GUNNAR CROSSES THE MOUNTAINS
It was slow going in the dark, but the sorrel picked up her feet, and
the road was well known to Gunnar. He had not much time to think, but
found little to regret except Halward's death. He had liked Halward, as
he was ready to like most men. Nevertheless, he had now to admit that he
had little esteem for Ogmund Dint.
"That was a dirty trick to serve a man who had done him no harm. And I
took his bait down like a codling, and served his turn finely. A sharp
practiser is Ogmund Dint, and gets by foul means what he dare not try
for fairly." So he thought of it--and then he said to himself,
justifying the man, "When all's said, a man must look after himself.
Halward had many friends to avenge him; and if Ogmund had been caught
red-handed he was done for. I am thinking King Olaf would have been
cheated of his rope-work. Somebody or other would have hewn him down
before news ever got to the Court. Yes, I don't see what else he could
have done--and yet I would not have done it myself. Well, I am a fine
cloak to the good, which I will keep in case I want it some day as
testimony." He chuckled over his great gains, glad that he had brought
it with him, though he had had another purpose in his mind when he
packed it into his bag. "May be the Swedes will take me for a king's
son." He knew nothing of the Swedes, believed to be a dark and savage
people, a people of forests and swamps; but he must venture among them
if he wished to save his neck. "Oh, yes, certainly I wish to save my
neck."
He found himself to be passably happy, riding under the stars up the
dales which grew ever narrower, and more intricate. There was little
cantering ground, and the way difficult to find. Knowing the stars well,
he steered by them. Besides that the season was still fair and it could
never be called dark.
He rested not until the sun was warming the snow on the peaks above him,
and then not for long. But he had to go very slowly now, up the bed of a
water-course which he must cross and re-cross half-a-dozen times in the
half-hour to get tolerable going ground. The sorrel stretched her neck
and blew through her nose. She was tired and he knew it, and felt heavy
at the thought that he and she must soon part. She was his dearest
possession. He thought that he loved her as much as his brother. Both of
them had served him well in this affair. "It was a generous thing of
Sigurd, so near as he is to King Olaf, to come and warn me. He may get
into trouble over it. All depends on the king's mood. If he is in a
rage he may tie Sigurd up and keep him in bondage on my account. But no!
I trust that king. He was good to me about his religion." He laughed
over the memory of that, and looking up into the clear sky, which the
sun was burning to whiteness, watching the soaring eagles, marking up
the glittering snowfields the herds of deer stretched out in thin lines
of travel like trees in file, he felt happy.
The time came when he must send the mare home. He freed her of saddle
and bridle. He loaded himself with the pack-bag, cut himself a
birch-sapling for staff, and stood ready. Then he kissed Sorrel's nose,
and turned her face westward. "Home with thee, dear one," he said, "and
keep thy counsel when thou art there. We shall meet again if the luck
holds. Neigh at thy stable door and Sigurd will befriend thee.
Farewell." He gave her a hearty smack on the buttock, then held his
arms wide and said "Off." She looked round at him, prick-eared and
close-eyed. She whinnied to him, then turned to nibble the grass. "What,
thou wilt not? But I tell thee, go. One more kiss perhaps." He kissed
her again, and whispered in her ear, "Home, my dear." She looked forward
down the rocky vale she had climbed and then walked soberly down. Once
or twice she stopped and looked round, and then she neighed after him.
"Shoo, mare!" he said. "Shoo, girl!" and opened his arms. Sorrel went
down the valley and he lost sight of her.
He turned to his way which asked him to cross a mountain shoulder deep
in snow. That was heavy going, for it was soft in the sun. From the top
he saw his work before him, fold within fold of snow, brown
valley-bottoms, and over all the great ridge of white with pines like
scars upon it, which was the boundary between Norway and Sweden.
Heavens! What a job he had got. But he went on, nothing doubting, and
kept a stout heart. "A lonely place to be hanged in, and few trees fit
for it. But I doubt I should have a fight for it here."
I need not delay over his journey, which took him two days longer, and
two nights. By the time he had climbed the great ridge he had come near
the end of his strength and his provisions for it. Yet he must go on;
for that was no place in which to spend the night, a waste of snow and a
line of torn pines driven everlastingly by a cruel wind. When he saw
what was now in front of him and below, his heart might sink, though it
did not. So far as eye could range all was forest. It was like looking
upon a dark sea, featureless except for the lines of light and shadow
which ran over it when wind and sun played together. He saw no ways, no
clearings; there rose no chimney-smoke anywhere. Not a bird sailed
above, not a wolf grieved, not a fox stirred. "And is that Sweden then?
And are there people dwelling in the dark beneath? There are two worlds
there, and there might be dwellers in the tree-tops who know nothing of
the inhabitants of the deep, and are themselves unknown. How am I to
guide myself through that thicket, and who is going to feed me or give
me drink?" Looking into it, he shivered in the wind. "Outlandish
country, you must do better for me than this," he said. He had a
traverse of a league of snow-slope before he could enter the forest. To
that he addressed himself now, with a prayer to all the Gods in Valhall.