one day: “Master, it’s not hard to see that Cormac’s visitings +are not to your taste.” + +“Who told you that?” Thorkel asked him. + +“My wits,” said Narve. + +Thorkel said, “I am glad they are of some use to you. They are not far +out this time. I know no harm of Cormac, yet I wish he would leave my +girl alone.” + +“He can be taught that,” Narve said. + +“As how?” + +“In the old way,” said Narve; “by a better man than himself.” + +Thorkel glanced at him. “Do you mean by you, perchance?” + +Narve said “I do.” + +Thorkel had nothing to say to that; then Narve went on: + +“Do you give me leave to deal with him?” + +Thorkel said, “You need no leave of mine. Deal with him how you can--or +if you can.” + +Narve took this for more than leave, and set his wits to work to +provoke Cormac. + +The year was wearing to the close. The harvest was all in, the sheep +were in pen, and the cattle in byre. Now was the time when men were +killing beasts for salting against the winter. At Tongue that was +Narve’s work in particular; but everybody was very busy. + +Cormac came in there one evening and looked about, as he always did, +for Stangerd. She was not in the hall, but in the kitchen, where the +work was going on. She had covered herself with a great apron and was +busy with the rest. Narve was stirring a cauldron of black puddings and +watched the pair. They met without greeting; Stangerd scarcely looked +at Cormac, but was very much aware of him; as for Cormac, he did not +take his eyes from her, but went and stood by her, very close. Narve +could not see that they had much to say to each other, and judged that +matters were beyond speech. Stangerd went on with her work under +the eyes of Cormac. Presently Narve called out to Cormac: “Hither, +runagate, and see my snakes in the kettle.” + +Cormac looked over to him. “What am I to see?” + +“Come and see how they boil and bubble. See them all in love with one +another. They can’t leave each other alone.” + +Cormac frowned, but he went to the cauldron. Narve stuck his prong +in and fished out a pudding. “Kettle-snakes, I call them,” he said. +“Wrigglers and hankerers. What do you think of them?” He stuck the +hissing morsel under Cormac’s nose, grinning, gleaming at the eyes. + +“Why, I think,” said Cormac, “that I could see you writhing in there +after a few more of your speeches--but you would foul the broth, and +there are shorter ways with you.” + +Narve said, “The shorter the better.” + +Then Cormac took him suddenly by the ear, and cuffed him soundly, and +flung him away. Narve went out of doors. + +Ord came in among them, and went to Stangerd, where she was salting the +meat. He nodded to Cormac, but spoke to her: “Oh, Stangerd,” he said, +“you should be out on the brae. The moon is coming up, and the evening +is very still and warm.” + +Stangerd said she was too busy; and then Cormac said, “She will go--but +not with you.” + +“With whom, then?” said Ord with a hot face. + +“With me, then,” said Cormac. + +Ord clacked his tongue on his palate, but held his ground, red and +furious, as he well may have been, seeing he had known her the longer, +and considered her in a sense his own. Cormac also was troubled--not +angry, but troubled because his sense of intimacy was gone. Yet very +soon another thought took possession of his mind. It was, that it +was a beautiful thing to see a beautiful girl beset by lovers or +admirers. He saw how calm and unconcerned she appeared, going on with +her rubbing, with two flaming and fuming youths about her. He doubted +if self-possession went deep; he guessed that within her her heart +was drumming a lively measure. But her outward bearing was noble. She +seemed not to have a care in the world but the rubbing in of salt; and +then he thought of her as the bountiful Earth itself, the mother, the +adored, the need of all men. He was inspired, and he sang of her: + + “Well do they call you Sleeping Gold, + Since no man lives but cannot see + The light-flung glory which you hold + As Erda holds her majesty, + A thing of little worth, the fee + Of whoso asketh, being bold. + Let him draw nigh, the well is free, + Say you, the fire for who’s acold: + Let him drink, warm himself of me. + Your heart, O Stangerd, you hold up + For asking men; they need but need-- + There is no bottom to the cup, + There is no pauper but may feed. + So in your calm eyes each may read + The truth he asks, if he be true-- + So to your arms all come indeed + And die, as they have lived, of you-- + And your gold sleeps, and takes no heed.” + +Stangerd bent to her work, but she flushed, hearing this song. She felt +that she did not yet know Cormac, and that she must either pretend that +she did, or drive him to explain himself. She did not wish to do this +before Ord, lest Ord should think less of her. So she bent to her task +and said nothing. + +But Ord fretted and fumed, then broke into scoffing. + +“The skald is bold enough--with the tongue. Women take words for deeds, +I believe. But men don’t.” + +“Some men do,” said Cormac. “Narve is one. You have not yet been tried. +But you may come to it.” + +“And if I come to it, Cormac, what then?” Ord put back his shoulders. + +“If I tell you,” said Cormac, “that is tongue-work. But you ask for +deeds.” + +Ord glared at him, very red, working his tongue about. Then he turned +away. + +“I won’t ask--I’ll do,” he said. So Cormac held his place. + +But Stangerd was cross. “You should not sing of me so,” she said, +“before other men. I am ashamed.” + +“Of what are you ashamed? Of me? That can hardly be. If I belittled +you, or held you cheap, you might well be ashamed. But if I declare +your glory?” + +“You don’t choose to understand me. You talk of--you talk of my +eyes----” + +“Of course I talk of them since I see them, and think of them all +night,” he said. + +“----and of my arms, as if--I was--I don’t know what.” + +“It is very possible that you don’t know what you really are,” Cormac +said. “But I shall tell you before I have done with you.” + +“You may tell me what I please to hear,” said Stangerd with heat; “but +you shall not talk before other men of my person. It makes me ashamed.” + +Cormac threw up his head. “O warmth of the Earth! O heart of the World! +There is no part of your person of which you need be ashamed. You might +mate before the eyes of all men at the Thing, and you would but blind +them with your splendour.” + +She bit her lip, but her eyes looked kindly at him; and presently she +went with him to the door, and stood without it in the dark with him. + +And they both stood trembling together, and presently, without word +said, they turned and kissed. + + “Eye-level and heart-level they, + And mouth-level; but till that day + Never had been what now must be: + Kissed mouth to kissing mouth is fast, + And two hearts beating to one tune. + Breathless and speechless for their boon, + They cling together; but they kiss + No more; but mouth and mouth co-mix + And make one being at the lips. + And all burnt splendour of the moon + Throbs with the heat of burning noon.” + +That was the first time that ever Cormac kissed Stangerd, and it was +the first of many. For after that she let him take her in his arms and +kiss her as he would, and bless Heaven for having made her, and cry to +the stars to shoot from their sockets and make a wreath for her head. +And she herself kissed him once or twice, and prayed him not to be +foolish, and believed that he was not. + + * * * * * + +Cormac marched singing on his way under the stars. He went by the shore +of the firth, and before he left the water he went in up to his middle, +and soused his head and shoulders. He laughed suddenly, thinking of +Narve. + + “The scullion and his kettle-snake! + What ailed him and his blister’d tongue? + Will he scrape me with his muck-rake, + Scatter me, as he scatters dung + About the meadow? And the house + That holds her harbours that wood-louse! + Salmon and gudgeon in one lake, + One tree, sea-eagle and titmouse!” + +Then he went home to bed. + +But at Tongue, over the fire, Thorkel sat frowning while he heard what +Narve had to say. + +“The fellow is dull,” said Narve, “or he shams dullness. I showed him +as plain as I could speak that we had had more than enough of him. I +insulted him; but no! It needs more than words.” + +“He had you by the ear, I understand,” Ord said; and Thorkel said, +“You’re not man enough.” + +Narve flamed. “Man enough! I’ll show him how much of a man I am--when +there are not women in the room. But there was Stangerd and a maid or +two more, and you know what girls are about these things! Bloodshed? +No, no. Not before women. Don’t ask me to do that.” + +Ord said to Thorkel, “My brother and I are at your service when you +want us.” + +Thorkel said, “There’s room here for a ready hand, seemingly. Come up +here to-morrow, the pair of you, and we’ll have him out of it.” + +They laid a plot between them before they went their ways. Narve said +that he was ready for anything, and Ord said he would bring in his +brother Gudmund. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +FIGHTING AT TONGUE + + +They laid a trap for Cormac at Tongue, which Stangerd perceived, +though she did nothing to prevent it, since not a word was said of +him throughout their preparations. You do not ask a girl who respects +herself to talk of her heart-concerns to men. She will never do it. She +would as soon undress herself before them. Moreover, her father was +about the house all that afternoon, the last person in the world to +whom she could talk of Cormac. + +The first thing was that Ord and Gudmund came to Tongue carrying +weapons of war. They had swords and shields. With them came Narve, who +had been out in the meadow since dinner-time, looking for them. He +brought a scythe over his shoulder. + +They shut the front door, and shot one of the bolts. Then the scythe +was hung upon a nail, with the blade across the entry, and on the other +side of it two nails were driven aslant, so that a sword leaning upon +them cut across the corner of the door itself. Both of these things +must fall when the door was opened. Such preparations were made, and +the men sat about drinking mead, not saying very much above a whisper. + +Ord tried to sit with Stangerd, who had her yarn to wind, but she was +very indignant, and would have nothing to say to him. Thorkel came +in and out, but towards the time when Cormac might be looked for, he +went into the kitchen, and waited there, peering. Stangerd saw him +through the crack of the door. She continued to wind her yarn, and +busied herself over it. She had no fear, however, for Cormac: it was +not that which troubled her. She was convinced of his better mettle +and more fortunate star. It would take stronger, stiller men than Ord +to put him down. But she was enraged at the injustice of her father, +that he should abet Ord’s jealousy, and knowing nothing against Cormac, +yet take rank against him. Because he didn’t relish song-making, was +song-making therefore shameful? Her heart burned in her breast, and the +edges of her cheek-bones burnt her cheeks. + +The barking of the dogs declared the coming of her lover. Narve, the +fool, could not keep still. He jumped in the air and cracked his +fingers. Ord and Gudmund looked at each other, but said nothing. Then +presently they heard Cormac’s step in the court, and the sound of his +voice singing. + +The door was tried. He found it bolted. He drave against it with some +staff or other which he was carrying. Gudmund tiptoed to the door +and shot back the bolt. Cormac drave into it again with his staff, +and it flew open. The scythe and the sword came down together and met +in midway, falling with a clash and shiver. Scythe, being heavier, +brake sword. Cormac stood, smiling and bright-eyed, looking on. He saw +Stangerd in her white gown, and was going directly to her over the +wreckage at the door when Thorkel bounced out. + +He was in a high rage. He shook his hand at Cormac. “You worthless +rascal! You night-worker, get you gone! What have you been to this +house but a cause of scandal and bitterness? Get you gone with your +mouthful of folly and wind!” + +Cormac laughed pleasantly, and made him worse. + +“You grin, you grin, you bitch’s whelp! But there shall be a ruefuller +grinning for you before long.” + +He went into his hall, and took Stangerd by the arm. “Up with you, +mistress, and come with me. Here is mischief enough for your fine eyes. +There shall be no more.” + +She had risen, red and troubled herself. Holding her by the upper arm, +he bustled her through the hall and out by the women’s door. He thrust +her into the byre, and shut the door upon her, locking her in. “Stay +there, till we have scared out this gadfly skald,” he said. + + * * * * * + +Meantime Cormac had gone into the hall. Narve was not there; but at the +further end he saw the two brothers, with their bare swords on their +knees. + +“What is afoot?” he asked, looking from one to the other; but they said +nothing. + +He stood doubtfully, looking first at them, and then about the hall, +next at the ruins on the floor. He stirred them with his toe. + + “When scythe and broad-sword come to blows, + Plain men take heart, and meadow-grass. + But there’s no pasture for the ass, + However fair the home-mead grows. + Cudgel your wits, I’ll cudgel your hides, + Ye greedy pair of hoody crows.” + +They sat glum, glowering at him from beneath their brows. So far Cormac +had not been in a rage, but now he got suddenly angry. He walked up to +the brothers. + +“What is the meaning of this foolery? What have I done to Thorkel or to +you that I should be received in this manner?” + +Ord said, “You are not wanted here. Is it not plain enough? What more +can a man do than take his daughter out of the house the moment you +come into it?” + +Cormac answered him: “He can see that worse men than myself are out +of it first. But he lets his house fill with smeary scamps, and then +bolts them in lest he lose one of them. You are none of you fit to +sweep the floor for Stangerd’s feet. You make that foul which was only +gritty with good dust before.” He turned suddenly and saw Narve in the +entry of the Bower. In a flash he was upon him, and had him by the ear. +“You--dish-washer--where is Stangerd?” He screwed his ear round, and +Narve writhed. + +“She’s locked up in the byre then,” he said in a hurry. + +Cormac loosed him, and went straight through the house and out of the +women’s door, where the maids were clustered together, and saw him go. +He shook the door of the byre, and called, “Stangerd, are you there?” + +She answered him, “Yes, I am here.” + +“I must see you,” he said; but she said, “No, no, you can’t get in.” + +“Can I not?” said Cormac, and took a short run and butted into the door +with his shoulder. It burst at the lock. + +She was alarmed; her eyes were bright. “Oh, you are mad to act so! My +father will set on you.” + +“He will not, then,” said Cormac, and took her in his arms. He had +never been so eager to hold and kiss her before. He had always seemed +afraid of her, but now he was not at all afraid. Stangerd was glad of +him, and very proud. Her father did not come near them, and there they +stayed till it grew dusk. Then she bade him go for fear they should set +upon him in the dark; and Cormac himself thought it was the better way. + +“Farewell, my sweet,” he said, with his lips to hers. “I think I never +loved you like this before.” + +“No,” she said, kissing him. + +“You were Goddess to me,” he told her; “but now you are woman.” + +“I like it better,” she said. + +He felt a sudden chill at the heart. He knew--something told him +certainly--that it was not so good a way. Then he left her and went +through the house to go home. The house was empty so far as he could +see. + +Beyond the court there were the meadows stretching downwards to the +brook, with stone walls about them. Then came the valley-bottom where +rushes grew and some sycamore-trees. Beyond the water the hill rose; +and here was your path if you were going to Melstead. + +Stangerd went to the door presently, and watched Cormac go through the +meadows. + +He went fast, vaulting wall after wall. She wasn’t sure, but she +believed that Thorveig’s sons were waiting for him in the bottom. When +Cormac came to the last wall she was sure; for he stood on the top of +it and remained standing for a while. Then when he jumped down, and she +could only see his head and shoulders, she saw the men come out of the +trees. Her father was not one of them. They were Ord, Gudmund, and +Narve. Ord aimed a spear at him. She saw it fly. + + * * * * * + +Cormac had seen the ambush before he got to the last stone wall. He +stood on it that the ambushmen might know that he saw them and come out +into the open. They all came out together, but when they were within +hurling distance, they separated. Narve hung back in some alder bushes, +Gudmund went to the left, and Ord to the right. Cormac jumped off the +wall and went between them. He had an axe. + +Ord ran a little way forward and hurled his spear. Cormac met it with +the axe, and it glanced off and stuck in the moss. Then Gudmund, who +had been running, doubled up, came behind him to cut him off from the +wall; but Cormac was too quick for him, and was on him like a gust of +wind. He swung his axe as the spear came, and cut it in half as if +it had been a bulrush; then he whirled the axe round backhanded and +caught Gudmund in the neck with it, and brought him down. If he had not +been giving ground at the moment his head had been off. As it was, the +blade did not hit true; but he gushed blood from nose, mouth, and ears, +and fell like a stone. + +Cormac turned and waited for Ord, who, having shot his spear, now came +at him with a sword. + +Stangerd, watching by the door, turned quickly when she heard a man’s +foot in the hall, and saw her father coming out with his bill. Her eyes +burned. + +“What are you going to do, father?” she said. + +“Get out of my way, you!” he answered; but she would not. She came to +him and caught both his wrists. He raved at her; but she held on. + +“You shall not--you shall not! It is shameful to be four against one.” + +He swore he would be the death of her; but she cared nothing now. + +Narve came up the court on tiptoe, white as a cloth. “Master, hold you +there! ’Tis all over,” he said. “Cormac has slain Ord, and, as for +Gudmund, I doubt he’ll never move again. Fierce work! Bloody work!” He +stared about him at the dusk. “We set our feet on a snake. That’s what +we did. And he’s bitten us to the bone.” Then he shuddered, and covered +his face. Stangerd let go of her father’s wrists and went into the +house. + + * * * * * + +It was true. Ord was no match for Cormac with any weapon; and sword +has no chance with axe if the axe-bearer knows his business. He never +touched Cormac, who, after two feints, split his head open. + +This was the first man Cormac had ever killed. He looked thoughtfully +at the body, his rage having left him, and then went over to the +brother. + +He believed him to be dead too; but he was not actually dead, though he +died in a few days. His rage had left him--no, not his rage, for he +had had none. He had been very excited. That moment on the wall when he +saw the three come out of the trees had been the greatest pleasure he +had ever known. But now all this was gone, and a feeling of disgust, as +if he had tasted something sour and stale, was in him. There seemed a +tarnish upon Stangerd’s gold. He would not think of Stangerd. + +He found his axe-haft wet with Ord’s blood, and the space ’twixt +forefinger and thumb was wet too. He shuddered once or twice. It was +all a nasty business. He wondered: Should he leave those two things +alone there under the stars, or sit by them until it was light? +Gudmund’s face showed in the dark--for it was almost night by now--as +if there was a light within it. But Ord’s case was the worse. Ord had +no face now--only horrible parts of a face. He could not bear to look +at Ord, or help looking at him. He took off his coat and covered +Ord’s head and shoulders with it. For Gudmund he had to content +himself with boughs from a sycamore-tree. He was very careful of them, +having no feeling against them. They had attacked him; he had provoked +nothing--but he did not feel at all justified. A beastly business--and +Stangerd involved in it. To-morrow he would tell their mother; for the +present his coat was testimony enough that this was no murder. + +He went home full of thought; but no verses came into his head, since +none were in his heart. He told his brother what he had done. Thorgils +said there was no shame to him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SPAE-WIFE’S CURSE + + +Thorveig, the mother of Ord and Gudmund, was a grave, heavy woman with +thin hair and light eyes, wide open, which seemed always to be looking +at things which were not there. They were like dead eyes. The tale +says that she knew too much. Certain it is that when Cormac rode to +see her, accompanied by his testimony, betimes in the morning--certain +it is that she had Ord laid out for burial and Gudmund in bed. She was +sitting by the dead when they came to the door. It was covered with a +sheet, as it had need to be. + +Cormac said what he had to say. “I was attacked from an ambush; I +defended myself. It was unprovoked on my part, and well you know it. I +offer no atonement nor ransom for this dead man, and I require you to +leave our land as soon as may be, and carry yourself and your evil seed +elsewhere.” + +She watched him, but said nothing. Thorgils added his testimony. “I am +with Cormac in this, Thorveig. I know that he did nothing against Ord. +If you doubt of that, do you ask Thorkel of Tongue, or his man Narve, +who was of the ambush too, but never came to blows. And when Cormac +says that you must leave our land, I am with him there also. We will +not have enemies at our doors.” + +Then Thorveig got up and said: “Ill fall him who takes land from +another, but worse fall them who take again what they have freely +given. Think not you, Cormac Ogmundsson, to prosper in these ways. True +enough you can get me gone from the hundred; like enough you will not +ransom my sons. But I have that within me to put me even with you yet. +You think you have cleared your way to Stangerd by such doings. You are +a fool, then, for you will never have her.” + +Cormac looked as if he would laugh at her; but he changed his mind. +“The settlement of such a thing is not with you, woman,” he said. + +“Ah,” said she, “you are right there. It is with you, and I see it in +you, and know it. And this, too, I see: that the foolishest thing you +ever did was to fall foul of me and mine. It will come to pass also +that you will wish me back at Melstead before many years are gone over. +These things I see, but you cannot see. Now get you gone with your +friends and leave me with my dead.” + +With that she sat down by the covered corpse, and Cormac rode away. + + * * * * * + +He did not go to Tongue that day, nor the next, though he thought of +Stangerd, and never had her out of his mind. He wandered about the +country by himself, asking of himself why he did not go to see her. +He hungered and thirsted for her; he was sure of that. But it was a +new kind of love--it was more than love, or less. It was a craving. +He knew what he had felt when he brake open the door of the byre, and +took her. He knew that he should feel that again directly he was in her +neighbourhood. To look at her with eyes of desire, not with eyes of +wonder; to hold her close, to kiss her long; to need, more and more, +never to have done--all this she could call out of him now; but, in the +doing, she would lose her first power over him, to evoke amazement and +delight, to reveal to him glory and power. One thing or the other, but +not both. How was it to be? He thought of these things all day and went +to bed with them. In the morning he woke up to find them all about the +bolster like flies. He made a bitter song, wherein she suffered as much +as he did. + + “This is not love that drains me--nay, + This is to crave. O girdled Fricka, + Dare I come near thee with lips gray + For need of thine, and hot tongue-liquor + Where once my mouth was clean to pray? + + I would go back! There is no way + To thin the blood I have made thicker; + Save scratch for itch is no allay. + The flame is at its dying flicker, + Blown by hot breath, it cannot stay. + Speed it with scorn, that it die quicker-- + Alas, the hour! Alas, the day!” + +But there was another thing: He must go to Tongue to show Thorkel +that he was as good a man as he, and not one to be scared off by a +door-trap. He must go to Tongue, as his right was; and if it was his +pleasure to talk to Stangerd, he would do it, let come what might--even +if so to do were to cheapen her. And thus he left it, and thus it was +when he did go up to Tongue. + +He got scowling looks from Thorkel, and very scared looks from Narve in +response to his pleasant greeting. From Stangerd he got little. She was +rather cool, he thought; whereas the truth was that she was conscious +of her company and conscious of herself. Men had been fighting for her, +and here she was now in the presence of two of them, and of a third, +you may say, since her father would have been a fighter if she had not +stopped him. All this made her shy and awkward. She could not feel +herself that day; it was now for Cormac to begin. But Cormac did not +begin. + +He was with her most of the morning, saying little. He felt that a look +from her, a sigh, however little, would set him blazing like dry hay. +But he did not get it, and he began to wonder whether he wanted it. He +watched the play of her hands at the loom, he watched the light show +silvery on her chin and neck as she moved about. He had glimpses of her +deep blue eyes; while, as for her hair, he bathed in the golden glow +and strength of that. She was indeed a burning lass; but she was not +what she had been at first--a light and wonder of the earth. Tears came +to his eyes as he remembered his first estate, and knew it lost for +ever. And yet he loved her, and could not keep away from her. + +He began to judge her. He thought she was slow to move, somewhat +insensible; he felt sure that she did not love him. To be sure, it was +some testimony to a girl, lovely as she might be (and was, God knew), +that a man should dare a houseful to see her, and fight single-handed +against three. It was not much--poetry was much more--but it was +something. And she reckoned it for nothing, and waited to be wooed. +But had she not been wooed by that fighting? He went away early, and +did not ask her, since she did not offer, to come to the door with him. + +Next day he was in a black mood and most wretched. He did not go to +Tongue, which was a remarkable thing in these days. His mother waited +for him to speak, but as he would not, she herself began upon the +affair, and got short answers from him. Presently she said, “I will +tell you this, my son. It was not thus that your father, a captain of +men, wooed me.” + +“Why, what did he?” said Cormac. + +“He saw me at a wrestling, and spoke to me before it was over. Then he +went to your grandfather and asked for me, and gave gifts; but I only +saw him through the half-open door, for my mother kept me in the Bower. +He went away without asking for me, and came rarely to the house. He +used to say, ‘There is time enough. You will find me a good husband to +you. I should not have asked for you if I had not believed that. All I +see of you, and all I hear, satisfies me. I am a man of full measures, +not of half. Wait until the wedding-day and trust to me.’ That I did. +Your father was a true man of his word, and his deeds suited his words, +as a sword lies in a sheath.” + +“He was a true man,” said Cormac; but he thought in his bitterness, +“That was a way to buy cows at a fair, but not to love a woman.” He +went out by himself on to the heath; but Stangerd called him from afar, +and he rose up presently and went to a place whence he could see the +house and steading at Tongue, settling down into the dusk. “It is a +wonderful thing that within those walls is the loveliest body upon +earth, sitting on a bench, leaning by the board. Men are about her +insensible of her glory, not trembling in the air which is about her. +And I, who know and tremble even here, I am so cursed that I cannot go +down there and tell my knowledge! This is madness in me, and must be +fought. To-morrow I go and claim her of Thorkel. But my father’s way +will not suit me. I shall do it in my own way.” He rose up and went +home comforted. + +So much for what was to be a bad business. He thought nothing of the +spae-wife and her curse upon his doings. He was too disturbed to think +of anything or anybody. He seemed to be groping about with scummed +eyes. There was a blur, a tarnish upon everything. The pity of it--with +the glory so new! + + * * * * * + +But as for the spae-wife herself, it is told of her that after a while +she buried her sons--for Gudmund never got better, and died without +knowing her again--and crossed the hills into Sowerby and came to the +house of a strong man called Berse. To him she told her tale, that her +sons had been killed, weregild refused her, and she turned out of her +holding by the slayer. “Therefore,” said she, “I come to you, Berse, +because you are a just man.” + +Berse sat well back in his leather-seated chair, and laid the ankle of +one leg upon the knee of another, and twirled his thumbs. + +“Who was the man that slew your sons?” + +She told him. “It was Black Cormac Ogmundsson, who lives in Midfirth.” + +Berse blinked. “I have heard tell of him. His father was a great +Viking, and died ashipboard. Now wherefore did he so to your sons?” + +“They got bickering,” she said, “over Stangerd, Thorkel’s daughter.” + +Said Berse, “From breaking hearts to broken sconces there is a short +and straight road. I will wager that Cormac was no more forward on it +than your sons. If I don’t blame them, I don’t blame him either.” + +She said nothing to that, but waited on where she was. + +Berse said, “That girl of Thorkel’s is a fine girl, I hear.” + +Thorveig said she was. “But they will spoil her,” she said, “with all +this quarrelling about her. Yet Cormac will never have her--that’s +certain.” + +“Who says so?” said Berse. + +She answered, “I say so. I know it.” + +Berse went on twirling his thumbs for a time. Then he said, “Well, you +shall have land of me. I know nothing against you. There is a steading +down on the firth--a good small house and intake. You shall have that. +It has a staithe into the water, and there are some boats go with it. +You shall have that--but remember, I don’t blame Cormac Ogmundsson. I +am the last man to do it. They call me Battle-Berse, Holmgang Berse. +I’m a fighting man myself.” + +The spae-wife said, “And you will have more to do yet, Berse, with your +charmed sword.” + +“Get along with you,” said Berse, rather pleased with her. “I am not so +young as I was, and Whiting keeps the fireside nowadays.” Now Whiting +was his famous sword, with which he had fought thirty wagers-of-battle +and won them all. It had a magical stone in the hilt, and was said +never to lose its edge. + +“Look to Whiting,” said the spae-wife, “and you won’t be sorry.” She +thanked him for his open-handedness, but he only said, “Get along with +you.” + +She took up her abode in Berse’s ferry-house, which is called +Bersestead to this hour. It was a good house upon the further shore +of Ramfirth, with a haven and a mole. Boats lay snug there. There was +a ferry, and many men used the place to cross over the water to go +into Sowerby. Berse himself used it, for his own house was far from +the water, high up in the hills of Sowerby. You can see it from the +staithe, like a patch of snow afar off; and a great force of water near +by. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE PLIGHTING + + +Thorkel spoke to Stangerd about Cormac. It was on the evening of the +day after the battle, when he had gone early. “My girl,” he said, “what +is wrong with this man of yours?” + +She flushed, and looked away from him. Her eyes were cloudy. “He is no +man of mine,” she said. + +“Well,” said Thorkel, “he slew a couple of fine fellows last night, and +I suppose that was not for nothing.” + +She flashed him a look. “He was set upon by three at once--and there +would have been a fourth at him but for me.” + +Thorkel could not deny it. “And what is to be done now?” he asked +her instead. “Is he to make free of my house, and of you; to sit here +scowling at you, looking you over, and no one to say a word? Are you +not ashamed to be so treated? If your brother were here, things might +go differently, I think. They don’t call him Toothgnasher for nothing.” + +Stangerd was angry; her cheek-bones showed it. She twisted her hands +about and stared out of doors. “Cormac would not be afraid of his +teeth,” she said. “He has teeth of his own, and has shown them.” + +“Little sense has he shown in this affair,” says Thorkel. “What does +he mean by his singing and nonsense? He calls you every sounding name +he can get at, and talks two-score to the dozen. He’ll tell you by the +hour together what he is going to do with you--and you suffer it. He +sets you up sky-high, but can’t see you because your head is in the +clouds. What do you make of it, you who are a sensible girl, or were +so before he ran on about your good looks?” + +Stangerd looked stormy, but handsomer than ever. Her father could not +but notice how fine she was, with her rich colour and golden hair and +dark blue eyes. But she had not much to say because she did not know +what to make of Cormac herself, and she had a feeling that, sweet as +his kisses were, she ought not to allow them until he declared himself. +Cormac had a way with him which was hard to resist. He had a way of +looking at her with narrow eyes, and of saying, “O Stangerd, how sweet +and lovely you are!”--and of taking her. She found that very pleasant. +But what baffled her was that at another time he would treat her as +if she was unearthly--a being of the other world--and as if he dared +not to touch her at all. Lastly, there was his manner of to-day, when +he had sat dull and troubled before her, neither looking at her nor +avoiding the sight of her, but preoccupied, with his thoughts elsewhere. + +Meantime Thorkel had nothing to conceal. He did not understand Cormac +any better than she did; but he did not want to understand him. + +“I see that you choose to sulk with me,” he said; “but look you here, +my girl. If this man of yours comes after you, he must deal with me for +you; and let him get it into his head that I will not have my daughter +talked about. That would be a disgrace upon my house which I should +not put up with. If he don’t want you, let him say so, or prove it by +keeping out of your way. I can get a husband for you any day; and so I +shall if I am to be bothered by this hankering and moon-gazing.” + +With that he took himself off. + + * * * * * + +In the morning she was troubled, finding the need of Cormac, and she +did what she had never yet done. She went out across the meadows and on +to the fell-side to look for him. There was a fine rain falling, but +the light was behind it, and it was more like silver mist than rain. +She saw him coming and went down to meet him. The rain was shining in +her hair; her cheeks and lips were wet. He saw her in his turn, and his +feet answered to the leap of his heart. They met without words; but he +took both her hands. She could not look at him, but let him hold her +hands. She felt the might of his eyes, and liked the feeling. + +Presently he said: “Stangerd, now you shall tell me truly why you have +come out to meet me.” + +She hung her head and would not let him see her face. But he did see +it. She was burning red. + +“By that,” he said, “you have answered me. And now I ask you +this--Whom would you choose to wed?” + +After a little she shook her fear from her and showed him her face. The +love-light was in her eyes, and made her bold. “I should choose to wed +the blind woman’s son,” she said. + +Cormac was very grave. “You have chosen as you ought,” he said. “You +have chosen me, who have courted you long. So it shall be.” He drew +her in and put his arm about her. So they stood awhile together. Then +Cormac stooped his head to her, and kissed her mouth. He did it just +so, deliberately, and without passion. No words were said. She did not +know what to make of it. His mood was very strange. + +They went together to the house, and by degrees Cormac’s tongue was +loosened and he told her of the battle, and spoke of his glumness of +the other day. “I felt as if I had been enticed into cheapening you by +that bout. I felt on a level with those snarling swine--one of a pack +about your skirts. I felt that I had been digging a dyke between you +and me; it was full of black sludge and slipping eels. When I loved you +first you were glorious to me--as you are to-day; but yesterday there +was a skin over my eyes. I did not see you glorious. If I cannot love +you well, I will not love you at all. You shall be more than wife to +me--or nothing.” + +He kissed her very often after that and comforted her. She was not +bewildered any more, and could talk to him freely. + +“Will you not make peace with my father now?” she asked him. “Do it for +my sake. He says hard things to me, and I can’t answer him for fear he +may say what I could not bear.” + +Cormac promised her that, and she was pleased. “Nobody could refuse you +anything when you are like that,” she said. + +“Ho!” said he; “but I shall not kiss your father.” + +“If you are friendly to him, he will take it well,” she told him. “You +are of good fortune--as good as he is--and of good descent. That is +what he will look to.” + +“Such things mean little to me,” said Cormac. “The best thing I can say +for myself is that you, who might choose the King of Norway, choose me, +Cormac Ogmundsson of Melstead.” + +She laughed. “You must find a better thing to say than that. If I don’t +believe you, how shall he?” + +“Shall I make you believe me, Stangerd?” he said with eagerness. + +But she would not let him. “Ask for me,” she said, “as the custom is, +and not in the way of skalds and minstrels. He does not like your +rhyming about me.” + +“But you, Stangerd, are pleased when I sing of you?” + +She thought for a little while, then cast herself upon his breast. +“Oh,” she said, “I am pleased, whatever you do with me.” + +Then he said fondly: “I will tell you what I would do with you now, +Stangerd. I would carry you in my arms out of the house, and through +the meadows, and up into the fells. I know a place--a high place +where there is a holm, and the grass grows green, and there are tall +trees, and within them a hush. And there I would wed you upon a bed +of rock-rose, under the stars. And I would build you a house there, +and make an altar of stones before it, and keep a fire of fragrant +wood burning there perpetually. Nobody should see you for a long time +but the sun, the moon, the stars, and me. And you should be loved as +never woman was loved before, your body by my body, and your spirit by +mine. When you were a mother, I would summon all men to come and do +you worship. And the songs I would make of you would go all over the +world, and your name would be whispered about like the name of Fricka, +the goddess who gives love and life to men.” + +She blushed at his ardent talk, and welcomed it, for she was +susceptible to his moods, though she did not at all understand them, +and knew that this was the one that became him best. “Oh,” she said, +“what wild words! But you must woo me as a girl and not as a goddess. +Therefore you shall ask for me properly of my father, and then you +shall take me where you will.” + +“Well,” he said, “I will do it; but it is proper to have witnesses and +upholders with me. Therefore I will come to-morrow with my brother +Thorgils, and then everything will be in order. But for all that I +should like it best that I might carry you away now in my arms.” + +She believed that that was very true, but she had an orderly mind, and +could not consider such wild-goose plans. + +He stayed with her till it grew dark, and then left her. She felt very +much drawn to him; more than she had ever been when he was away from +her, for his power was strong upon her when he was with her, and seemed +little when he had gone. But now she knew that she had desire of him +and was ready for the day when he should take her home to Melstead. For +all her beauty and high colour she was a slow-blooded girl; nobody had +ever stirred her as Cormac had now done. Many men had courted her, and +she had been pleased with their attentions, and flattered by them; but +this man had awoken the woman in her. + + * * * * * + +As for Cormac, he went homewards with feet of lead. He had no idea what +was the matter with him; but matter there was. Once he stopped short +and rubbed his eyes. “What is the meaning of this? I leave Stangerd, +the wonder of the world, her accepted lover, and my heart is like cold +plum-pudding. And at the sheep-homing, after I had been a day with her, +I came flying, with feet that scarcely touched the heather tufts! What +is this? She is the same--nay, she is more beautiful than she was. She +is like golden fruit upon a wall. To lie in the arms of Stangerd is a +thing scarce to be thought of--to love her at night under the stars--a +man might go mad waiting for such a joy. But I am not mad; though now I +wait. There is something the matter with me. When I talk to her of her +beauty I grow by degrees to believe it; but when I think of it, or see +it, I don’t believe it. And yet I am the same man that I was; I am that +Cormac who believed because he knew. Am I so truly? If I am not--but I +tell you that I am. Love her? Ah, but I do love her--I do--I tell you +I do.” Then he went on his way, but at the edge of his heart there +was fear like a blanket of fog, threatening to muffle, and deaden, and +stifle it. + +He told his mother and brother about his doings, and asked Thorgils to +go with him on the morrow to ask for Stangerd. Thorgils said he would +certainly go; and “They say that you have got a fine, tall girl for a +wife, and a handsome girl, and a good one.” + +“She is all that,” Cormac said, “and much more than that. I believe she +is the most beautiful girl that ever was born.” + +Dalla, his mother, shook her head. “I shall never see her; but I shall +tell by the feel of her. I hope she is even-tempered; for your wife +will need to be.” + +Cormac said, “I am sure that she has given me her heart. I am sure that +she has mine in exchange. With that, all is well, I take it.” + +“If you are sure of these things, all is well indeed,” said Dalla. + +Cormac grew hot. + +“It does not become you to doubt me. I tell you again that I have loved +her so much that I have slain two men to prove it. I have loved her +night and day. I have made good songs, I have been in great heart. Love +has made me taller than other men. When I first saw her it seemed to +me that she was like the core of light--that strong light enclosed her +like a sheath--and that she lay quivering within it like a sword.” + +“All this,” said his mother, “is very fine,” and put Cormac into a rage. + +“Ah, you scoff at my way--as if by a lip curled back you could refute +a lover. Well, you must find out for yourself how much I love her. You +will have time.” + +“I shall find out,” Dalla said. But Cormac had gone out of the house. + +Dalla stretched out her hands to the fire. “I am not contented,” she +said. + +Thorgils looked troubled. “It was a bad piece of work that he outed +Thorveig. I backed him, because I could not do otherwise. But he was +wrong. Her ill-conditioned boys were dead. He might have left her +alone. He has never been the same since.” + +“Nay,” said Dalla, “she would have cast misfortune upon him because he +would not pay a ransom.” + +“A bad business,” said Thorgils, “a bad business. He’ll take it hard.” + +Said Dalla, “Do you take me to Thorveig. The spell must be moved.” + +“Too late,” said Thorgils. + +Dalla did her best to hearten him. “Cormac is moody by nature; there +may be no spell at all.” + +Thorgils said, “I doubt that she has done it. She read it into him. She +has the second sight.” + +Next day they rode over the hill to Tongue, to ask for Stangerd. +Three of them went--Cormac, Thorgils, and Toste the reeve. They took +gifts with them--a fine saddle, scarlet cloaks embroidered with +gold and blue, and long horns for drinking, with golden covers and +chains--treasure of Ogmund the Viking, long laid up for such a use. +They found Thorkel sitting in his hall, in his finest clothes, on the +daïs, surrounded by his men and his friends. He loved things to be +ceremonious. Stangerd was not present. + +Cormac asked squarely for her, promising a good price. “I set this sum +upon her,” he said, “not because it represents her worth, which is to +me beyond human prices; but because it is the custom.” + +“She is worth a good price,” Thorkel said. + +One of the company added: “She is the best-made girl I ever saw.” +Another said: “Many would be after her if they knew she was to be had. +Or Thorkel might take her to Norway and find some earl glad to have +her.” + +Cormac chafed, and looked very black, biting his cheek. + +“The less we say about prices the better,” he said. “I have complied +with custom, to serve you. But I can’t go on with it.” + +“All in order, Cormac,” Thorkel said. “Law is law, and money is money.” + +So the talk ran on in this fashion; and then Thorkel said, “This will +want thinking about--a deal of thinking it will want. It seems to +me that your offer should be stretched. If my son Toothgnasher were +here he would say so--that I know. But he is on the sea, levying war. +Should he come home in the spring with a good cargo, that will make us +look foolish--to have bargained away his sister to the first comer. +Toothgnasher sets great store by Stangerd. We must think of the absent +as much as we can.” + +Toste said, “Our land is as much as yours, and much of it is better. +Your girl will be no loser by coming to Melstead.” + +“Nay, it is I will be the loser, it seems,” Thorkel said--and his +friends took his side. + +Cormac was beside himself with rage. “You shall finish this talk +without me,” he said. “My brother knows more of such matters than I do. +By your leave, I will go and see Stangerd.” Whereupon he broke away +from the company and went through the door which led to the Bower. She +was there at the loom, other girls with her. She looked strangely at +him. Her eyes were like blue flowers. + +Cormac went to her and kissed her, not very gently. “Stangerd, they are +haggling over you as if you were a heifer. Such things sicken me. You +and I know what is to be, and those dealers can never know. Give me +your hand.” + +She did. He put a ring upon her finger. “That is a token, my love,” +he said. “Let them do their foulest. I have gone to work in my own +fashion. Speak to me now and tell me what I wish to hear.” + +She asked him. “What is it that you wish to hear?” + +“Ah!” said Cormac, “if you don’t know that by this time, I can hardly +tell you before these girls.” + +She grew red. “You are angry with me. I don’t know why. I thought that +a betrothal was otherwise done.” + +It is true that he was angry; and if she did not know why, neither +could he tell her, for he didn’t know himself. While they were standing +there, handfasted but yet far apart, one came in to say that the +bargain was made, and that Stangerd must come in for the plighting +before witnesses. Cormac said that he would bring her in, but was told +that could hardly be. He tossed up his head and tapped with his foot; +but Stangerd paid no attention to him. She signalled to her maids +that they should follow her, and went into the hall, leaving Cormac to +follow as best he might. + +He was well called Black Cormac for that day, at any rate. But the +thing was done, and there was a feast. He had no songs for them, though. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DAY OF THE WEDDING + + +The wedding was to be in early spring; as soon as the weather was open, +because Cormac would not wait any longer, and there were no signs of +Toothgnasher’s ship. Stangerd did not at all understand why he was in +such a hurry, and he could not tell her, though he knew very well why +it was. + +He felt that if he was not married very soon he would not be married +at all. It was not that he did not love Stangerd, and love her very +much, but that he loved her in another way--a way which irritated and +confused him and hampered the free passage of his mind. He could not +enjoy the sight of her beauty, or be happy in seeing her do things +beautifully, as formerly he had. He loved her now in a greedy and +grudging way, which seemed to sap the roots of happiness. He did not +like to see her look at another man or even give her mind to anything +which was not to do with him. He said to himself, “I think of nothing +but her--and why should she be otherwise? Must all the giving be on my +side?” It was not so at all, if he had thought, or been able to think, +of it. She loved him with the whole of her being; and what more could +she have done? But there it was. His happiness was destroyed by this +love; his song forsook him. His mind was preoccupied: he had no hold +on it. He could not think, or see good things, or take pleasure in +anything. Stangerd filled him up. There were times when he cursed the +day on which he saw her; times when he hated her. + +And while he must by all means see her, know what she was doing, and +prevent her being with other people, he was not happy with her. He was +silent and morose. He made her unhappy, and knew that he did. There +seemed always a grievance unatoned for, and another forming upon the +scar of the old. All this was so unlike himself that he could not help +contrasting it with what he had been before disaster fell upon him. In +thinking it over, it seemed to him that he had been inconceivably happy +before this fell upon him. He seemed to be looking back from a dark +place upon himself free and glorious in the light of the sun. That he +should count the day of his plighting his day of disaster shows you to +what a state he had come. And yet he desired her keenly, and thought +day and night of what he should do to her when she was his. + +As for Stangerd, she would have been happy enough if he could have left +her alone. It was very pleasant to her to feel his domination when +it was plainly exerted by love. His kisses were fierce and furious, +but they were sweet if they were dangerous. She had a cool head and a +steady heart; she did not love in that sort of way; but she admired +those who did, and allowed him what he chose without fear or sense of +danger. But when love became something like hate, when kisses turned to +biting, she was made unhappy, and came to resent it as an indignity. + +“What have I done? Why do you treat me like this?” she would ask him, +and he would gloom and scowl. + +“You have shown me what you really are. You have no heart, but in your +beautiful bosom you have a dark nest of pride. Pride like a bed of +snakes is there--a dozen angry heads with darting tongues. Flat heads +with narrow eyes looking all ways to strike.” + +Tears clouded her blue eyes. “You are hateful to say such things. I let +you do what you choose with me; you come and go as you will, and I am +always here for you. You are free of the house, and free of me--and yet +you never have kind looks for it. I don’t know what has come over you.” + +In her heart of hearts she believed that he had been cursed by the +spae-wife; but she dared not hint it for her life. Some such thing had +been whispered, and Cormac had flown into a great passion and gone out +with his sword in his hand to find the man who had said it. + + * * * * * + +So the time wore on, and the ice broke up upon the firth, and the days +grew longer, and through the fog you could hear the thunder of the +falling snow. Cormac said that the wedding must be soon; and then about +the equinox there came a ship from Ireland into the firth, and reported +the Toothgnasher’s ship as on the way home. Thorkel said that they +must wait for him by all means, and Cormac was left to his mother to +deal with. + +She found him difficult. He jibbed at the Toothgnasher, and it seemed +to her that he had been anxious all along to get Stangerd away before +her brother could be home. + +“But I had sooner be done with them without Toothgnasher,” he said to +his mother. “I shall have to deal with him later, I don’t doubt. No, +decidedly I shall not wait for Toothgnasher. Let him ease his hot gums +on other men’s affairs--not mine.” + +“But he is Thorkel’s only son; he is Stangerd’s only brother,” said +she. “You are unreasonable.” + +“Ah!” cried Cormac, “how do you know I am unreasonable? I tell you I +won’t have him there.” + +“What has Stangerd to say to this?” She put this to him because she was +at her wits’ end. Cormac gloomed, and jutted out his chin. + +“I have not spoken to her. She knows that I have no liking for +Toothgnasher. She will say what I wish her to say.” + +But it appeared that here he was wrong. Stangerd wanted her brother to +be at the wedding. She begged it of Cormac. She went so far as to kiss +him of her own accord--a thing which she very rarely did. He remarked +upon it, with bitterness, and stored the memory in his troubled +heart. There it remained as a grievance, instead of a happy memory: +the grievance was that she had not done it before. But he would not +promise. Then Stangerd grew hot and showed her cheek-bones. + +“You treat me very ill. It is the bride’s right to fix her wedding-day. +You force me to tell you so.” + +Cormac turned rather grey in the face. “If force drives you against my +wish it is a poor look-out from where we stand now. And I will tell +you this, Stangerd. It will take more force than you and your brother +and Thorkel have at call to drive me against my will.” With that he +left her. + +He did not see her again until the day which had formerly been fixed +for the wedding. On that day he had expected his mother and Thorgils to +ride with him to Tongue as if for the wedding; but they would not go +with him. Dalla said that he was acting outrageously, and he knew that +he was. But the black fit was upon him. “If you will not come to my +wedding,” he said, “I shall go alone.” + +Go he did, and found Stangerd with her sleeves rolled up, at the well, +washing linen. The morning was a fair one, with a fresh wind blowing +from the land, and spray from the firth. Cormac had fine clothes on +him, with a new scarlet cloak fastened at the shoulder with a golden +brooch. + +Two of the girls stood up to look at him; but Stangerd bent down to +the bulging linen, and pommelled it with a will. + +“Is that your bridal gown you are wetting there?” said Cormac. + +“The bride’s dress is still on the loom,” said one of the maids. + +“What day is this?” he cried out. + +“Washing day,” said she, “and a good drying day.” + +“Ah,” said Cormac, “and you will be drying more than linen this day. +You will be drying up the sap of a man.” + +Stangerd had nothing to say. In a fury he slipped off his horse and +went to her. He stood over her with threatening eyes. + +“Is this how you greet your husband? Is this how our wedding is to be?” + +She did not flinch, but gave him a steady look upwards from where she +knelt below him. + +“It will not be so when the day comes--not so on my part,” she said. + +“However it be, it will be you who have made it as it will be,” he +told her. She said no more. + +One of the girls said, “Toothgnasher is off the islands. He will be +here soon.” + +“The trolls take Toothgnasher,” said Cormac, and mounted, and rode home. + +In the mood he was in now, nothing could be done with him at home. +Thorgils, his brother, was a peacefully-disposed man who never said +very much. His mother had learned the limits of her tether and did +not pull against a rope and an iron peg. Both of them thought him in +the wrong; but Thorgils was sure that the spae-wife had done all the +mischief. What Dalla may have thought about that, she kept to herself, +for she knew how furious Cormac would have been. He took to the fells +in these days and was seldom seen. Nobody knew what he did there. +Stangerd never saw him, and felt herself aggrieved. + +At the beginning of the summer, Toothgnasher brought his ship into the +firth and laid her up. He was a tall, high-coloured man, with a fine +flaxen beard on his lip. He had dark blue eyes like Stangerd’s: they +were a fine couple. Thorkel made much of him, and very soon gave him +his bearings. + +He stared when he heard the state of the case. “Why, what possesses the +man? Is it witchcraft?” + +“Some fiend has him. There is no doing anything with him,” Thorkel said. + +“There is one thing to do with him,” said Toothgnasher. “You had better +let me go and talk with him.” + +Thorkel shook his head. “Stangerd would not like that.” + +“Well,” said Toothgnasher, “and do you think she likes the thing as it +stands?” + +But Thorkel’s advice prevailed, that Cormac should be summoned to the +marriage. This was done. Word was brought by Narve, who saw Thorgils. + +Thorgils said he would give Cormac the message, but that he was from +home just now. “And I think he is up in the fells,” he said. + +“And what will he be doing there at this season?” Narve asked. + +“Amusing himself,” said Thorgils, “with trapping and such-like.” + +“He will find few things there so hard to trap as we find at home,” +Narve said. + +At Tongue the opinion was that he would come; but that was not +Stangerd’s opinion. She kept her thoughts very private, and would not +talk to her maids. Her heart was sore at the slight put upon her for +no fault of her own, and as well as that she had the memory of Cormac +in his days of eager wooing. They had been sweet, and the sweeter they +the bitterer her present dule. But she did not cry, for that was not +her way when she was sad, but only when she was offended. At this time +she was more sad than offended. And she hoped up to the very last that +the cloud would lift from her sky before it was too late. She was not +yet offended; but she was a proud girl, and knew that she could never +forgive him if he failed her. + +And so the time wore on to the day of the wedding, when she was dressed +in fine clothes, and wore a gold crown on her head. She sat still and +flushed with clenched hands, on the daïs with her maids; her kinsfolk +and acquaintances sat at the tables; but none came from Melstead. + +They sat there, saying at first little, and then nothing for an hour +or more. Presently Narve, who was always hopping to the door and back, +cried out, “I see a man riding this way.” + +No one spoke. Stangerd’s heart was a stone. + +He said again, “I know him. It is Thorgils, Cormac’s brother. And he +comes alone.” + +Thorgils came into the hall and saluted the company. Thorkel bade him +welcome. + +Then he said, “We looked to see more of you from Melstead, but you come +alone. What are we to make of it?” + +Thorgils was very much troubled. “I can only tell you what I know +myself. The summons was given to Cormac on the day it was delivered to +me. I bade him to the marriage, and he said he would remember it and do +what was right. After that he went away, and I have not seen him since. +What’s more, I can’t tell where he is. He may be on the sea for all I +know.” + +There was silence for some time. Then Stangerd went away, with her +maids following her. She could not now hide her tears, and they came +freely, and burning hot. + +When she was gone, Thorkel said, “This is a great affront put upon me +by your brother, and I am not to pass over it. He sought the girl, and +I agreed to it, as you know, though not willingly, for I never fancied +the match. Then he began to behave strangely, and it has gone on from +bad to worse. You tell me you have nothing more to say--and now I tell +you that I also have come to an end of speaking.” + +“Yes, indeed,” said Toothgnasher. “It is not a case for talk; but +Cormac and I shall have other things to do than talk to each other.” + +Thorgils said, “That will be as it must be. It is likely that there +will be more to come. I can only say that we are concerned for Cormac. +He is not himself in this. His life has been crossed. There is a spell +upon him. But you have nothing to do with that, and I can’t ask you +even to believe it. But do not think that Cormac is pleasing himself in +this affair. He is of all men the most unhappy. But Fate rules us all.” + +They stared or gloomed at him according as their natures moved them. It +was plain there was nothing more to be said to Thorgils, who presently +saluted the company and took himself off. Toothgnasher went into the +Bower to see Stangerd. + +She had stopped her tears, but her eyes were very red; and she +was tired, without heart to speak much about it. When, however, +Toothgnasher began to talk about the affront, she broke out afresh, +“Oh, he is cruel, he is cruel to use me so!” + +“He is tired of you, sweetheart,” her brother said; but she would not +have it so. + +“No, no, no! That is not so. He loves me--he loves me too much. But he +is proud, and he makes me feel his pride. I know very well how it is. +He is the most wretched of men just now. He wants me sorely, but will +not come. He knows that I could soothe him--and so I could--but he will +not allow it.” + +“By Heaven and Earth,” said Toothgnasher, “I have the means to humble +that pride of his.” + +She put hands upon him. “Brother,” she said, “you shall not touch +him--or if you do you will have seen the last of me. It is the way +of men to think that they can assuage every grief by slashing at each +other. They do nothing but comfort to themselves.” + +“It is the business of kinsfolk to avenge each other, however you take +it,” said Toothgnasher. + +“And what comfort is it to me if you slay the man I love or if he slay +you?” she asked him, and then she asked herself, “Is there any fool in +the world the equal of a man?” + + * * * * * + +As for Cormac, he did not appear at Melstead for two days more. Then +he came in haggard and unwashen, and would do nothing but sit and gaze +about him, taking quick and short breath. Nobody knew where he had +been. He was splashed all up his legs with brown--so he had been in +the peat hags, they judged. He said nothing about Stangerd, but sat +about the house for two or three days without speaking at all. After +that he seemed to have gathered strength, for he collected himself and +did some work in the meadows. He seemed to have forgotten Stangerd +altogether,--but he had not, as it turned out. + +Now as to this curious business there is plenty to say, and every man +will put his own interpretation upon it, and every woman also. There +must be few women who will not have experience within them to bring to +the reading. A poet (not Cormac) has reasoned it out, but we need not +bring in any more poets to the argument--at present. On the showing +of this instructed man the day of misfortune was the day when Cormac +kissed Stangerd first. There may be much truth in this. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BERSE COMES IN + + +Whether or no Cormac had got the better of his love-affair--and nobody +knew but himself--it had made a great to-do at Tongue. But the people +there did not see how to set about avenging the slight put upon them, +since Stangerd would not hear of fighting, or have Cormac challenged +for atonement. It was judged finally, after much talk, that they must +get her married, lest the countryside should think that she had lost +her only chance--which was nonsense, seeing what a splendid girl she +was, and how much counted. + +So they brought up the name of this man and that man, but could not +decide upon any one man, until Narve, always ready with the tongue, +lit upon Berse of Sowerby. “Now there’s a man,” he said, “of all men in +the world the most proper. A powerful man, a very pleasant, affable, +middle-aged man, a man of wealth, and a man of his hands. Bring him +into your quarrel, and the thing is done. Your young fire-eater will +have little to say to _him_, you may be sure.” + +That was true. The man was a notable champion. They called him +Battle-Berse, Holmgang Berse, and Wager-of-Battle Berse--which all mean +the same thing; for the Holmgang is to go to the holm for the fight’s +sake; and in the wager-of-battle you back your quarrel with another +man’s blood. In that way Berse had backed his no less than thirty +times, and had never lost it. Besides that, he had I don’t know how +many homicides to his account. It has been said before that he had had +about enough of it, and was for peace and plenty in these days. He was +a widower, survivor of a fine woman called Finna the Fair; he was rich, +and he was getting fat--not unwieldy, you understand, but comfortably +fat. But still, not a doubt about it, he would give a good account of +himself upon the field when he was called there. + +He was the man, let me remind the reader, who had given harbourage to +Thorveig the spae-wife after the killing of her sons. He gave her the +ferry-house at Bersestead, where you cross over to go into Sowerby. + +Well, they talked him over at Tongue, with other men, and none +was found so suitable; so presently, without a word to Stangerd, +Toothgnasher, Narve and one or two others went over to his country +and found him at home. As well as himself there were his sister Hilda +in the house, a personable, active woman, a pretty girl, very fond of +Berse, called Stanvor Slimlegs, and his young son Osmund--a boy of ten +years old or so. He was very glad to see them, and made them a good +entertainment. + +They talked in the evenings of this, that, and the other. To get Berse +upon his fighting days was to get him at his best; and it appeared +that he was still a roaring boy for all his grizzled beard and dewlap. +There was the girl Stanvor, for example, as pretty a girl as ever you +saw, with legs which certainly deserved to be famous--as they were. Now +that girl was daughter to a man called Ord who lived, not at Tongue +on Midfirth, but at Tongue in Bitra. He was a fisherman with many men +in his employ, and in a quarrel which arose over the merits of men in +those parts, this Ord maintained that Berse of Sowerby, Battle-Berse, +was the bigger man as against one Thorarin of Gutdale. The story came +to Thorarin’s ears--an ill-conditioned, strong man--who one fine day +came down to Tongue in Bitra when no men were about, and picked up +Stanvor out of the garth and carried her off with him. Ord in his +trouble went to Battle-Berse, saying, “This blow was struck at me +because I spoke well of you. I look to you now, Berse, to wipe out my +shame.” Berse said that he wanted no man’s good word, but would do what +he could. He armed himself with sword and three spears, and rode down +the valley and over the ridge and down again into Gutdale. He got there +late, when the men were come in from the fields and the women setting +the tables. He saw Stanvor at the back door and beckoned to her. She +ran up and told him her troubles. Berse got off his horse, and took +her by the hand. “Hold the horse,” he said, “and these spears, and +wait for me here.” “Oh, where are you for?” she said, and he told her. +It was a pity to come so far for such a little thing as she was--and +“I’m going to see who’s at home.” She said, “The men are all in there +at the fires.” “I know that,” says Berse, and goes up and bangs at +the door with his fist. A man came out. “Go and tell Thorarin that +Berse wants to see him,” he was told. Presently out comes Thorarin +with a bill in his hand and makes a slash at Berse with it. Berse had +his famous sword Whiting ready for him, and gave him a cut through +the neck into the shoulder, which was his death-blow. Then he went +back to his horse, mounted, pulled up Stanvor, put her before him, and +galloped down the road to a wood. Deep in the wood he left Stanvor with +the horse, but he himself went back to the skirts of it to wait for +the hue-and-cry. Thorarin had three sons, who came out after Berse, +expecting to trap him further on as he entered the pass into the hills. +It proved otherwise, for it was Berse who trapped the trappers. He had +three spears to Thorarin’s three sons, and he threw each of them, and +with each brought his man down. The rest of the outcry ran back to the +house. Berse lay the three bodies out side by side, and his cloak +across them to show who had done the business, and then went back to +the horse and the girl. He took Stanvor home with him to his walled +house in the hills; and she would not leave him, and never did. That +was the kind of man Battle-Berse was; and always very good-tempered +over it, a most agreeable man, as Narve had said. + +He told this tale now to his guests, sitting in his elbow-chair with +his arm round Stanvor herself, she leaning against the elbow with her +head on one side, and eyes cast down. When it came to the point where +Berse said that she would not leave him and never did, she looked at +him gravely, with a little half-smile, very pretty to see. Berse gave +her a squeeze and said: “Hey, sweetheart, is that true?” + +Stanvor nodded her head, still smiling, and said, “I shan’t leave you +till you tell me to go.” + +You couldn’t help liking the man. + +Many such stories Berse had to tell, but it was not for such things +they had come out. The talk flew about from men’s courage to women’s +looks; and presently Narve spoke of Stangerd as the fairest of women, +and Berse did not deny it. + +“There’s a pretty girl here,” he said, “and a dainty girl, very fond of +me; but I know that Stangerd’s beauty is like a cornfield in bearing to +a poor man’s patch of rye-grass compared to little Stanvor’s.” + +“You heard, most likely,” Narve said, “of the way she was treated by +Cormac Ogmundsson of Melstead? A great shame.” + +Berse twinkled and set his thumbs twirling like the sails of a mill. +“I heard something of it,” he said; “and a fine young man, too, by all +accounts.” + +“Too fine,” says Narve; and then Toothgnasher said, “Not fine enough.” + +Berse nodded very comfortably. “These young men go about on the tips of +their toes, asking you to stand out of their way lest by chance they +should walk into you. Not but what the match was a good one. I’ve been +told something of Cormac’s handiness with weapons.” + +Narve snapped his fingers. “What are his hands or his weapons to you, +Berse?” + +Berse smiled. “Well, to me, maybe, they are less than to yourself, my +friend.” + +“And the match is clean off, mind you,” Narve went on. “They say, +indeed, that he’s out of the country, and like enough gone Viking like +his father before him.” + +Berse said no more at the time, but he turned it over. He knew Thorkel +was rich, he knew Stangerd was very handsome. He liked good-looking +girls, and he liked riches. When Toothgnasher was getting ready to go +home, Berse said he thought he would go down with him. And so he did. + +Before he started Stanvor came to him. “Where are you going, master?” +she asked him. + +He twinkled all over his face, and looking quizzically at her, pinched +her cheek. “I am going down to the frith,” he said, “to see a fine +girl, and like enough that is what I shall do with her when I get on +terms.” + +She stood flushed and serious before him. “It is like enough, indeed,” +she said, “and you may do what you will with her for me. But I know +that she will not love you as I do.” + +Berse put his heavy hand on her shoulder. “I think that’s true. But +what if I bring her back to Sowerby? What will you say then, pretty +one? By all accounts she’s big enough to eat you up and want more.” + +She bore his glance. “There will still be room here for me,” she said. +“I shall do no harm to anybody.” + +“No, indeed,” said Berse. “But you’ll bring happiness wherever you +are.” With that he kissed her. + +She saw him away, and stood in the rain looking after him until he was +swallowed up in it. Then she went back into the house and was busy. +She was a slightly-made, graceful girl, with a pale, round face, and +large, blue-grey eyes. She had brown hair which rippled like running +water and curled at the ends. She looked delicate, but was extremely +strong. She never had much to say, to anyone but Berse; but with him +she would talk freely. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +STANGERD’S WEDDING + + +Berse, with all his experience to back him, admired Stangerd very +much. She was a big girl, with a strong throat and deep chest; she had +not much to say, but was not at all shy. These qualities pleased him; +but he thought her golden hair and hot colouring splendid, and would +certainly marry her if he could come to terms with her father. When she +came to serve him with mead in the hall, he took her hand and looked up +at her. + +“I wonder that a girl like you should remain at home, Stangerd,” he +said. + +She blushed. “That may not be my fault, sir.” + +“No, no,” said Berse, “but it will be a strange fault in the fine young +men I see hereabouts if they leave you alone. I shall look to see you +in the golden wreath before many days.” + +“That is as my father pleases, sir,” said she. + +That was about all he said to her, but he kept his eyes upon her most +of the evening, and when she had gone to bed he talked to Thorkel about +her, and asked what he would give with her. + +Thorkel, who had small eyes, shifted them about Berse without meeting +his, and said that he didn’t rightly know, but he supposed that a girl +like his was worth a goodish deal in herself. He had been thinking it +over, and had no doubt Berse would have done the same. He would like to +know what Berse thought about it. + +Berse said that there had been some talk about her lately in respect of +Cormac Ogmundsson. “And no man cares for that,” he said. + +Thorkel said there was nothing in it, and Berse said, “Perhaps not.” +But he heard that Cormac was a bold man with his hands. Then he said: +“I will tell you this, Thorkel, that I will take your quarrel upon me, +and quit you of any mischiefs with Cormac and his friends. But you must +deal fairly in the matter of dowry,” he said. + +So they haggled over it till far into the night, and came to terms, one +of which was that the wedding should be done quickly, and another that +Stangerd was not to be told anything about it until just before. Berse +boggled at that. “You cut me out of my respectable pleasures,” he said. +“It is very pleasant to court a girl. It is very pleasant to see her +deal with a matter so momentous to her. Can anything in her life touch +her so nearly?” + +But Thorkel knew better than to listen to him. “You may be sure that +my counsel is wise,” he said. “Stangerd is a good girl if ever there +was one, but her heart was very much set upon Cormac, who lives just +over the hill. Who can say what she might not contrive? Do you wish for +bloodshedding upon your marriage-day?” + +“Well,” said Berse, “I am not sure--but have it as you will.” + +Next day he went home, but not before he had talked with Stangerd. “We +shall meet again, Stangerd,” he said to her. “I hope that you and I may +be good friends.” + +“It takes two to make a friendship,” said Stangerd. + +Berse said, “You are right. But one may begin, and the other catch the +complaint. Now I am a man very prone to friendships. How is it with +you?” + +She thought that she was slow to make friends--and slow to lose them. + +Berse said that he was pleased to hear that, and would have given her a +kiss; but she wouldn’t allow that, and told him that she didn’t like +kissing. He took the rebuff with good humour, and soon afterwards rode +away. + +Whatever Stangerd may have thought about Berse and his behaviour, +nothing was said to her, and she did nothing towards seeing Cormac. But +it is certain that he was seldom out of her head. She was still deeply +offended, and would have shown him that she was, very plainly, if he +had come to see her. But at the bottom of her heart she had a warm +conviction of his love, and of her own. Her nature was slow to move, +but she had spoken the truth when she told Berse that she was steadfast. + + * * * * * + +Berse made his preparations quickly, and was ready to go back to Tongue +in eight days. He set out with a party of some fifteen men--good men +all, and well armed. Thord Arndisson of Mull was one of them, and Wige +was another. Wige was a man who had dealings with unseen powers, and +was said to be mighty in the dark. Some people deemed that he was a +werwolf. Berse would not have gone without him on any account; and +before he went he told him that Cormac might give trouble. Wige thought +that he could cope with Cormac. + +“Why, yes,” said Berse, “and so can I; but Thorkel, look you, is a rare +coward, and although I have sworn to take the venture on myself, yet he +can’t rest in his bed for thinking of what they may do at Melstead. Now +I want to keep this quiet until it’s all over, and she is mine. Then +Cormac may do what he will, for then he will work in Sowerby, and not +there.” + +Wige said, “Enough, I’ll see to it.” + + * * * * * + +They got to Tongue towards evening, and then Stangerd was told what was +about to befall her. Berse told her himself. + +She showed flame-red, and gave him a stare for answer. Her eyes were +like the flower of flax. + +“Was this in your mind a week ago,” she said, “when you spoke to me of +your friendship?” + +“Yes, it was,” said Berse. + +“You use a strange way,” said she, “to win my friendship. I will tell +you this, that it is not to be captured by a trick, as you take a hare, +nor by a spear. Use that with a salmon, but not with a girl.” + +Berse looked rather foolish. He had not thought the thing out properly. +“Well,” he said, “you shan’t repent it. I’ll use you well. You will be +mistress of a good house--and you will have no bad looks from me.” + +Stangerd turned away her face, not choosing that he should see her +tears. She was taking this badly, but her mind was full of shifts and +schemes how she could let Cormac know what was being done with her. +Berse had hold of her hand by this time, and was trying to coax her. + +“Look now, Stangerd,” he said, “it is not very pleasant for you here +these days. The neighbourhood will talk about a girl that has been +jilted on her wedding-day, and your father don’t like that, nor your +brother either. It is putting a slight upon the house, don’t you see? +Now, I’m a man well known in my own country for a ready hand, and there +won’t be things said about me which you or I won’t care to hear. At +least, they won’t be said twice. Do your best to make a friend of me, +and remember that a girl has to let her father be the judge of what’s +to be done with her. I am older than you are--that’s certain--but +see what experience I’ve had. Now my first wife was a woman called +Finna, of great family and riches; and she was a beauty, too. They +called her Finna the Fair. I don’t say that she was your match in that +respect--but she was very well indeed, I can assure you. Now that woman +got to be very fond of me before she died. She used to say there was +no one like me for wheedling. Now you give me a fair field, and you +shall see. I know what can be said for that Cormac of yours--a fine, +bold way with him, I don’t doubt, and when the mood was on him I can +understand that no girl could resist him. But what about his black +moods, my dear? How did you find him then? Scowling, glooming; not a +word to say for himself. That don’t make for a happy homestead--no, +no! Now there’s this to say for old Battle-Berse, that in peace or war +no man has ever seen him out of temper. Still less any woman. Always +ready with his crooked smile and lifted eyebrow--full of his quips and +crankums--always ready to kiss and cuddle; with a knee would seat half +a dozen of you at once--and all yours, Stangerd, when you want it. Try +me, my dear,--and if you want Cormac after a year in Sowerby, why, you +shall have him, for me. That’s a queer way of wooing a wife, but it’s +Berse’s way, and not a bad one. Now, what do you say?” + +He was an insinuating man. His arm was round her waist by now, and +before she lifted her head up his good-natured face was close to hers; +and when she did look at him, he kissed her. + +It was too late to be angry; but of course she didn’t like it. “If it +must be,” she said, “it must be; but spare me your kisses.” + +“No, no,” he said. “They are part of the bargain.” + +“They are not, then,” said she, “until the bargain’s done”--and she +went away. + +The hall was very full that night, and she had to serve them all; but +she was desperate to find a way of reaching Cormac. Presently there is +a call for more drink, and she sends Narve out to fill the pitchers, +and goes out to meet him half-way. + +She has a moment with him alone. She takes him by both shoulders and +stares at him. He puts down his pitchers and gapes into her face. + +“Oh, Narve, Narve, help me if you can,” she says. + +“That I will,” he says. + +She looks about her fearfully. “Tell Cormac--let him know to-night; +to-morrow will be too late,” she says. He sees that she is shaking all +over, and staring about as if she didn’t know what she was doing. + +“I’ll go to him,” says Narve. “I’ll go to him to-night--after they are +abed.” + +She is swaying about. “Ah,” she says, “catch me--I’m going to fall +down!” + +She falls into his arms. He picks her up and takes her out of doors, +and into the Bower by the women’s door. Then he goes back and picks up +his pitchers. + +In the hall he tells a maid to go and look after her. + + * * * * * + +It was late before they were all got to bed. Some of them were very +drunk. Toothgnasher had to be carried. Berse had all his wits about +him, and Wige the wolf-man had more than ever he had in the day. Narve +gave them an hour to get sound asleep and then slipped down the hall +and unfastened the door without noise. + +It was broad moonlight, and a river of black shade ran before every +wall; but he was well over them all, and had forded the river before he +knew he was being followed. He only knew it, indeed, by something which +is beside sense; for when he looked back he couldn’t see a sign of a +man. But he ran like a hare, did Narve, and was up the shoulder of the +hill and speeding down the path through a little pine wood, when all of +a sudden he felt a hand on his shoulder, and his heart jumped burning +into his throat. + +His knees failed, and down he sank upon them. By his side, right over +him as he found, was Wige, all silver-grey in the moonlight. + +“Oh! Mercy! What do you want with me?” he said. + +Wige said nothing, but stood still above him with hollow, sightless +eye-sockets. He was a very tall, thin man. + +Narve’s teeth were clattering together: it was a cold night. Suddenly +Wige stretched out a long arm, pointing the way back to Tongue. Narve +got upon his feet, and, watching the arm, began to edge along the way +he was intended to go. He walked sideways that he might keep an eye +upon the apparition; through the wood and up the wood he went, and got +into the open. In the broad moonlight Wige looked shining like metal. +Narve took to his heels and ran home as fast as he had come out, and +Wige fleeted behind him with long, noiseless strides. + +In the morning it was Narve’s business to get out and see to the cattle +in the byre. He was to drive them afield, and so he did. There was not +a soul in sight, but a light mist covered the ground so that you could +not see very far. He thought the chance a good one to steal over the +hills to Melstead, and took it. He made his way through brushwood and +rocks, and was half-way up the fell when out of the mist there loomed +before him a shape, tall and shadowy. The terrors of the night came +back to him, but something else also; for Wige fell upon him with a +ragged staff, and beat him about the shoulders and back. Again nothing +was said, and again nothing was done towards the help of Stangerd. +Narve saw her when he got home again, at the door of the Bower, with +her hair all over her shoulders. It had been washed for the wedding, +and she was drying it in the sun. He caught her eyes, and shook his +head sadly. She turned away her face. + + * * * * * + +But by noon she had recovered her composure, and, looking extremely +handsome, she went through the ceremonies which married her to +Battle-Berse. She made no difficulties and gave no trouble, but when +it came to handfasting, Thorkel her father saw the ring on her finger +which Cormac had put there, and told her to take it off. That she +refused. “Never,” she said. “That stays where it is.” Toothgnasher grew +rather rough. “We’ll soon see about that!” he said; but Berse stopped +him. “Leave my wife alone,” he said. “The ring suits her very well--and +she shall have plenty more for the other fingers when she wants them.” + +She was wedded by the afternoon, and the feast began and lasted all +night, as the custom is. On the morning after the Sowerby people set +off home. They rode by the shore, and they rode quietly, so that few +should know what was going on. There was to be a boat ready for them on +Ramfirth, by the landing of Thorveig the spae-wife. They would reach it +by noon. + +Directly they were well on their road, Narve started off to run to +Melstead. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHASE + + +In those days Cormac went about the work of the place; but he +was a changed man. He was fallen very silent, and grown thin and +grim-looking. You never heard his voice singing about the acres or up +the hill-side. He did not care to swim or to fish. He never spoke about +Stangerd, but neither Thorgils nor his mother supposed that she was out +of his mind. And she never was, not for a few moments together; but yet +he did not go near her, or even over the hills which would lead him +into the dale where Tongue was. From the top of the ridge you could see +Tongue lying snug in sycamore-trees with its fields orderly about it; +but Cormac would never go there now. He could not have told you why +that was; but he felt that he could not. + +Sometimes he reasoned with himself about it--especially when he felt a +great hunger for the sight of her, when his eyes ached for her. Then +he thought--“No, I cannot go, for I might see her. Then it might begin +all over again, and end as vainly--and I cannot go on like that.” He +told himself it was certainly true that Stangerd was too beautiful +for a man to marry; for what could any man do or enjoy which would be +worthy of so high a possession? Lie in her bosom, mingle with her in +love--but what were such things to compare with the thought of her, +which was like the wildest music, to the knowledge of her, which made +the heart beat and the eyes grow dim? The things which a man could do +with the woman he loved were good enough to do with common women--the +pleasure of love, the getting of children: that was the end of common +desire, and filled it. But with Stangerd, who made you faint at the +wonder of her--with Stangerd, whose touch made you tremble--such things +could not be, for they would tarnish the splendour of her, and serve +you little. It is better to think of kissing Stangerd than to kiss her; +it is better to dream of her bosom than to lie in it; for kisses cloy, +but the mind of a man endures. With such false reasoning he had to be +content, for he could not bring himself to go to her. Not once did it +enter his head that he was doing her a wrong. It never occurred to him +that she had given him her heart before she gave him her hand; that +she was in great want of him as well as wounded in her self-esteem. He +could not think of such things because he could never have believed +that she loved him. He put her above mankind or womankind. He said, She +is a Spirit who may be loved, but cannot love. Had he loved her less, +he would have had more joy of her, and she of him. That’s the truth of +it. + + * * * * * + +Now that morning he was at work below the house, and Thorgils with him, +and some others. They were building a wall of turves. Thorgils was +piling the turves, and Cormac was beating them in with a mallet. They +both looked up when they heard steps on the fell, and watched the man +coming over the stepping-stones of the river. Then Cormac turned to his +work, and worked hard. + +Thorgils said, “I think it is Narve from Tongue.” Cormac said nothing +to that. All except himself were watching the man. Thorgils said again, +“He has weapons, and carries a shield. What can he be about?” + +Toste said, “He looks back. His weapons are for somebody behind him. +What is the matter with him?” + +Thorgils said, “He is coming here. We shall know pretty soon.” + +Cormac took no notice, but went on working at his wall. + +Then Narve came up, stepping warily, with his eyes every way at once, +as if every wall-end or tussock of rushes might hold an ambush. + +“How now, Narve?” Toste called out to him. “What do you fear, man? And +whom are you after, with your war-gear?” + +Narve puffed out his cheeks, staring about him. “Pheugh!” he said. +“There’s need of war-gear in these days--and in the nights it’s worse +still. When silver-grey men rise up suddenly in thickets, and chase you +on silent feet----” + +“What news, Narve?” said Thorgils, who wanted to know it. “What news do +you bring from Tongue?” + +“I’m late with my news,” said Narve; “but I came as soon as I could. We +were busy last night.” + +“Were you so?” Thorgils asked him. “Had you guests with you?” + +“Guests,” said Narve. “Ah, we had guests. One was a werwolf.” + +Cormac at this point straightened himself. “Who were your guests?” he +asked. + +Narve said: “There was Battle-Berse from Sowerby, and seventeen with +him--of whom one was just what I told your brother.” + +But Cormac held him with his eye, and would not leave him. “And what +was Battle-Berse doing at Tongue?” + +“He was sitting at his wedding,” said Narve. + +Everybody was now very still. + +“And who was the bride?” Cormac asked that in a quiet way. + +“The bride was Stangerd, Thorkel’s daughter,” Narve said. + +Silence was upon all, and Cormac looked slowly about him, from face to +face. He was grey and pinched, but as he looked about, and saw in every +man’s face what could not be hid, rage gathered in him. He rolled his +eyes about, and suddenly whirled his mallet round his head and struck +with all his might at Narve. Narve gave a loud cry, and put up his +shield. That may have saved his life, but he fell back with a clatter, +and lay still, just as if he was dead. + +Thorgils said: “That was a shame, brother. The marriage was not of his +making.” + +“Bah!” said Cormac. “He croaks like a raven. Let him lie!” + +But Thorgils fetched water from a spring and brought the man round. +Narve sat up and held his head. + +“That was too bad,” he said. “I did my best to come here yesterday--and +this is how you serve me.” + +Thorgils asked him then, “Was this marriage done to Stangerd against +her will?” + +Narve said, “It was then. She was in a sad way about it, fluttering +and holding her heart. She got me aside and begged me to run to fetch +Cormac; and so I set out to do, in the middle of the night; but Wige +the wolf-man rose up silvery in the wood and scared me back. And yet +again before sunrise I started to come over the hill--and there in the +mist was Wige, a terrible man.” + +Thorgils looked at Cormac, who was leaning on his wall but listening. + +Narve went on complaining: “It is very well for Cormac to play the +lord of lands, and choose his time to have women come to him. A fine +girl like that! And so to treat a man that runs, at peril of his life, +to tell him bad news! He will find old Berse of another mettle, I’m +thinking, and then maybe he’ll look over his shoulder for help and +backing, and wish he had served me differently.” + +Thorgils wanted to know about the marriage-bargain, and Narve told him +what he knew. The risk was all to be Berse’s. He had promised to keep +harmless Stangerd’s kindred. + + * * * * * + +When Narve had taken himself off, Cormac threw down his mallet, and +turned to go down to the house. Thorgils watched him, let him go, and +presently followed him, running, caught him up and put his hand on his +shoulder. + +“Whither now?” he said. + +Cormac showed him the profile of a stern face. “I am going after her,” +he said. + +Thorgils was very sorry for him. “Ah, but that will do you no good,” he +said. “It’s too late.” + +“No, no,” said Cormac, “it’s not too late--for one thing or another.” + +Thorgils knew what he meant. “Well,” he said, “I am sure Berse will be +home before you can fetch at him--but I shall go with you.” + +“I shall wait for nobody,” Cormac said, and went into the house. +Thorgils turned back to summon all hands, and before he had got them +together, he saw Cormac spur out of the yard on his black horse. He +threw up his head and flacked his hands against his thighs in despair; +but he followed him with something like a dozen men, and by hard riding +managed to keep him in sight. + + * * * * * + +Cormac came down to the ferry where Thorveig’s house was. There was +a fine wind blowing, but all the boats were beached. Not one was in +the water, and nobody about the place. Well out in the firth he saw a +crowded boat--men and horses packed together. The gleam of white told +him all. Stangerd was there in a white dress--she seldom wore anything +else. They were too far off for him to make her out; but he saw that +she sat in the fore-part of the boat, and thought that she must see +him. He held up his hand that held the axe. His heart beat high. He +fancied that she lifted hers. He was no longer under the curse. All +his thoughts of her were purely good. He should see her soon. When he +turned about he saw Thorveig standing in the door of her house, the +tall, thin-haired woman with her faded, all-seeing, unseeing eyes. + +“What do you want here, Cormac?” she said. “I have no more sons for you +to slay.” + +“I want a boat to cross the water,” he said. “You shall be well paid +for it.” + +“Ah, you’ll find no boats here,” she said. “They are all high and dry, +as you see. They wait for the shipwright. They are all unseaworthy.” + +Cormac was looking at the boats. One after another he entered and eyed +over. There was a hole in every one of them. + +“You hag!” he said. “This is your doing. You have been at your tricks.” + +She frowned at him, but lifted her head high and seemed to look down at +him with scorn. + +“And what is it to you what I please to do with my own? Did you not so +with yours when you bade me off your land? And why may you be wanting a +boat on this water, which is none of yours?” And then she came closer +to him and pried into his face. “And why should I help you at all, +Cormac?” she asked him. + +But Cormac had forgotten her and her boats and was looking over the +blue and windy water. The boat was more than half-way across. Again he +flung up his hand with the axe; and when again he saw the white sleeve +lift he pressed his knees into his horse as if he would ride into the +water and swim after Stangerd. But just then Thorgils and his company +rode up. + +Thorgils asked the spae-wife the same question--Could they have a boat? + +“Boats! Boats!” she cried. “Look at the boats. There’s not one sound +one amongst them all.” + +“No, you old vixen!” Cormac said. “That’s because you have stove them +in.” + +He picked out one of them, nevertheless. “I’ll try this,” he said to +Thorgils. “We can caulk her with mud and rushes.” + +Thorgils shook his head. “Better not--she’ll sink you. It will be +quicker in the end to ride round by the head of the firth.” + +“Go as you will,” said Cormac. “I shall take this boat.” + +“You shall pay for her--you shall pay!” cried the spae-wife. + +Cormac was on his feet, tugging at the boat. + +“Give her the hire, and let me be out,” he said. + +Thorgils bargained with her for half a mark, and Cormac led his horse +into the boat, when they had caulked her with rope and pitch. Toste +went with him to help him row. They had got about a bowshot out when +the old tub began to fill. Almost before those on shore understood as +much, the water was over the gunwale, and men and horses were in the +water. + +“Ah, you old b----h!” Thorgils cried to the woman. “You would drown my +brother, would you?” + +She had her lips locked together, and cold fire in her eyes. She nodded +her head sharply three or four times. She was a great hater. + +But the men and the horses came ashore; and Cormac owned that there was +nothing for it but to go round the firth-head. That put a good fifteen +miles on to the journey, and would make him too late. He had lost her! + +He said nothing about it, and was surprised himself to find that he had +no wish to kill anybody. Before he could reach Sowerby Stangerd would +be lost to him. He found that he loved her the more for the thought of +that. He had not--at least, not at this moment of first certainty--the +jealous rage of the lover who knows that his mistress is possessed by +another man. The thought of her beauty mounted his head like wine. + +The whole troop of them rode round the head of Ramfirth. The first +house they came to was Mull, where a man called Wale lived. He was a +friend of Berse’s, and had been at the wedding. + +This Wale was standing at the gate of his court, waiting for them. +Greetings passed. + +Cormac said, “Shall we find Berse up at his house, think you? We are +come to deal with him?” + +Wale answered him: “You will find him there, sure enough. It is two +hours’ riding. And he has been home this two hours or more. There’s a +great company there with him. I think you will do little good.” + +Thorgils looked at Cormac, being himself sure they were come on a +fool’s errand. But Cormac was thinking of other things. So then +Thorgils said, “Brother, what say you? To my mind it is foolishness, +going on. We can do nothing against them. They have the law, they have +the lady, and they will be more than we.” + +Cormac then gave him a glance: it was no more than a glance. “Do as you +will,” he said. “I shall go on, for I must see Stangerd.” + +“You will never see her,” said Thorgils. + +Cormac made no reply, but still looked up the shadowed valley whither +they had taken her. + +Presently he seemed to come to himself, and gathered up the reins, and +moved up the path at a walk. Thorgils looked about at the faces of his +friends. “What are we to do with him?” he said to Toste. “We had better +follow. No one knows what may befall him.” + +Toste tossed his head up. “A bad business to my thinking--but you are +right.” + +So they went up the road after Cormac, and all together into the dark +valley among the rocks, where Berse had his homestead well fortified +against the weather and his enemies. As they rounded the tongue of land +which made a natural outpost to the place, they saw that they were +expected. Berse stood there in war-gear, surrounded by his friends. +There were twenty to thirty of them. + +The party from Melstead drew rein, and each side looked at the other +for a while. Then Cormac left his company and cantered forward alone. +Seeing that, Berse, who was on foot, came out to meet him, but not a +long way. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PARLEY + + +Cormac was hot and fierce. “Berse,” he said, “you have behaved falsely +to me, who never did you any harm.” + +“Not a bit of it,” said Berse. + +“But I say that you have. Stangerd was my plighted wife, and all the +country knew it. This wedding was done without my knowledge and against +her will--and you have betrayed us.” + +Berse looked away from him into the sky. There was a queer light in +his eyes, as if he saw strange birds flying, and was more amused than +curious about them. + +“All this,” he said, “is very wild talk; but I understand you. You had +better tell me what it is you want--seeing the deed is done.” + +Cormac mastered himself, and spoke as coolly as he could, but in a +carrying voice. “I am come to have Stangerd back again, and ransom of +the affront.” + +Berse looked now at his friend Thord Arndisson, who was by him. He +nodded his head two or three times, and had the same gleam of amusement +in his eyes. + +“Fine talk,” he said, “brave talk, but----” He gave up the attempt. +Whatever was the use of talking like this? + +Thord Arndisson spoke. + +“Cormac,” said he, “when you are cooler you will see that you are +asking outlandish things. Now let us be reasonable. Berse here acted +as his right was, knowing nothing of you or your affairs. What he was +told, that he understood; and it was that a day was fixed for the +marriage, and that you did not come, but instead of you, your brother +Thorgils came with the news that he could not find you; and ‘Maybe +he is abroad,’ he said. Now I offer you terms on behalf of Berse; but +certainly Berse keeps the woman.” + +Berse said: “Cormac, there is no question of Stangerd going back with +you. That I shall never agree to, nor will she, as you will find if you +ask her. Instead of her, I will give you my sister Hilda for a wife. +She is here in the house, and you can go and look at her. But if you +get her, you will be very well married, in my opinion. I can’t say +fairer for you than that.” + +Cormac stood frowning and biting his cheek. He was looking at the house +for any sign of Stangerd, but the door was shut, and there was nothing +to see. + +Thorgils thought very well of Berse’s offer. “It is very fair,” he +said, and then to Cormac: “Let us talk about this, Cormac.” + +Just then a woman called out from the throng behind the two brothers: +“Do no such folly, Thorgils.” And then she stepped out from the +company. She was a woman called Thordis, who lived at Spaewife’s Fell. + +“Out on it,” she said sharply. “Don’t you be trickt by them. That +woman is a fool; and you expect a fine man like Cormac to take to her? +Madness, Cormac!” + +Thord Arndisson was much put out. “Get back with you, witch-wife.” He +turned to Cormac, saying: “I tell you that Hilda will turn out a wonder +of the world.” + +Cormac said, “She may burn the world out for aught I care. She will +never burn me.” + +Thorgils would have urged him again; but now Cormac could hear no voice +but his own. He confronted Berse. + +“Berse,” he said, “there is but one thing to do. I challenge you to +wager-of-battle in fifteen days at the Leet-holm.” + +At this place Berse had fought many and many a wager out. + +“I know the way to Leet-holm very well,” he said; “better than you do, +I expect. I will be there, don’t doubt me; but I take leave to tell you +that there is less joy for you at Leet-holm than there may be here in +Sowerby if you choose for it.” + +“But I don’t choose,” said Cormac, and made to go by him towards the +house. Thord Arndisson went after him. + +“Where are you for?” he called out. Cormac stopped, and turned full +round to face him and Berse. + +“I am going into Berse’s house, to see Stangerd. Are you for stopping +me?” + +Thord said to Berse: “Do you hear that?” + +“I do,” said Berse. + +“Is he to go in?” + +“Why not?” said Berse. + +Cormac by this time was half-way to the house. Berse’s men made a road +for him. He went to the door, shook the latch, and gave a kick with his +foot which sent it flying open. + +The great hall was set for a feast, and the women were still about the +tables. Hilda was there, and Stanvor also; but not Stangerd. + +Cormac asked for her. Hilda looked doubtfully about her; but Stanvor +was not at all afraid. + +“You will find her in the Bower,” she said, and went on with her +business. + + * * * * * + +Cormac went into the Bower. Stangerd rose up. She wore her golden +wreath, and was very quiet. She said nothing, and they looked at each +other for a while. + +Then Cormac went to her and put a hand on either shoulder. + +“You could not wait for me, my dear,--and now I am too late.” + +She would not look up. “I should have waited if I could,” she said; +“but you kept me too long.” + +He said, “Had I kept you a thousand years, that would not have cooled +my love. You told me that you were steadfast.” + +“So I am,” she said. + +“You should have come with me when I called you,” he said. “I told you +long ago how I would have wedded you. You should have come into my arms +then and there, and I would have carried you away--but you have chosen +differently.” + +She said: “I have not chosen at all.” + +“No more reproaches,” said Cormac, “between you and me. I shall never +give you up. You are my love. But I will do you no wrong.” + +She was more moved than he was, though she stayed very quiet under his +hands. She did not raise her head to look at him, nor did he ask her. +For a little time longer they remained standing so together; and then +he shook his head suddenly and left her. + +Presently Stanvor Slimlegs came into the Bower and moved about Stangerd +where she still stood in mid-floor. + +Then Stanvor came near her, and said: “Listen, Stangerd. I love Berse, +and shall not leave him unless you force me.” + +“I shall not force you,” said Stangerd. + +“He does not care for me in the way of marriage, or he could have +married me when he chose. And you care little for him, I fancy. The +world is a strange one for women. I would give all I have to be where +you will be to-night, and you, I suppose, would give the same for my +place.” + +“No, I would not,” said Stangerd. “I would keep what I have if I could.” + +“You would keep it for Cormac?” + +But Stangerd said, “Cormac will never have anything of mine.” + +They stood near together, these two, looking out of window. Words +seemed upon the edges of their lips, which might have been winged if +they had gained utterance. Stanvor always looked like that, as if +she was full of sayings which she could not frame into speech. She +seemed to be worn thin and fine with the burden of what she wanted to +declare. Stangerd was silent also. She was deeply despondent, and had +not, perhaps, any desire to unbosom herself. They stood so for quite +a long time, looking out at the dusk gathering about the folds of the +mountain. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CORMAC MAKES READY + + +Cormac made this song, and sang it to himself as he wandered the fell: + + Berse, you have dared impossibly, + Taking what I have feared to take-- + Looking where I have feared to see, + Dipping where none may dip and be + Still man, within the lonely lake. + + To have scaled the awful mountain pass, + To have seen unblencht the untrod snows, + Affronting with your front of brass + The heart of the everlasting rose-- + You have dared enough and shall give o’er + Your daring. You have dared so much: + Let it suffice. No more, no more. + Yet seeing by that desperate touch + There is come glory on your brow; + And to your name the pride is such + The man who bears it he must die, + I tell you, Berse, the time is now + Before you’ve time to blur and dull it + With your gross brain and teeming eye + And tongue, when righteous hand shall clutch + Your throat and take you by the gullet + And wrench the life out, and the lie + You make of it--and here’s the sign-- + The clutching hand writes this: ’tis mine. + +He got great comfort out of these lines, but his brother looked askance +at them, and his mother gave him other counsel. + +“My son,” she said, “you have to confront a champion in a play which he +knows by heart. Have you thought how you shall go to work?” + +Cormac said that he had. + +“Well,” said his brother, “have you considered with what weapon you +will meet Berse?” + +Cormac said, “I will have a heavy axe, with a long handle.” + +“And he,” said Dalla, “will have Whiting, which is a sharp sword, and +a charmed sword. It has a healing-stone in its hilt. It would turn any +axe you could get.” + +Cormac was put out. “I would trust my fingers to reach his windpipe,” +he said, “and after that let Whiting bite the grass.” + +“All this is foolishness,” his mother replied. “I am the widow of your +father, who was a fighting man, and know what I am talking about. Now +do you go to see Skeggi of Reykir and ask him for Shavening. That is a +sword of renown.” + +“I know it is,” said Cormac. + +He thought after a while that he would go. + +Skeggi was an elderly man who lived at Reykir, across the Mid-river. +Melstead looked upon Reykir. Skeggi was also a heavy, ruminating man +who, instead of answering a direct question directly, used to say, “Let +us see,” or “Let us think about it.” That was just what he said when +Cormac came for the loan of Shavening. He was threshing corn in his +barn, and, having heard what Cormac wanted, said that they must think +it over, and went on with his threshing. Cormac contained himself as +well as he could, which was very little indeed; but Skeggi was not to +be moved by finger-nail biting or ramping up and down the doorway. + +Then, when he had done all he had a mind to do, he hung up his flail, +and came to Cormac. + +“My son,” he said, “it would never do.” + +“Do you mean,” said Cormac, “that you will not lend me your sword?” + +“My meaning,” said Skeggi, “is like this. You two would not get on +together. That is what I mean.” + +“I don’t understand that,” Cormac told him. + +“Shavening, my sword,” said Skeggi, “is what we call a slow sword. It +is a deliberate sword, a sword of queer temper. Now you, too, are of +a queer temper, I can see; but the queerness of your temper is not +the queerness of Shavening’s temper. Why, you would be for slicing and +hewing before Shavening had made up his mind to quit the sheath. Tush! +no good could come of it.” He shook his head, and felt the beard on his +chin. He raised his head and stroked up the beard of his neck. + +“My question, Skeggi, is, Will you or will you not lend me your sword?” + +Skeggi looked at him, suspending his work at his beard. + +“That’s a question!” he said. “We must think about that.” + +“Pish!” said Cormac, and went away. + + * * * * * + +He came home in a red flurry of rage, and it was long before his mother +could get a word out of him. Then she said, “You go to work madly, my +son. Skeggi will lend you Shavening, but not that gait. You must take a +man as a man takes you. If he is slow-minded, you must keep yourself +slow. He will lend you Shavening.” + +Cormac frowned. “It will be a fine thing for a man who is to meet a +champion at the Holm that he owes his weapon to his mother.” + +Dalla said, “He owes it to his mother that he is able to go there at +all.” + + * * * * * + +After a few days she spoke to her unruly son again. “Go and see +Skeggi,” she said, “and treat him fairly. He will lend you his sword.” + +So Cormac rides over to Reykir a second time. + +Skeggi was ready for him. He brought the sword out from under his +bedding; it was wrapped up in a sheepskin. He unfolded the fleece and +laid Shavening on his knees. Shavening had a long handle with a short +guard. Attached to the handle by two leather thongs was a purse of +leather sewn up. “This purse,” he said, “goes about with Shavening +everywhere. Now, you must leave that alone.” + +Cormac, frowning at the sword, nodded his head shortly. + +Skeggi went on talking. “Now these are the matters to be known in your +conduct of Shavening. First, the sun must not shine upon either hilt or +guard: see first of all to that, and keep him in his sheepskin until +you want him. Next, you shall not wear him until the morning of the day +when you have use for him--not, indeed, until you are to ride out for +the place of your battle. And when you get to your battle-place, this +is what you shall do. You shall take yourself apart from all men, and +draw Shavening slowly from his scabbard until you have him fair in the +light. Stretch him out his length, hold him up, and blow upon him. Then +watch him. A little snake will come forth from under the guard, with a +flat head. He will come out half-way and look at you. Now you must hold +Shavening steady, and in such a way that the snake can go back under +the hilt. Do you follow me in every point?” + +Cormac was frowning himself black. “I hear you,” he said, “and I +understand you. But let me tell you that those are tricks for a wizard.” + +Skeggi said, “It may be so; but you will either do as I tell you, or be +sorry for it.” He wrapped Shavening again in his sheepskin and handed +him over without another word. + +Cormac rode home. + +He thanked his mother for her help. “I was uncivil,” he said. “Without +you I should never have got it.” + +“So you _have_ got it?” she asked. + +“Here is the wonder-brand,” he said, and took it out of the sheepskin. +Dalla felt it up and down with her hands. + +Cormac shook it, weighed it in his hand, and turned it about. Then he +set his other hand to it and tried to draw it; but it would not budge. +“A plague take it,” he said. “It works too stiff for me. It works as +stiff as its master.” + +“Take care,” said Dalla; “you are too rough with him.” + +But Cormac was angry, and the more he tugged the angrier he got. + +“A blight on wizardry!” he cried. He put his foot on the scabbard and +tugged at the hilt. The purse got in his way: he tore it off. Then he +pulled with all his might. Shavening screamed, but would not come out. +Cormac flung it on the floor, and went out of the house. Dalla picked +it up, mended the purse-strings, and wrapped Shavening again in his +fleece. + +Cormac took no further heed of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +BATTLE + + +So the day came round for the battle, and Cormac with his brother and +his men rode out to the Holm which is called Leet-holm, a day’s and a +night’s journey for the party; but not so far for Berse and his party. + +Berse went off before it was light, and left Stangerd in bed. She +would have nothing to say to him about it, but he kept his temper. +Young Stanvor Slimlegs was astir to give him a horn of hot drink and +to see him ride away. She served him while he was fastening up his +fighting-gear; she brought him Whiting and buckled it upon him; then +his cloak to go over all. There was no speech between them till just +the end, when Berse put his hand on her shoulder and said: “Good girl!” + +Stanvor then said, “Good luck to your fighting!” + +Berse pulled a wry face, and jerked back his head on his shoulders. + +“That is much more than _she_ says.” + +Stanvor replied, “She does not know her own fortune. But she will know +it.” + +Stangerd, lying in her bed with her hands between her knees, heard them +talking. She ground her teeth together and listened. There was no more +said. “Now they are kissing,” she thought. + +But it was not so. Berse left the house without more ado and rode away +down the valley, neither speaking to Stanvor any more, nor looking at +her. + + * * * * * + +Leet-holm on Whamfirth is a flat meadow beside the river. The fells +stand all round about, so that you scarcely see where is the road to +the sea. It is hard ground at most times of the year, and a very good +battle-ground. + +Cormac and his men were first to be there; he was in a bad temper, and +had done, so far, none of the things he had been told to do. He had +girt himself with Shavening outside his clothes, so that the sun had +shone upon the hilt from its first rising. And he had taken off and +left behind him the purse which Skeggi said was to be left in place. He +was, in fact, most perverse. + +When the two parties were within hail, Berse rode forward and saluted +Cormac’s company. + +“Let me have a word with you, my friends,” he said pleasantly, “and +most of all with you, Cormac.” + +Cormac, scowling, said, “We are not come to have words with you.” + +“But you shall have them, whether or no,” said Berse; “and I have this +to say. You are a young man and I am not; you have fought little and +I have fought much. You have challenged me to wager-of-battle, which +is a tricky game wherein neither rage, nor spleen, nor youth, nor +muscle will help you so much as a cool head and a knowledge of the +game. These have I. Now, if you will, the battle shall be changed to a +fighting-match. That is, a bout where there are no rules but the rules +of nature. Wild cats can play that game, and moorcocks know it well. +Take it as you will: I mean fairly.” + +Thorgils said, “Nothing could be more honourably spoken,” and all his +friends agreed among each other that he was right. + +Cormac would not accept of it. He shook off Thorgils and moved apart. + +“I will abide by the challenge,” he said. “I will face you in any way, +and match myself with you in everything. If you know the rules, I will +learn them.” + +Berse shrugged his shoulder. “Be it so. I have done my best for you.” + + * * * * * + +Then they prepared the ground according to the laws of wager-of-battle. +They stretched an ox-hide on the ground and pegged it out with +hazel-wands. Upon this they set the champions facing each other; and +then the shield-bearers stood up. In wager-of-battle either man has a +shield-bearer, who defends him with three shields in turn. If these +are cloven without a scratch given or received, the men fight without +shields, save the targets they carry for themselves, until blood falls +upon the hide or one man is driven off it. + + * * * * * + +Now Cormac forgot all the rest of Skeggi’s instructions. He did +not withdraw himself when he unbuckled Shavening, and instead of +unsheathing him slowly he tried to get him out with a quick jerk. +Shavening would not budge. Cormac, red and furious, took him by the +point of the scabbard, set his feet upon the guards of the hilt and +tore the scabbard off him by main force. Shavening screamed as he came +out. The snake did not show himself at all, but instead a dull mist +settled down upon the blade, and did not all clear off again, running +before the strength of the sun; but some remained in blotches upon him. + +Berse said, “I know that sword of old. That’s not the way to treat +him.” His little bright eyes were twinkling, and he twitched his +cheek-bones incessantly. He took his stand upon the hide without +any fuss, walking to it as if he knew the way very well--as indeed +he did--talking as he went to his shield-bearer, and making jokes. +Cormac was serious, and had nothing to say. He felt that all eyes were +on him, to see where and how he failed in the laws of this battle. +But he did not require to be shown where to stand. Thorgils was his +shield-bearer, and the first blow was to Berse. + +Whiting seemed to cut leather and wattle like butter. He sliced through +the rim and shore the shield in two halves, but did not touch Cormac, +or drive him back. Then Cormac, in his turn, cut at Berse’s shield. +Shavening would have worked more easily if he had not been so driven. +But as it was, the shield was broken rather than cut, and Shavening +required some force to be withdrawn. Berse blinked, and shook his head +to see that. It was on the tip of his tongue to give advice--but he +stopped himself in time. + +The three shields to a man, allowed by the laws, were broken, and then +the champions faced each other with sword and targe. Berse was now +warmed to his work, and the battle-joy shone like points of fire in his +eyes. He meant business now, one could see. Cormac was very still, and +rather grey in the face. He was the first to attack and Berse parried +him, took a step backwards, which brought him to the edge of the hide, +dipped sideways, ran in under cover of his round shield, and made a +feint at Cormac’s left shoulder. Cormac stopped him there, and Berse +swung Whiting round and brought him down like a squall to Cormac’s +right. Cormac got Shavening up in time, and caught Whiting at the point +where the ridge ends and the blade gets thin. Shavening sliced through +Whiting and dispointed him. The point spun in the air like a coin and +struck Cormac on the sword hand. It cut the knuckle to the bone, and +the blood spurted. Men gave a cry, and then it was seen that Shavening +had come down upon Berse’s target and got a jag in himself. Berse had +given back to the edge of the hide, and Cormac was in the act to rush +in upon him when Thorgils lifted his arm and prevented him. + +“Bloodshed,” he said. “The fight is done, brother.” + +Cormac glared at him, and next at Berse; but now the onlookers were +between the champions. The fight was over, Cormac bleeding freely from +the hand. + +Berse was wiping the sweat from his face. “I’m shorter in the wind than +I was,” he said to his friends. “If Cormac were not in such a rage, he +would have done better. As it is, he has done well.” + +“He’ll not be satisfied with this,” a man said. + +“He’ll have to pay the blood-money,” said Berse. + + * * * * * + +Cormac was not at all satisfied. “Does he call that victory? A scratch +from a broken sword-point? Can he do no better? Let him get a sword +from his kindred and meet me again. I have one hand left.” He was +talking wildly. + +Presently Berse pushed through the crowd and came to him. + +“I claim the ransom,” he said. “You did well, Cormac; but I bled you.” + +“You shall be paid,” said Cormac; “but this is not the end.” + +“It is, for me,” Berse said. “Now you have a nasty jag in the hand--no +fault of yours, but pure misfortune--and you have far to ride. Now, +will you come home with me and get it dressed there? Stangerd shall see +to you. I promise you that.” + +Cormac shook the blood from his hand. “Do you think that I will see +my love in your house, and the bed wherein you lie? I would bleed to +death before I saw it. Get you gone with your broken sword, and find +you another. There is no end to the strife between us. You have stolen +my love, and every hour that you spend with her is horrible to me. For +every hour of it you shall pay me back.” + +“You are talking wildly,” said Berse. “But I see that you would take +anything amiss. Even if she came to you now you would revile her for +the deed. We had better part now; but I wish you well--and more sense.” + +So they parted. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +BERSE GOES HOME + + +At the door of his house stood Stanvor Slimlegs in a white gown, with +the fire of welcome shining in her face. Berse chuckled to himself to +see her there, and said to his friend Thord: “That’s a good little +girl, mighty fond of me.” + +“So she is, then,” says Thord. “Anybody might see that.” + +Berse at first had no better comment than a grunt. “There’s one at home +might see it and care no more than one fly cares for another that has +his legs in the honey-pot.” + +“You married her against her will,” Thord told him. + +“I’ll get her good-will yet,” Berse said. “I’ve had everything I wanted +out of the world so far, and I’m not going to be denied now.” He +stopped there; then, just as they were in the court, he said, “She’s as +cold as a fish. You might as well make love to a dead woman.” + +“If Stangerd is cold,” said Thord, “it is because she is banking her +fire. The fire is there.” + +Stanvor did not move from the doorway, for she was shy, and always wary +in what she showed. She was used to Berse’s plain way, and expected no +more than she got. + +“One-and-thirty battles now,” she said as Berse came up. + +Berse suddenly laughed. “One-and-thirty battles, my pretty one!” and +put his arms round her and kissed her mouth. She took that quietly, +and freed herself from him without making a fuss. You notice--as Berse +noticed--that she took his victory for granted. + +He asked her, Where was Stangerd. She told him, In the Bower. + +“Does she not know we have come home?” + +“I think she does. I am sure she does, because I told her when I saw +you coming round the shoulder.” + +Berse twinkled, looking at her. “You have a far sight, my child.” + +She made no answer to that, and moved away, because Stangerd had come +into the hall, and stood looking at Berse and his company. + +She had a blue gown and a green scarf over one shoulder and half her +bosom. Her eyes were watchful, and brighter blue than her gown; her +colour was high, burning on her cheek-bones. Certainly she was the most +lovely woman in Iceland. Berse’s courage rose to meet her. + +“Well,” she said, “have you killed Cormac?” She spoke sullenly, without +curiosity or anxiety; but Berse was very gay and laughed at her. + +“I have not, my dear. I am too old a hand for such folly as that. Now +shall I tell you in Cormac’s way what I have done?” + +She looked at him steadily. “You shall,” she said, “if you can.” + +Berse did not lose heart. He lifted his sword Whiting as if it had been +the backbone of a harp, and struck upon it with his fingers. + + “Listen all-- The battle flame + Flickered from the cloudy dark, + Breathing slaughter; on he came, + Stood within the withied hide; + There the old war-dog stood stark. + Shavening screamed, but Whiting met him: + Whiting fell, but Shavening bit him-- + Took his nose off, flung it wide. + Ill to see and ill to bide + When the shard flew off and hit him-- + Red blood flowed--the law must hold. + Yet the young man matcht the old.” + +Stangerd, whose colour was very hot now, said, “That is bad poetry, if +ever I heard it, but it shows you a generous man.” + +Berse laughed. “Sweetheart,” he said, “I should like to please you if I +could. I tell you he made a good match. A fine fighter. A champion.” + +She said, “You do please me by such dealing.” + +He put his arm round her. “You have never said a kinder thing to me. +You make me a generous man by treating me so.” + +Stanvor Slimlegs watched them from a corner of the room. + +Stangerd drew away, but not roughly. Her eyes were full of thought. + +Afterwards she and Stanvor served the men in the hall, and once, as +she stood over Berse to pour into his horn, she put her hand on his +shoulder and left it there for a while. Berse said nothing and did +nothing except twitch his face and blink his eyes; but he did not stay +very long in the hall. That night she was kinder to him than she had +ever been since he had married her; and by and by he told her so. + +She sighed and turned away. “You are easily satisfied,” she said. + +Little Stanvor, lying awake, was full of thought. “He is a wonderful +man to have brought her round. Now he will be happy. He can’t bear to +have glum looks about him. He might have four women here instead of +two. His heart is large enough for them all.” + +In the morning her sharp eyes saw confirmation. Stangerd was very +sedate, but her eyes were not haggard; nor was she peevish. Berse was +full of his jokes and mischievous tricks. He played with Stanvor and +made Stangerd jealous. Then he made friends with Stangerd against her +will. She would not look at him, but she listened to him, and in spite +of herself laughed at what he whispered in her ear, and let him kiss +her. There was no more talk of Cormac; and when Berse brought out +Whiting from his scabbard and showed him to the two girls with his +ragged square end where the point had been sliced off by Shavening, +Stanvor, looking guardedly askance, saw that Stangerd’s eyes were +very bright. She said nothing--but it was she herself who turned the +grindstone when Berse repointed the blade. + +Then she began to do little offices for Berse, which Stanvor had always +done before. She used to come to the door to wait for him, and find +Stanvor there. After a few days of that, Stanvor gave up going there; +but she watched for him out of the window of the hall. She fancied +sometimes that Stangerd might really be jealous, but would be too proud +to show it. That made her very careful. She told herself that she +would be showing her love for Berse a very shabby thing if she stood +in the way of what his heart was set upon. He was making progress with +Stangerd, it was very clear. He used to discuss that with Stanvor +whenever he found himself alone with her. He would say, “The proud girl +laughed at me this morning. She has a kindness for me, you know, child.” + +Stanvor would say, “Be sure she has. I have noticed her.” + +Once Stanvor told him things which she had found out. “Stangerd was +very restless because you were so late home,” she told him. + +“Was she indeed, child?” + +“Yes. She couldn’t settle to anything. She asked me three times to +tell her who would be at the horse-fighting, and afterwards at Thord’s +house.” + +Berse twinkled, and rubbed his chin. “She thought there might be women +there.” + +Stanvor did not answer at first. Presently she said, “She asked me if I +thought there would be any girls there.” + +“And what did you say?” + +Stanvor opened her eyes wider. “I said there would not be any.” + +“Good!” said Berse. “I like her question, and I like your answer. You +are a girl of gold.” He rubbed his hands together. “We are getting +on--oh, yes, we are getting on. She’s a beauty--isn’t she now?” + +“I think she’s very beautiful,” Stanvor said. + +“So she is, then,” said Berse, then looked closely at Stanvor, and then +stopped. She had turned her head away, but showed by no other sign that +the talk was painful to her. Berse had very kind looks for the young +girl, and served her with them very often. + + * * * * * + +Cormac made no sign until the Spring, nor was the ransom paid. But when +the weather opened and the Spring was come there was talk about the +Thing at Thorsness where Berse would go and some of Cormac’s friends +would certainly be. Berse made sure of being paid there. + +When the time came that Berse was to set out for the Thing, Stangerd +wished to go with him; but he would not allow her. “No, no, my beauty,” +he said. “The Thing is no place for women. It’s rough lodging there, +and rough work is done. Besides that, you would meet your old flame +there, and I shouldn’t like that now.” + +She looked at him steadily. “Is that what you are afraid of?” + +“I don’t know that I’m afraid of anything,” he said; “but you’ve taken +a liking for me lately which I should be sorry to have disturbed.” + +She did not answer him directly. She was always slow to speak. Nobody +but Cormac had ever got a confession out of her. She kept her eyes +fixed towards the ground. “I should like to go with you,” was all she +had to say. + +Berse’s face flickered. “It can’t be so, my dear. I am sorry about it. +But it would make trouble.” + +“No,” she said, “it would not. It would spare trouble.” + +“I’ll take all the trouble that comes to me about you,” Berse said. “I +told your kindred as much and will be as good as my word. You are worth +it.” + +She looked at him now. “I don’t often ask you to do a thing for me.” + +“My dear,” he said, “that is true. I wish you did.” + +“You won’t let me come with you?” She was very insistent. It was plain +to Stanvor that she wanted to go, and why she wanted to go. It was +plain, also, that Berse misunderstood her. To this last question of +hers he shook his head. “That can’t be.” + +She turned away. “Have it as you will,” she said, and went away without +another word. He thought that she would be sulky with him later on; +but she was not. She never opened her heart to him--that was not her +way. Yet he felt that she was inclined to him, and said to himself as +he went off to sleep: “This is the best of my battles--to have engaged +with this stormy heart and to have quelled it.” + +When he was ready to go and came to bid her farewell, she clung to him. +That touched him, and he stayed with her for a while. + +“Speak to me, Stangerd,” he said. “You are a strange girl to be so +quiet when I am such a magpie.” + +“I can’t talk,” she said; “but you should have let me come. I had a +reason.” + +“I knew that,” he answered. “Come, now, what was your reason?” + +She wouldn’t tell him for some time; but at last she said, “I could +have shown that to Cormac which would have made him leave you alone.” + +He held her close. “My dear one,” he said, “you make me happy. Now +understand that I can take care of myself very well, and that Cormac +shall take no harm from me.” Then he kissed her, and she looked at him +sadly. + +“You should have taken me with you,” she said again. “You will be sorry +that you did not.” + +“Why, so I shall, sweetheart,” he said with a laugh; “but I shall be +the merrier for you when I come back.” + +So he went off to the Thing, without a good-bye for Stanvor, who +watched him go from the window of the Bower. + +The two girls were very guarded with each other while Berse was away. +They never once spoke of him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +DOINGS AT THE THING + + +To the Thing at Thorsness came all the West. When Berse came there with +his friends he was late. Most of the booths were full, and he could not +get his proper place in that of his chief, Anlaf Peacock of Herdholt. +There was a great crowd. In the seat which Berse had always had, next +to his friend Thord, there sat a large man, very broad-shouldered, +covered with a bearskin. Over his head he had a hood made of the skin, +which fell before his eyes and made a darkness. He had a black beard +down to his breast. Between his knees was a long sword in a grey sheath +of walrus hide, and both his hands were upon the hilt of it. + +Berse looked him over, and puzzled who he was. + +He asked his neighbour--“Tell me, who is our huge friend?” + +“Some call him Glum, some call him Grim. I don’t know what his real +name is, but I am sure it is neither of those.” + +“Well,” said Berse, “we’ll have it out of him presently.” + +Men were jostling and crowding in the booth, all talking together, +drinking and making jokes. Berse bided his time, and presently trod +heavily on the foot of the covered man. + +He drew it in hastily. “Steady, there!” he said. + +Then Berse turned to look at him. “So you live--some part of you? I was +thinking you disposed for burial, and was minded to pile stones over +you.” + +“A cairn will be built, it is very like,” said the Stranger, “but the +dead man is not known who shall sit in it.” + +“Now,” said Berse, “we will make some way towards knowing his name. +You shall tell us yours, to begin with, whether Scrum, or Glum, or +Bears’-Paws, or whatever it may be. And then you shall tell us why you +choose to sit in the dark.” + +The Stranger pushed his hood back and showed his fierce face and black +beard. He was very white-skinned, but his hair and eyes dark as thunder. + +“Stanhere is my name,” he said, “and I am of this country. I may have +money of Cormac’s to pay over to you, or I may not.” + +“Oho! That’s it, then?” says Berse. “Cormac has been long settling his +accounts. I wonder that I don’t see him here.” + +“You will see him,” said Stanhere, “but not yet. Now I challenge you, +Berse, to wager-of-battle here at the Thing, and it may be that you +will get double ransom; but I think myself that you will get none.” + +Berse chuckled. “You and your friends are in a hurry to get rid of me,” +he said; “but I have been too bony for Cormac to swallow, and perhaps I +may give you a stomach-ache before I’ve done with you. You take a high +road, it seems to me. Perhaps you may stumble one of these fine days. +One-and-thirty men have tried to stretch me out, you must know.” + +Stanhere looked straight before him, an immovable kind of man. “We +don’t desire your death,” he said. + +“Then what in thunder do you desire?” Berse asked him. + +“We desire to put you in your place,” said Stanhere. + +“You’ve done that already,” Berse told him. + +Afterwards the day of meeting was appointed, and before it was reached +Cormac had come to the Thing. Nobody but Stanhere knew where he had +been or what he had been doing. He had not been at home since his +battle with Berse, but he had returned Shavening to Skeggi without a +word, and then had betaken himself to his cousin Stanhere’s house. +There he had remained ever since, hardly speaking or moving. Stanhere, +who was a silent, heavy, slow-moving man himself, saw nothing in this; +but it was very unlike Cormac to be brooding. + + * * * * * + +Berse armed himself for the battle in his usual brisk manner. He had +Whiting, he had a target which Thorveig the spae-wife had given him; he +had Anlaf Peacock to hold his shield. He came joking to the Holm, and +when he saw Cormac was to be Stanhere’s shield-bearer, he nodded and +laughed, as if it was all a good joke. + +Scryme was the name of Stanhere’s sword, and they say of it that it +never got rusty. The reason of that may be that it had no time; for +its master was as frequent a champion as Berse. + +Now Berse, who began the battle, cut away two of Stanhere’s shields +one after the other; but at the third shield he got Whiting jammed in +the iron rim, and for a moment could not get him out. Cormac turned +the shield sideways and jammed Whiting the faster; then Stanhere, with +both hands to Scryme, made a huge cut at Berse, who parried with his +target--Thorveig’s gift. The target was true, and turned Scryme, but +the force of the blow could not be stayed. Scryme slid off the target +and caught Berse upon the buttock. It split the flesh from there down +the thigh to the shin-bone, and there it stuck. Berse tottered, but his +sword Whiting was free. He drove at Stanhere with all his might, shore +through his shield and target and smote him on the left breast. Then +Berse fell forward on his face, and his blood poured from him. + +They carried him to the booth, and bound up his wound. It was an ugly +gash, full two feet long, and had reached the bone. The muscles were +cut clean through. But Berse was still full of his jokes. “Dig that +trench deep enough,” he said, “and Cormac will lay me in it at the next +bout.” And then he sang: + + “_There was a carle at Windy-Gate_,” + +which is a well-known song; and also: + + “_When on my chin the young beard grew_,” + +which is another. + +And he said: “Steady, you there at your scraping. I have a handsome +wife at home who married a man, not a bulrush. Leave the pith in my +leg: I have a use for it.” But he was very ill, and not able to be +moved for a week or more. Even then they had to make a litter for him +and carry him down to the firth. + +So it was that Stanvor, who was on the look-out every day, saw them +carrying him up. She turned rather grey, and went to find Stangerd, +who was working at a loom. + +“Stangerd,” she said, “there are men coming up from the water.” + +Stangerd looked at her. “Berse will be coming.” Her blue eyes were +large and bright. + +“Yes, I think Berse is there,” said Stanvor, “or what is left of him.” + +Stangerd grew suddenly red. “Is he dead? Is he dead?” + +Stanvor said, “I am sure that he is not. He is hurt, I believe.” Then +she added: “I shall go to meet them. Or do you go?” + +Stangerd said, “I shall not go. I knew that this would come of it. He +should have taken me with him. I will not go.” + +Then Stanvor ran out of the house just as she was and down the path to +meet them. + +Berse was in great torment, but heard her coming from a long way off, +and listened. “That’s Slimlegs,” he said. And then he sighed, and +turned away his head. + +But he had a twinkle for her when she came. No words passed between +them; but Stanvor walked beside the litter, with her hand on it. And so +Berse was carried into his house. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +STANGERD FREES HERSELF + + +Stanvor Slimlegs tended Berse night and day, and only slept when he +slept--which was not often, because he had fever and was light-headed +with it, and wandered in his wits. She grew very thin and looked more +than her age; her eyes grew larger and lighter, as if they would +absorb danger from all about before it could get at Berse. But she +never failed, and felt sure that she was not tired. From the first +Stangerd had withdrawn herself and taken no part in the issue of the +quarrel--though she herself hardly knew why. Her first thought when she +heard of the mishap was one of anger against her husband. “I offered +myself to save him from this. He would not let me go with him. On his +head be it. I know very well what I can do with men, and what I am +worth. He thought he knew better--and this is the end of it.” So she +sat fuming while they were bringing him in, and would not go to see +him. Stanvor had come to her to say that he was put to bed, and that he +had asked where she was. “Well,” she had replied, “and you told him, I +suppose?” Yes, Stanvor said, she had told him. “And did he ask you to +come and fetch me?” Stangerd wanted to know. Stanvor said No, he did +not ask in so many words. “Let him ask, then,” Stangerd said. “He is +not slow to seek what he wants.” + +Stanvor, who was very grave, said that the wound was bitter. “He is +slit from the buttock to the knee. He may limp till his death-day.” + +Stangerd flamed and said, “He was Battle-Berse when he took me. Now he +is Buttock-Berse. I am wife to a maimed man. Wife to Buttock-Berse.” + +Stanvor, looking scared and grave, left her without another word, and +she sat on in the dusk by herself, twisting her white fingers together +in her lap. When it was dark she got herself some supper, and made a +bed in the Bower, where she slept ever after. + +She was left very much to herself by some sort of common consent among +those of the house and Berse’s friends who came to see him. Stanvor saw +her on and off during the days that followed, but offered her no news, +and was not asked for any. But she did hear from common talk how the +fight had gone, and how Cormac had taken some part in it. She did not +praise him for that. She said to herself, “That was not done for love +of me, or to get me. It was done to spite Berse. Between them these +men bring me to shame.” Then she looked at herself a long time in the +glass. She observed the sheen of her cheek where the light caught the +round of it; she felt her smooth throat, and drew her hair between her +fingers and saw it like a mesh of golden silk. She drew her gown tight +across her bosom, and said to herself: “Here am I even as I am, jilted +by a young man, and bought by an old one who is lame of one leg. What +does this mean? I was taught to love without my asking; I was married +without my leave; and now I am to be housewife to a limping dotard just +when my beauty is ripe. Here’s a pretty end to Cormac’s songs; here’s a +good use to make of the girdle of Fricka.” + +But she did not yet know what she could do. She was resolved that she +would not stay with Berse, and clear that she could not call Cormac +to her. If he came of his own will she might take him; but she would +want more wooing. Her heart was cool; he must chafe it till it was +hot again. Sometimes she thought of calling Cormac in to help her; +sometimes she turned to her brother Toothgnasher. Finally she decided +that she would go by herself as the law allowed her. There was one +thing against it. If she went she would leave Stanvor alone with +Berse, who almost certainly would make her his third wife. Now she +told herself that it was no concern of hers what became of either of +the pair. She had no quarrel with Stanvor, whom she despised; but she +felt that she might be affected by it if they came together, and did +not wish to be affected by a girl of whom she had so light an opinion. +She wished, on the whole, to go on despising Stanvor. But you cannot +despise a person who makes you uneasy in your mind. + +One day--it was towards evening--she stopped Stanvor as she was +carrying a warm drink to Berse. + +“Where are you going?” she said, though she knew quite well. + +Stanvor looked at her quietly, without a flicker in her light blue +eyes. “I am going to take him this,” she said, “and then he will sleep.” + +Stangerd grew angry. “_Him!_” she said. “_He!_ You talk strangely, my +girl. One might think you talked of your husband or lover, to hear you.” + +“No one would think so who knows us,” Stanvor said. “You at least know +better.” + +“Do I know that he is not your lover, that old man?” + +“Yes, you know that.” + +“I know that I found you here when I was brought. You have been here +ever since. If I am to share a husband with you, let him be a whole +one, not a fragment.” + +Stanvor said now: “Forgive me if I leave you. This gruel will get cold, +and then he will make a grimace and refuse it. I will take it to him, +and then come back and listen to you.” With that she went away. + + * * * * * + +When she came back she found Stangerd in a cold rage. She stood quietly +before her with unfaltering eyes. Stangerd looked all ways but hers, +then broke out: + +“What are you here for? Why are you here?” + +“I thought that you had more to say.” + +“No, no; there is nothing more to say. You know all that is in my +heart.” + +“If I knew that,” said Stanvor, “I should know more than you do.” + +“If I knew what was in your heart, my girl,” Stangerd cried, “I should +kill you.” + +“No, indeed you would not,” said Stanvor. “You would be sorry for me.” +With that she went about her business. + +She lay on the floor below Berse’s bed, having covered herself with a +bearskin. She was awake, and listened to him grumbling and muttering to +himself. + +“There’s no sense in it,” said Berse. “I’m an old fool for my pains. +A great, splendid, sizable girl beside a handy, vigorous man--and a +dead fire between them, cold ashes.” Then he stopped for a while, but +grunted as his pains shot in him. “A pretty child, a pretty girl,” he +went on. “All that the heart of a man could desire--mine at a nod. But +the other touches my pride. I’ve always had what I wanted.” Then he +dropped off to sleep, but Stanvor lay with her eyes wide open, staring +into the dark corners. She was very excited. Her heart was beating +fast. But she was so guarded that not even to herself would she voice +that which made her blood race in her. And she would do nothing one way +or the other. + +As the days wore on she knew that Stangerd was busy about something. +Stangerd used to go out by herself, and was away for a good many hours +of the day. One of the house-carles said that she had been seen down by +the firth talking to Thorveig the spae-wife. Berse had given up asking +about her. He was getting better, and had begun to take notice of +Stanvor. One day he said to her, “You ought to be married, sweetheart.” + +Stanvor’s heart stood still, but she recovered herself. “Get well +again, and we can think about it.” + +“That I will,” said Berse. “He’ll be a lucky fellow that gets you.” + +She turned away her head. + +Then came the day when he could get about the house. He came hobbling +out into the sun, leaning upon a stick and Stanvor’s shoulder. They +came full upon Stangerd, who was sunning herself in the court. There +were house-carles at work in the outhouses. Stangerd clapped her hands +together, and when they looked up, she called to them to come to her. +Berse all this time was shaking on his stick, watching her, twitching +his eyebrows. + +When the men were standing about, Stangerd, whose colour was like +flame, swept Berse into her talk with a stretched-out arm. “Take +notice, all of you, and bear me witness,” she said, “that I, Stangerd, +Thorkel’s daughter, separate myself from this half-man. He was called +Battle-Berse when I took him; but now he is Buttock-Berse, and I will +have nothing to do with a blemished man. I separate myself from him, +and claim my liberty and my goods. That is all I have to say.” + +“Mistress,” said Berse, who was very still, leaning on his two sticks, +“you have said enough. Less would have served your turn.” Then he +turned and left her, hobbling along the flags in the sun with Stanvor +walking beside him. Stanvor held herself as stiffly as a young +birch-tree. Not a word upon the scene passed between them: Berse talked +gently and quietly, and Stanvor helped him all she could. + + * * * * * + +That same day Stangerd left him and rode down to the water. She went +home to her own people. Berse made no effort to stop her, and when she +was gone he called Stanvor to him and took her in his arms. She came +readily. + +“It’s you and me now, sweetheart,” he said. + +“I’m ready,” she said. + +“Do you mean that?” said Berse, holding her close. “Have you no pride?” + +“I have a great deal,” she said. “But I gave it to you long ago.” + +Berse kissed her, but immediately put her down. + +“If I have your pride to keep, I’ll use it to the best advantage. You +and I will keep our distance of each other for a while longer. We must +see what that termagant does next. She is a fine woman--I never saw a +finer--but some fiend is in her. Let him take her. She is nothing to me +now.” + +“She is beautiful,” Stanvor said. + +Berse regarded her. “Yes,” he said, “so she is--as a field of corn full +of red poppy is a goodly sight. But there’s the less corn, there’s the +less nourishment for the husbandman. Now in your little slim body, in +your kitten face and great blue eyes there may be the joy of a man’s +days and nights. Wait till I can get about again, and we’ll see what +can be done.” + +Stanvor said, “I am yours when you want me. I have always been that.” + +Things went quietly for a few days; but Stanvor was aware that Berse +often looked at her when he thought she did not know anything about +it. She smiled to herself and kept a good heart. By and by, before +the winter had come, and no tidings yet from Stangerd’s kin, Berse +stopped in front of Stanvor and said, “I am minded to take a child in +fostership. It will be good for you, and the money will be kept for you +when you want it. What do you say to this, sweetheart?” + +Stanvor said, “I say what you say. What child have you in mind?” + +“I shall take Anlaf Hoskil’s son Haldor,” said Berse. “A good, strong +boy, more than twelve years old. He shall be in your fostership and +sleep in your bed.” + +Stanvor said, “Very well; I’ll do my best with him.” + + * * * * * + +So that was done. Haldor was a bold lad, saucy, and forward for his +age. Stanvor got very fond of him, and he of her. He learned of her to +consider Berse the greatest paragon in Iceland. Berse, except for a +slight limp, was now as well as ever he had been, and amused himself +that winter by teaching Haldor how to exercise himself. He showed him +the use of the sword, the bill, the axe, and the spear; he gave him +horses to ride, and made him swim in the river every day. Haldor was +a rough boy when he came, but this sort of work made him as fierce +as a young man. Stanvor used to talk to him every night about Berse’s +gentleness and good temper. Between them they were in a fair way to +make a man of Haldor. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +TOOTHGNASHER + + +Now in the Spring Thorkel Toothgnasher, who was Stangerd’s brother, +came up to Sowerby and asked for Berse. He had a man called Wale with +him, a red-haired, broken-nosed man with a very shiny face. Stanvor +saw them, and said that Berse was from home. They said that they would +wait, and sat down in the hall. Stanvor served them with drink, and +Toothgnasher, before his draught, looked at her over the rim of the +horn. + +“You had something to do with my sister’s flitting, little mistress, I +think.” + +“Nothing that I know of,” said Stanvor. “She told Berse why she was +going. I heard her.” + +“Did she not tell you another reason?” + +“No,” said Stanvor. + +“What! Was she not jealous of you for ever about her husband?” + +Stanvor said, “She could have tended him herself if she had cared. Then +I should have kept away. I never did anything that she offered to do. +She will never tell you that she was jealous of me.” + +Toothgnasher said, “Well, it’s strange if a man don’t know his sister’s +mind.” + +“It is strange,” Stanvor agreed; “but it seems to be your case.” + +Toothgnasher had no more to say. Then Wale, having drained his horn, +said slyly: “Old Berse likes pretty girls about him.” + +“Ah,” said Toothgnasher, taking him up, “a man must pay for his +pleasures.” + +Haldor was listening to all this, sitting by the fire, nursing his +foot. He frowned. “Do you think he would pay such as you two are?” he +said. + +Wale started. “How now, you little egg?” + +“You will see,” said Haldor. “My foster-father will make short work +with you.” + +“Oh, be done!” said Toothgnasher, and turned again to Stanvor. “You, +mistress,” he said, “were an inmate of Thorarin’s house once upon a +time?” + +“Yes,” said Stanvor, “very much against my will.” + +“Thorarin paid Berse for that,” said Wale. “He did so.” + +Stanvor answered quietly, “Yes, he paid with his life, and the life of +his sons.” + +“And now it is Berse’s turn to pay,” said Toothgnasher, very red. + +Just then Berse came in and greeted the strangers civilly. + +Toothgnasher at once opened his affair. He desired the bride-price and +the dowry of Stangerd, who had declared that she would not be the wife +of a maimed man. Berse sat and twiddled his thumbs, while Stanvor, +kneeling, took his boots off. + +“I don’t pay,” said Berse. “I’m as well as ever I was in my life, and +could marry a dozen like Stangerd if I had a mind. But I have not. I’m +as pleased as daylight that she has taken herself off; but I won’t pay, +and that’s flat.” + +“It is much too flat for us,” said Toothgnasher. “You shall fight me +for that, Berse.” + +“So I will,” says Berse. + +Toothgnasher got up. “Wager-of-battle at the holm by Tiltness it shall +be.” + +“So it shall, then,” Berse said. “You’ll be making little of me, I +daresay, such a stout man as you be grown; but I shall be there for +you.” + +Then Wale had something to say. His eyes were bright, but he was rather +short of breath. “If I were to come to you, Berse, with money in my +hand, and ask for that young girl in marriage, what would you say to +me?” + +Berse, twinkling, looked about for Stanvor. She stood in the shadow, +but he saw her steady eyes, very watchful. He smiled and nodded to her. + +“I should say that you were too late in the day,” he told Wale. +Everybody was tense and quiet. Everybody spoke shortly, and those who +did not speak held themselves in waiting for something. + +“I don’t care much for that answer,” Wale said. + +“It’s all you will get from me,” says Berse; “but you may ask her, if +you please.” + +Wale said that he should ask her. “And I’ll ask Ord, her injured +parent,” he said, growing angry. “You reckoned to do him a service when +you took her out of Gutdale and gave Thorarin his death-blow--but what +have you done? You have turned a pretty girl into a byword with your +snug vices.” + +Stanvor said, “You lie. He has been more than good to me.” + +Berse said, “Get you gone, the pair of you, and do your worst.” + +“By my head,” Toothgnasher said, “I’ll get me gone, as you say, but +I’ll do my worst beforehand.” + +With that he reached back for his bill and hewed at Berse. Haldor +slipped into the fray with Whiting, and saved Berse’s life. He cut +in like a flash of lightning, and knocked the bill sideways. Then he +handed Berse the sword, and Berse in his stocking feet engaged with +Toothgnasher. Haldor took down a spear from the wall, and stood leaning +on it to watch the fight. It was long and arduous. Toothgnasher had a +great reach and was very active. Berse could not get in at him at all. + +Stanvor stood where she was, in the shadow of the great hearth, and was +so intent upon the battle that she did not see what Wale was about. +He had got behind her to the door which led to the Bower, and suddenly +threw his cloak over her head and drew it across her mouth so that she +could not cry out. Holding that fast in one hand, he put the other +about her body, lifted her and turned to take her out by the back door. + +Haldor saw him and went after him. He caught him just by the door and +drove his spear into the middle of his back. That was his death-blow; +he fell forward on to the top of Stanvor, and there he lay. She lay +quiet, too, until Haldor got the cloak off her head. Then the two of +them went back to see what was being done. They found Berse wiping the +blade of Whiting. + +“Hot and dirty work,” said Berse; “but there lies Toothgnasher.” + +Haldor said, “Foster-father, I have killed a man. I have killed Wale.” + +“Have you so?” said Berse. “What did you do that for?” + +Haldor told him. Then said Berse, “You have done well, my lad. Now get +we these two without the house; and then we’ll have supper, and then +we’ll go to bed.” So they dragged out of doors Toothgnasher and Wale +and covered them decently with a cloth. + +When they came back they found that Stanvor and the women had set the +table. They had supper, and Stanvor waited upon Berse as she had always +done. + +But towards the end, Berse, who had said nothing, told Stanvor to fetch +another jug of mead. When she brought it and had filled his horn, he +held it up and said to her, “Drink of it, sweetheart.” + +“Why should I drink?” she asked him, smiling shyly. + +“Drink to the night,” said Berse. So she put her lips to the horn, and +gave it back to him. Berse drained it. + +He said no more, but sent Haldor to bed, and sat by the fire, knitting +and clearing his brows. Stanvor was at work upon embroidery on the +other side of the hearth. When the time came, she put the work away in +its place, and came to Berse to say good-night. He put his arm round +her, and kept her there. + +Presently he said, “Two wives have I had, and intend for a third. What +do you say to that, sweetheart?” + +“I say what you say,” she replied, looking down at him; for he sat in +his chair while she stood over him. + +“My first wife was very well. They called her a paragon, but I don’t +know. We fell out now and then about trifles. She had a quick temper, +and was very particular. Myself, I’m a careless sort of man, always +in scrapes. She could not bear that. She liked the same things to +take place at the same hour every day. Now, they never did with me, +and never will. However, we made a shift to get on. Then there was +Stangerd. I don’t know what had warped her; but I was a fool to be +talked over. Ah, and a fool to be taken by her good looks when I had a +better beside me. But when I told you I was going to take her, what did +you say? You said: ‘Well and good, master.’ Now why did you say that?” + +She still smiled, tolerantly and wisely, and still looked down kindly +at him. “Because you must always do as you like,” she said. + +“And so I will,” he said, “and you shall marry me, sweetheart, when you +will.” + +“I will marry you now,” she said. He got up and took her in his arms. +She stood on tiptoe and raised him her face. He kissed her long, and +feeling her fierce young body against his, he laughed for joy, and +said: “All’s well that ends well. Come, sweetheart, I’m not too old to +teach you the way of marriage.” + +She said, “You’ll teach me little, Berse.” + +Berse said, “We’ll see.” + +In the morning Haldor asked her where she had been all night. She +smiled with her eyes, and kissed him. “I was at a wedding,” she said. + +“Whose wedding was that?” asked Haldor. + +She kissed him again; and then he understood, and kissed her. + +The tale has no more to say of Battle-Berse. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THORWALD THE TINSMITH + + +Now back we go to Tongue on Midfirth to see what was going on there. + +Stangerd’s father was not overjoyed to have her back again at home, but +he said that she had been very right to leave Sowerby and a husband +who put her to ridicule. He was sanguine, too, that she would get her +property back either by a pleading at the Thing or by Berse’s sense +of justice; but his son Toothgnasher thought differently, and as the +season wore away, it seemed that Toothgnasher was right. Then came the +battle in Berse’s house, and the end of Toothgnasher and Wale. Thorkel +took that hardly, and showed Stangerd by his dealing that he put +some of the blame upon her. He now talked of ransom and the need of a +champion to take up his quarrel. He talked more than once of Cormac as +of the right man in the right place, as the natural champion of his +family, and all the rest of it. Stangerd said nothing, but remained +handsome, silent, and self-possessed as she had always been. Yet +there’s no doubt but she expected Cormac to come, and looked for him +every day. + +But he did not come, though he was known to be at home and at work +about his house and fields. Narve had seen him, and had even hailed +him from afar off; but as Cormac made no sign of access, the timid man +had not cared to pass the time of day with him, or to slip in the news +which was so much in Thorkel’s mouth just now. + +But it must needs be that Cormac knew of her return: in fact, he did +know it, for his brother had told him. He took the news quietly; he was +fallen very glum of late, and made no more poetry. He went on with his +work as if there was no such person as Stangerd in the world--and then +he began to get restless again, and irritable. He lost his temper with +things (not with persons), and could not stay long at one job. Then, +in the late summer, suddenly, he told his brother that he thought of +going to sea. He said that there was a ship in the firth to be had at a +moderate figure. He would get some stuff together, and a crew, and go +off trading to Norway. Maybe they could do some raiding: he wouldn’t +say, but they might go to Ireland. + +Thorgils said that he would go too, and as soon as the gear could be +got on board and the men found; but nothing much was done until the +early winter. Not a word, so far, of Stangerd--not a word! + + * * * * * + +But by this time news had come to Midfirth that Berse had married +Stanvor Slimlegs, and had made himself very comfortable, being +perfectly recovered of his slit buttock. He had fortified his house +with a great wall of stone and turf, and it was thought that Stanvor +was going to give him a son. Thorkel was in a fine way over these +tales, and went about saying that he had fallen on evil days and that +Iceland was no longer the home for free men or honest men. If a man +could turn his wife out of the house at a moment’s notice, kill her +brother and take a new wife, and no call to be made upon him--what were +we coming to? Narve’s teeth chattered, and he said it was very dreadful. + +The upshot was that Thorold Tinsmith came into the story: a well-to-do +man of large presence and a comely, fair beard, which lay upon his +chest like a force of water. He was always fondling it, and had a trick +of squeezing it up in his hand so that he could make a brush of the end +of it, and brush his nose with it. He had flat, light blue eyes, and +spoke slowly and gravely. A rich man, one of the Skiddings of Fleet, a +widower without children, an excellent tinsmith. After a great deal of +debating with his brother Thorvard and his neighbours, he took boat and +sailed into Midfirth. + +He stayed the night on board, and rode up next day, with his brother +and a couple more witnesses and tokeners, to see Thorkel. The day was +spent in talking. He saw nothing of Stangerd till the evening meal, +when she came out in white--just as she had been when Cormac first set +eyes upon her--and served the table. She was, maybe, more matronly than +she had been then. Experience had made her more sedate. There was no +spying through Hagbard’s eyes, no tip-toe work behind the hangings: but +then there was no seer to view her feet and no singer to cry upon her +starry beauty. The grave, portly tinsmith hardly looked at her; and +when she had gone to bed, and the men drew closer together to bicker +the thing to an end, and Thorkel began to vaunt her as a wonder of the +world, Thorwald roundly said that one wife was as good as another to +him, so far as her looks went. A wife, he said, should be well found +in money and other movables, a good breeder, and handy in the house. +She must have a pleasant nature and not be always asking the reason of +things. It might easily happen, he said, that a man did not know, or +have at call, the reason for something said or done, or required to be +done. He did not care--nor was it convenient--that he should have to +own up to ignorance. It made him look foolish; moreover, it might lead +to debate, and bring endless confusion in the household. For everything +he said he appealed to his brother Thorvard for confirmation. Thorvard +confirmed him every time; and the end of it was that they were too many +for Thorkel, who found himself asking them to take Stangerd off his +hands, offering to make good the gear which she had left behind her +at Sowerby, and to add more to it. With these terms the tinsmith was +content, and said that he would talk to Stangerd next day. + +When her father told her what was forward, she gloomed and said nothing +for a time, neither assenting nor refusing. Presently she began to +breathe quickly, as if thought troubled her breast. And then she said: +“It is a strange thing to me that I am so unhappy in my dealings with +men. See that little pale slip of a thing, Stanvor: she has been made +happy with what I despised. See Cormac, who loved me first--what have I +done--what did I do--that he should treat me so? It seems to me that a +girl’s good looks are her bad fortune. I wish I had never been born.” + +Thorkel had little comfort for her. “Thorwald,” he told her, “thinks +nothing of your looks. He is a peaceful man who wants to be quiet. If +you let him alone, he will let you alone. What more do you want?” + +“I don’t want to be let alone by the man I marry,” she said. “I don’t +marry to be let alone.” + +“Then you ought to have married Cormac,” Thorkel told her. There was +more; but in the end she dried her eyes and consented to see the +tinsmith. + + * * * * * + +Thorwald stroked his fine beard as he looked at her the next day. She +stood up before him, but he did not at first think it necessary to rise +from the bench. + +“So, Stangerd, it seems you are inclined to try again,” he said. “Well, +I am not one who says that a woman is the worse for experience. Far +from it. Now, let me speak to you of myself, for I would not have you +say afterwards that I had deceived you, or hear you tell me that you +separate yourself from me on that account. I am a well-to-do man of +quiet and ruminating temper. I do not jump at a thing. I like to turn +it over and about. You must not expect me to be always fondling and +kissing. I have many irons in the fire, and when my mind is occupied, +I expect to be let alone. All in good time, and a time for everything +is my favourite saying. I have turned off many a trouble by the use +of that lore. I have a good house, and many people about it, one way +and another. You will have half a dozen women to oversee, and there +are house-carles and labourers and shepherds. It is well stored, +and I choose to have a generous table; yet I love thrift and detest +wastefulness. My brother Thorvard lives with us. He will please you: +he can be very merry at times, and sings a good song. So do I, for +that matter, but I don’t profess to be a skald. I hope we shall be +very happy together, and don’t doubt of it if you remember that I am a +serious man who has no time for trifling or outbreaks of temper.” + +Then he got up and, putting one hand upon her shoulder, put the other +under her chin. Lifting her face, he looked kindly into her beautiful +stormy eyes, and then kissed her. + +Stangerd had never been wooed after this sort, and her heart was like +lead within her. She had, indeed, no heart wherewith to fling away from +such a suitor; but she was very near to tears. She was as lovely as +ever she had been, and yet the light seemed to have left her, so that +she was anybody’s for the picking up. But she had lost her spirit. +Cormac, perhaps, had got that: she didn’t know, and didn’t care. She +allowed her lips to the tinsmith; she faltered that she would do her +best; and then she went away. + +Within a short time she was married to him, and knew the best and worst +of him. He, for his part, might as well have married a block of wood; +but he neither knew nor cared what she was made of. + +They were married at Thorkel’s house, and there they stayed for the +mid-winter season. Then, suddenly, one day, Cormac came to the house +and saw her again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CORMAC COMES BACK + + +She hadn’t seen him since the day of her first bridal, the day when +Berse brought her home into Sowerby. They had parted in unkindness, +and it seems that they were to meet so; for her first feeling in her +discontent was of hot rage against him as the maker of it. Her eyes +were angry, and her cheek-bones were angry; she sat where she was by +the fire with her needlework still in her lap, and watched him, waiting +for him to speak. + +Cormac, also, at first said nothing to her. He stood framed in the +doorway, wryly smiling, frowning with one eyebrow. He considered her +as a painter considers his unfinished work, whistling in his teeth as +he wonders where he shall begin. Words and phrases sang and danced in +his head, as he absorbed her again. Then he said, “Stangerd, you are +like a morning in April, when the sun is breaking through the rain, and +thinning it into mist. If I could stand always at this distance from +you, Stangerd, and look at you like this, I should make songs which +would be the music of all Iceland. But I can’t, and you know that I +can’t, keep so far from you now, after what has been between you and +me; and so I am going away from you, my golden wonder, and will put the +blue water between us. What do you say to that?” + +He spoke lightly and mockingly, or so she felt it. She governed herself +therefore, so that he should never guess that she was unhappy. She +picked up her needlework and took a stitch or two, as she said, “You +will do as you please, I suppose. It is what you have always done. +When will you sail?” + +“Not yet, not yet,” he said. Then he came into the hall and stood near +her, right over her. “So you tired of Berse, and have taken another +husband?” + +She said nothing to that. “By and by,” he went on, “you may be willing +to have me.” + +That time she could not answer him. He was hurting her. + +He sat down beside her, and picked up an edge of the shift she was +hemming. “I remember very well, when you and I were plighted, that I +used to say you should be much married. You didn’t like it. It made you +angry. But you have done it. You are much married; and now it is I who +don’t like it. Do you remember that, Stangerd?” + +She nodded, but could not look at him. + +“I don’t like it at all,” he went on; “but I will tell you +this--believe it or not as you will. When I wished to see you with many +lovers, many husbands, Stangerd, I loved you much better than I do +now.” + +A large tear rolled down her cheek, and hung there, until it fell into +her needlework. Cormac saw it gather and drop, but he did not alter his +manner. + +“I am going with my brother Thorgils to Norway,” he told her; “but I +thought that I would come to see you again before I went. What are you +making there?” + +She told him--a shift. + +“It is for yourself? You will wear it?” + +“I suppose so,” she said. “Why do you ask me?” + +He said, “It would be strange if I was not interested in anything which +will be as near to you as this linen. It would be strange if I felt +very friendly-disposed towards it.” + +“You need not tumble it in your hands, at least,” she said. + +“I feel as if I were feeling about for a grip at its windpipe,” he +said, then stopped himself with a short laugh, and let go of it. + +“Will you do me a service?” he asked her. + +“What do you want me to do?” + +“That linen you are stitching would make me a shirt to wear over my +mail. Will you make it for me instead of yourself?” + +She looked at him quickly. “Are you going to wear mail? Are you going +Viking?” + +His eyes laughed. “I think so,” he said; “like my father before me--but +not by any means for so good a reason.” + +“What was your father’s reason?” she asked him; and he told her. + +“He was a man of large mind and great passions. He felt that the world +lay to the hand of the man who could handle it. He said that the might +followed the mind. He was restless, and cramped in this country of +stony hills and narrow dales and strait seas. The fire burned in him +and he gave it vent. He went far and did greatly; he went often, and +at last he never came back. But he died as he had lived, greatly.” + +She thought that very fine, and expected much the same answer to her +next question; but she did not get it. + +“And what is your reason?” + +“My reason is that I may forget that you ever lived and made me +suffer,” he said plainly. + +She bit her lips, and her eyes filled with smarting tears. + +“You are ungenerous. You are a coward to say so. And it is not at all +true. I was living at Nupsdale when you came there. I could not know +that you were coming, or who you were that came. You saw me, and after +that never left me alone. You taught me to love you--and then you left +me, when you had made your songs about me. That was all you wanted out +of me, I see very well. Well, go now, and make your songs of whom you +will.” + +He stood over her now, dark with rage. “Song! Song! What song is left +in me? What have I left to sing of? The glory of song is departed from +me. Once I had it like a running water in me, a well-spring that never +ran dry. Then you came and dipped your hands in it, and it flowed all +about you as if it would carry you away to the sea. And then it slept. +It went when you were false to me.” + +And now she jumped up, flaming. “I was never false to you. I was never +false. You are lying. It was you who tired of me, and left me in the +lurch on my wedding-day. I sat alone here in my crown, with my maids, +waiting for you--and you did not come. Now go to sea or where you +will--but leave me. I will never make a shirt for you, so long as I +live.” + +There where she stood, all flushed and splendid in her fury, he came to +her and took her in his arms. Before she could stop him he had kissed +her twice, roughly and fiercely. Then she broke away, and left him +without another word. + +But when she came back more than an hour later, he was still there in +the same place. She stiffened her neck and squared her shoulders. + +“I required you to go,” she said, “but you are still here. What sort of +conduct is this, do you think? My father and my husband will be here +soon, and there will be more trouble on your account. Has there not +been enough?” + +Cormac said, “Stangerd, I can’t go until you forgive me. I acted badly, +I am very sorry.” + +“You forgot yourself,” she said; “but I shan’t bear a grudge. Go in +peace.” + +“Yes,” he said, “I will go. But I shall see you again.” + +“You cannot,” she told him. “Thorwald will be angry.” + +“That makes no matter,” he said, “so long as you are not angry.” + +She said, “Ah, but I shall be very angry if you use me so.” She spoke +more kindly. + +“I will not,” he said. “I will not touch you again, unless I go mad +again.” + +“That’s no promise at all,” she said. + +“When you are angry,” he said, “I want you more than ever I did in my +life. And you call up something in me which must subdue you at all +costs. That’s the way of it. Fire calls to fire, and the two burn and +leap together.” + +She was grave now, and shook her head. “This must not be,” she said. “I +shall go away from here as soon as I can.” + +“You will do no good by that. I shall find you.” + +“I hope you will not try.” + +“I also hope so. I could not be happy with you if I had you--nor you +with me.” + +“Cormac,” she said, and touched his arm, “you must learn to do without +me. It is not to be. Now I see very well that it was true what your +brother Thorgils said when he was here that day--when you were not. He +said that the spae-wife had put a spell upon our plighting, that you +and I could never come together. And it is true; we have not, and we +shall not.” + +He seized both her hands. “Stangerd, come now--come with me! I am +parcht with thirst.” + +She tried to get away. “No, no, no! You can never drink of me.” + +He implored her, he raved; but she was ready for him now. She was kind, +but she would do nothing. Then she heard her people coming in, and told +him to go. He said he would not unless she kissed him. She did it, but +not as he wished. + +He went out, brushing by Thorkel and Thorwald, who were coming in to +dinner. He took no notice whatever of them; but Thorwald asked who he +was. + +Thorkel said shortly, “That’s a man whom I don’t want to see any more. +That is Black Cormac of Melstead, a dangerous man. He has been after +Stangerd, you may be sure. Now you must deal quietly with that man, or +you will be sorry for it. He has brought more troubles to this house +than enough.” + +Thorwald brushed his nose with the golden end of his beard and was +silent through dinner. Afterwards he asked Stangerd about Cormac. She +told him that he was going abroad and had come to say good-bye. + +Thorwald said he was glad to know that. “He was not very civil to +Thorkel or to me.” + +“He had no reason to be,” Stangerd said rather shortly. + +Thorwald said, “You surprise me. What, is he to treat your husband like +so much brushwood?” + +“He is a man,” Stangerd replied, “who treats other men as he finds +them. If they are friendly, so is he; if unfriendly, he is more so. If +they are indifferent, so is he.” + +“But,” said Thorwald, “I was not indifferent--though he was. How could +I be indifferent to the men who come to visit you?” + +“You had better learn to be indifferent when Cormac comes,” she said. + +Thorwald was very surprised, and brushed his nose a long time, until +she asked him to cease. + +“And why, pray, am I to cease?” he asked. + +She said, “Because I ask it.” + +He found the reason bad. “Nobody has ever asked me that before.” + +She said, “I hope that I shan’t have to ask it again.” + +He considered this answer. “It’s a little trick I have,” he said. + +She replied, “It’s a little trick I don’t like. It makes you look very +foolish.” + +“Nobody,” he said, “has ever told me so before.” + +“I wish that somebody had,” said she, “for then it would not have been +for me to tell you.” + +He drew himself up and squared his shoulders. “Do you think it seemly +to tell your husband that he looks foolish?” + +She returned to her seat by the fire and her sewing. “I think it more +seemly,” she said, “than that he should continue to look so.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +STANGERD GOES TO THE FLEET + + +Now the poet of whom I spoke a long time ago as having his own idea of +Cormac’s affair, singing about his troth broken on his wedding-day, +says: + + “But of this matter, when Cormac, + Betroth’d, handfasted as he was, + Lover accepted, yet drew back + At the last hour, a thing unchancy-- + Witch-finders hint at spell or curse + Upon the plighting. Each man has + His own curse in him, and my fancy + Sees Cormac storing her to heart + To sing about in sounding verse, + Making a goddess of a lass, + Not better but so much the worse + The more herself has art and part + In the business. Call this nigromancy + Done by the spae-wife out of spite-- + I tell you, Love’s a tricksy sprite + For poets’ bosoms. Love says, Kiss + Your well-belov’d, she’ll kiss again, + Apt pupil; but it’s also true + The more you kiss, the more you strain + Together, the less lover you, + And the more she. Skald’s wisdom is + To love apart, since love is pain + At all events, howe’er you do; + And out of pain that Song cometh + The which you live by, as by bread + Live some, and other some by kiss + (As women all). Where there are two, + And one a poet, one must rue. + Here it was Stangerd, as the case is + Whene’er a girl accepts the embraces + Of poet-lover.” + +And he’s right, there’s no doubt. But Cormac could not be expected to +know that. + +What puzzled the young man, however, was this, that he felt happier, +more uplifted, as he went away from Stangerd than he had known himself +to be when he was with her. In her presence all the wicked feelings +which beset mankind had been about him--rage, greed, grudging, +jealousy, and the rest of them. Her beauty had made his heart blacker; +the more he needed her the less fit he felt himself to touch the border +of her gown. But now he had left her, the clouds parted, and she +shone dazzling like the sun in the blue sky. To love her was not only +reasonable, but it was a career. It was food and drink, occupation and +fame. It was a fire within him which would never go out--unless he saw +her. Strange freak of fate that he could only love her when he didn’t +see her! + +He was happier than he had been for a year or more. He began to sing +again, naturally, like a bird. + + “Ah, now indeed I have her--now + When I am leaving her for good. + For good? Ah, yes, for now I know + What Christians call their heavenly food. + You see no flesh, you taste no blood, + The holy flake shines like the snow; + The sweet thin wine has the red flow, + But not the salt that drencht the Rood. + Now I have feasted as I would + And go my way with a full heart: + Stangerd and I shall never part + If I can keep this holy mood.” + +And in this mood he remained for the rest of the day, finding himself +strong enough to think of her without needing to see or to touch her. + +In the morning he found himself down on the lees again, and life a +brackish flat business unless there was a hope of seeing Stangerd. +But he fought with himself, and to such purpose that he set a day for +sailing and kept to it. + +They all went aboard, men and horses, and headed for the Floe with a +fair wind on their quarter. That was four or five days after he had +seen Stangerd; but meantime Thorwald had taken her off to Fleet. + +He took her off the very next day, in fact, after his unceremonious +meeting with Cormac in the entry of the house. He got the whole story +out of Thorkel that night, and the more of it he got the less he liked +it. It wasn’t so much that he shirked an encounter with Cormac, even +though he was not much of a fighter. He explained to Thorkel how he +felt about it. + +“Stangerd,” he said, “was very short with me after Cormac had been with +her. No man cares to be thought tiresome. I am not at all accustomed +to it; I have always been treated with respect. I am a weighty, +sententious man, and I know it. But if these handsome, flashing poets +get about a young woman, she is dazzled. She fills herself with their +heady drink, their spiced food, and turns up her nose at the good roast +or soused, at the good white bread or curdy cheese upon which the +body is built up. It is so. I wish my wife to admire me. Is that so +extraordinary? She will be happier if she can do it, and so shall I be. +Now when I was talking to her about her Cormac, I noticed that little +tricks of mine with the beard seemed to vex her. I have an uncommon +beard: it has often been noticed. But all she had to say of it was to +ask me not to brush my nose with it. That was distressing. It can’t go +on like this. Within the first few days of a man’s married life, to +feel that a man is ridiculous in his wife’s eyes intimidates a man.” + +So he took her away to Fleet, a long way from Midfirth, where there is +more open water; and there she began her housekeeping. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE NIGHT IN THE WOOD + + +Cormac’s ship _Raven_ had a fair way over the Floe, and made Skaganess +on one tack. But past the Ness they were as good as in the open sea; +the wind freshened and blew from the south-east. They thought it well +to stand inshore, and found smooth water at once, and plenty of it. +Drängey showed up before the night fell, and as they were in strange +waters, they decided to seek a haven there for the night. They found a +good harbour with a sandy bottom on the west of the island and lay as +snug as fish in the sea. + +Next day they crossed the frith and coasted up the further shore. The +mountains come right down to the sea on that shore, and the lower +slopes of them are covered with wood. Cormac sat on deck looking at +this magic country of rocks and thin, grey stems. The sunlight was like +mist between them, and above they were blushing with the rising sap. + +Then, on a sudden, as he looked his heart stood still. He saw a woman +in a blue cloak riding through the trees. Her head was bare, and her +hair shone like gold. He went white, and stared with his eyes. His lips +moved, but no sound came from them. + +Then he called Thorgils his brother. “Thorgils,” he said, “yonder woman +riding there is Stangerd. She is alone. Shape your course closer in, +and be ready to cast anchor.” + +“Why,” said Thorgils, “what are you about?” + +“I am going to see Stangerd,” Cormac said. + +“And what then?” + +“I don’t know yet. We shall see.” + +“Will you make trouble for us and her?” + +“I don’t know. It will be to do that, or to end the trouble. Alter our +course, I say.” + +Thorgils did as he was told. The water was as clear as glass on a +bottom of hard, white sand. They stood to within a spear’s throw of +the shore. Stangerd, if it was she, had seen the ship, and had reined +up her grey horse in a clearing in the wood. She was looking at them. +Thorgils now saw that it was Stangerd sure enough. They heaved the +anchor overboard, and the _Raven_ brought up, but before she was fast, +Cormac was in the water to his middle. + +Stangerd did not move from where she was, but the light in her eyes +answered the light in his, and her flushed face to his face. + +He came directly to her through the trees, and stood beside her. His +hand rested on the horse’s mane, but he did not touch her. + +She spoke first. “You have come then.” + +“I saw you--so I came.” + +Her eyes engulfed him. But she was not smiling. She was too deeply +satisfied for any outward sign. She consumed her happiness within. +Nothing in her life had ever pleased her so much as this. + +Cormac said, “What is this? Where are you going? Do you live here? +Where is your husband?” + +Then she laughed. “A string of questions! I live at Fleet, which is not +far from here. I was lonely at home, so I came out. Thorwald is away, +brushing his nose somewhere.” + +Cormac said, “Let him be. We haven’t much time. But we have to-day.” + +“You are for Norway?” she asked him. His eyes were upon her. + +“I am for you at this hour--and the ship is fast. Come with me for a +little. You are not afraid?” + +She said seriously, “No, I’m not afraid. I’ll walk with you.” + +He stood beside her, and took her down from the horse. When he had her +in his arms he held her for a moment, and she made sure that he was +going to kiss her. But he did not. He held her for a moment, and then +put her down. Both of them were very red, and both out of breath. They +began to walk slowly through the wood. Cormac led her horse. + +There was no wind. The sun was hot, and the sky blue. The sea lay +glittering without a ripple. The ground was dry underfoot, and the +stems of the birch-trees were silver-grey. It was good to be alive and +young on such a day. Cormac and Stangerd walked slowly side by side, +with very little to say, but each very conscious of the other. They +spoke seldom, and in low voices. The hour of great desire seemed to be +past. He did not talk of love to her; but great love was in everything +he said and hushed every tone of his voice. + +At noon, being out of sight of the ship and, so far as could be seen, +quite alone together in the world, they sat and shared some bread which +Stangerd had with her. After that Stangerd said that she was sleepy, +and lay down with her head on Cormac’s lap, and his cloak over her. He +himself sat quite still, looking out over the sea, sometimes with great +tenderness at her unconscious form gently stirring in sleep. He thought +to himself that it would be very easy to suffer if she was always as +innocent as that. When the evil moments came upon him, he said to +himself, let him remember her as she lay there soft and pure, nothing +but the most lovely thing in the world. Let him forget that she must +lie in another man’s arms and put her arms round another man’s neck, +and do him a wrong thereby. Even as he urged himself to forget that he +remembered it, and felt his blood boil. He startled violently with the +pain, and she awoke, and looked up, smiling lazily with her blue eyes. + +Immediately he said to himself: “It is nothing, what she does with +herself, or is done to. She is as incapable of wrong-doing as a tree or +a flower. It is I who do wrong.” + +“Why did you wake me?” she asked him, and he said, “A serpent stung me, +and I started. But I have killed it.” + +She laughed as she snuggled her cheek in her hand. “I don’t believe it. +There are no serpents above ground in March.” + +“There are always serpents above ground when a man walks the world,” +said Cormac. + +She thought of that for a while, and then she sat up and moved beside +him, and took his arm. He would not look at her, but he listened +acutely. + +“You are unhappy at leaving me?” she said. + +He replied at once, “No, I am not. That is what is so bad about it. +If I were leaving you enchanted in this wood, to sleep until I come +back--in a year, in two or ten years--I should go without a thought or +a look back. But it is because I am leaving you in the power of another +man that I grieve and fret. Therefore I know that I love you not well. +Therefore I know that I must leave you.” + +She lifted her eyebrows and opened her eyes wide. “Are all men like +you? Do all men love women so?” + +“I believe that they do,” Cormac said: “but I don’t want to be like +other men. I want to love you as I love the sky and the wind on the +hill. You are as beautiful as they are--indeed, more beautiful, for +they only represent parts of you. They are your eyes and your breath. +But there’s your fragrance, and your gait, and the flame of your golden +hair; there are your brows, your chin, your bosom, your hands. And +last of all, there is yourself, which makes men sing and go mad. When I +first loved you I rejoiced in you; but afterwards I could not rejoice, +because I wanted more than I could have. Sometimes I could have killed +you for love, and that’s a terrible thing.” + +She said, “Yes, that is terrible; but I will tell you this now, +Cormac--that there have been times when I have wished you to kill me +with love. No other man has ever made me wish that.” + +Cormac gloomed and frowned over this saying, and did not speak for a +time. Then he said, “Do women feel such things? Do they desire to give +what a man desires to take? Is that possible?” He looked at Stangerd, +but she had turned her head away, and when he touched her hand she +moved it and got up. + +“We must go,” she said. The sun was down behind the mountains, the air +was colder, and dusk had begun to haunt the wood. + +But Cormac must be answered. He made her face him, he made her look at +him. She did it, but a storm lay gathering behind her eyes. + +“Stangerd,” he said, “it is not too late.” + +She flamed, she stamped her foot. “You fool,” she said fiercely, “it +is too late. You have made me suffer horribly. I shall never forget +it--and I will not forget it.” + +He shut his eyes, rocked about. “A curse is upon me. A moment ago and I +was happy, loving you as I should. But now I feel the fire again.” + +She put her hand on his arm. “Let us go,” she said, “let us go. We have +had a happy day.” She was quite close to him now, and put her face up +to his as she spoke. She had no fear. He stooped and kissed her. His +eyes were full of tears. + + * * * * * + +Then they went to look for her horse; but he had strayed, and they +could not find him. It grew dark quickly, and it was necessary to do +something. “What shall we do?” said Cormac. They walked on in silence +together, and by and by a light showed up out of a hollow where the +hill ran sharply down to a river and the sea-level. + +“There’s a house down yonder,” Cormac said. “They will shelter us for +the night. We had better go and ask them.” + +She agreed to that, and took his arm. The way was very steep, and it +was almost dark. Soon they heard the roaring of a force, and could make +out the roof-line of a small house. And then a dog barked sharply, and +ran out to meet them--a black and white dog. + +A woman answered to their knocking, and asked them in. It was a poor +house. She said that her sons were away at the fishing. There was room +enough for them, but not much to eat. + +“There’s a good bed for you,” she said, “for you can have mine. I’m a +widow, worse luck!” + +Cormac said at once, “You must give us two beds, mother. This is my +sister.” + +“You don’t favour each other much, by the looks of _you_,” she said. +“You’re dark enough for an Irishman.” + +They ate her meal and dry fish and sat by the fire for a little, and +then the woman came in and said that the beds were ready. They were +side by side, but a wooden partition ran up between them to within a +foot of the rafters. Cormac, who thought that he should be awake all +night, went to sleep almost immediately. It was Stangerd who kept +watch, and tossed and turned the better part of the night. + + * * * * * + +In the morning Cormac got out of the house early and went up the hill +to look for the horse. He found him without trouble, and brought him +down to the farmhouse. Stangerd was waiting for him in the porch. She +wished him good-morning with a smile and kind eyes. He took her in +his arms and kissed her. The woman of the house, who was stirring her +oatmeal, sniffed. “I never saw a man kiss his sister like that,” she +said to herself. + + * * * * * + +They set out and climbed the hill into the woods. It was a fresh, mild +morning of Spring, and the birds were busy everywhere at their nesting +and courtship. The sea sparkled and the air quivered. Life was a good +thing to look forward to, even if to look back was a bad thing. + +Cormac found his singing voice again. + + O land where the sea-eagle hovers, + O mountain-land and river flood. + Here is the wonder of the wood, + And here a tale of love and lovers. + + What have I done? I’ve heard the note + Thrill’d by the wood-bird in the dark; + It set me soaring like a lark + That on his own song seems afloat. + + But what have I done? I was blind + That thought I saw a fair maid pass + And stroke my cheek. That was no lass, + That spirit of the wandering wind. + + What have I done? O silly hands, + That thought to hold and starve the fire, + And teach it leap to your desire + And burn within your puny bands! + + What have I done, but love too high? + What have I done, but fall too far? + I set my longing on a star, + And there it burns, and here I lie. + +And then he changed the time, and his voice had a jarring sound here +and there, though the words were tender. Whiles, it croaked like a June +nightingale’s. + + Of Stangerd and her beauty, now, + What shall I sing? Was she in sooth + The Spirit few see but some may know, + Even as believ’d an ardent youth: + The Essence at the heart of things, + Which makes them things? substantial truth? + The secret rose of loveliness, + The very flicker in the wings + Of birds, the thrill of sweet distress + You get at heart, when a bird sings + At night? The fragrance, hue, impress, + The very life within the dress + That bodies beauty? Was all this + Chance-held in Stangerd’s blossomings + For Cormac’s vision and his bliss? + Was she so rare or he so tender? + He found her so by hit or miss. + +There he stopped, and reined up the grey horse. He put his hand upon +Stangerd’s knee, and held her eyes with his eyes while he sang again +his last song. + + And so he paid for his lachess, + Or, if you please, his soul-surrender; + For plain men saw--a piece of goods, + Just a fine girl, for all her splendour + Of form and favour, made of moods + And whim and hearty appetite, + Who liked her supper and was clear + What was and what was not her right. + + And so two took her for delight, + And serv’d them of her aptitude + For work by day and play by night, + And found all well, and made good cheer; + And when their turn came round she dight + Their burial-clouts---- + +He stopped again abruptly, for he saw that Stangerd was crying. + +“Shame upon me!” he said; “my love, forgive me, and let me go.” + +She spoke through her tears. “You don’t know--you don’t know women. I +am glad all men are not like you, because then all women would be as +miserable as I am.” + +He strained up to take her, but she would not let him. After a while +she dried her eyes and spoke to him again. + +“Go now,” she said. “There is your ship, and my way lies yonder.” + +Far below them, truly enough, the _Raven_ lay swaying at her anchor. +Beyond the Ness the sea sparkled and crisped. + +Stangerd stooped from her saddle and met Cormac’s clouded face. Their +lips met and stayed together for a while. Then she said good-bye and +turned and rode through the wood. She had no tears in her eyes now, and +carried her head high. The fire showed on her cheek-bones. She did not +hurry her horse, but kept at a walking pace through the wood, and out +on to the heath. Presently she saw Thorwald’s house-stead in the hollow +of the hills. It looked grey in the shadow, for at this time of the +year it did not get the sun till noon. + +She rode down the hill and through the meadows to the garth. Her +husband stood, a portly man, in the doorway, brushing his nose with his +fine golden beard. + +“I am glad to see you, wife,” he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE END OF IT + + +They say that Cormac set sail in the _Raven_ before noon of the day +when he said good-bye to Stangerd. And they say that when he was in the +open sea, clearing Grimsey, which is the most northerly of the islands, +he saw a sea-beast of grey colour in the sea upon the port bow. He +had a spear in his hand, and, as the beast swirled up alongside the +ship, he threw the spear and pierced her side. She rolled over, and he +saw her dead blue eyes and broad, expressionless face. He said to his +brother Thorgils, “That was the face of Thorveig the spae-wife, who +set a curse upon me. If she is dead now? What had I best do?” + +Thorgils said, “There’s no going back now.” + +“There’s no going back at all, in my belief,” Cormac said. + + * * * * * + +It is true that just about then Thorveig the spae-wife did die; but +Cormac did not go back, and I believe he never saw Stangerd again, +though he never forgot her, and died at last with her name in his +mouth. He served the Kings of Norway for many years; became a great +Viking; was known in Ireland and Scotland. They say, indeed, that he +made a settlement for himself at Scarborough in England; but I don’t +know how that may be. So far as I am concerned, I have done with him. + +As is the case with all good tales, there are more sides than one to +Cormac’s. Was he cursed by the spae-wife, or by his own nature? Did he +well by Stangerd, or ill? Was the poet right who said that when one of +his kind loves a woman, the woman will be sorry for it? + +The same poet, who is not Cormac, closes his version of the story upon +a note which can be variously interpreted. + +He says: + + So much for Cormac. And what _she_ gain’d + Of her wild lover, or how suffer’d + To have her well of sweetness drain’d + By one or other as he offered-- + She was a woman and, men think, + Rewarded; for they crav’d, she proffer’d; + They thirsted and she gave them drink. + They dipt their cups for what she coffer’d, + And if they needed, should she shrink + Lest she might come to want? Their thriving + Was hers, we say--without a wink, + Because we mean it. She got by giving. + For giving man life is her living. + At least, that’s man’s serene persuasion. + He calls it her re-generation. + +Now that’s all very well; but--I should like to have Stanvor Slimlegs’ +opinion more than anyone’s. + + + + +NOTE + + +Two English versions of this tale are known to me, both literal +translations of the Saga as it now stands. One of them, the more +critical and crabbed of the pair, is to be found in the second volume +of York Powell’s and Vigfussen’s _Origines Islandicæ_; the other, +which includes a good deal omitted in the first, and is a more genial +work altogether, if not so correct, is by Messieurs W. G. Collingwood +and Jón Stefánsson, and was published at Ulverston, in Lancashire, in +1902. It is embellished with charming landscapes of the places named in +the tale. Both of these versions have been useful to me, and I hereby +express my obligations to their learned authors; but both of them +render Cormac’s tale exactly as it now exists, with all its joints +loose, and some missing, with an abrupt beginning, no middle, and no +end. My business with it has been to make it accountable, and relate +part to part; for as it stands it is not reasonable; its parts don’t +cohere; it seems to lack human nature and that logic of events which +only a study of human nature can give. Those must have been in the tale +once, but they are not there now, and I have tried to put them back +again. We are apt to stumble upon the discrepancies in old stories, to +put them down to outlandish customs, or outmoded ones, or the vagaries +of the romancer, and to slur them over. But it’s not the way to get +the good out of a good tale to say: “To be sure, it might be better, +but let’s get on....” Human nature knows neither time nor place, has +been very much the same in Odin’s day and in Christ’s, is very much +the same in Iceland and in England, and in all the countries I ever +heard of or saw. Reading closely into Cormac’s tale, I find it quite +reasonable and full of human nature as we know it now. + +Cormac was a poet, so much the better or so much the worse than other +poets before him or since in that he didn’t know it, or at any rate +didn’t know what his _poiesis_ involved. He didn’t know when he began, +but he had an inkling before he had done. Men of his sort, who joy in +the thought rather than the deed, and see beauty the better the less +they handle it, have flourished in the world at all ages of it--in +the days of Paris,[A] who did basely, in the days of Dante, who did +sublimely, and in our own, when thinking and doing alike are going out +of fashion in favour of talking about one or the other. Therefore, +according to me, there is sound human nature in the tale of Cormac’s +preposterous love-making, and no less in the account of the lovely +Stangerd whom he so long and squeamishly beset. As for old Berse of the +many battles, he is a man of men, and deserves a saga all to himself. +He had one once, but it has perisht. + + M. H. + +[A] This may seem a hard saying, yet I am very sure that Paris had more +joy in considering Helen’s beauty than in consuming it. + + + + + BOOKS BY MAURICE HEWLETT + + PUBLISHED by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + Bendish + A Study in Prodigality + 12mo. $1.35 net + +A colorful novel of England in the early nineteenth century. + + + Open Country + A Comedy with a Sting + 12mo. $1.35 net + +“It is finished in its sensitive miniatures of women. 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