Thorbeorn's ship lay ready for him in Rawnhaven; but there was much to
do, what with hay and corn harvest, to get in, before he could leave.
He sailed, then, fully late in the year--himself and his household,
thirty or more of his friends beside, his house-pillars and all the
stock he had left beside. He was burning to be off, the old adventurer
that he was, but Gudrid was not of his way of feeling about it. The
Icelanders were a race of stoics. What was to be held them spellbound.
Far from hindering adventure, it promoted it; for you never knew but
what Fate intended you to succeed. But Gudrid had seen how she might
have been happy, and could not understand how otherwise she could be.
The last night at home, so she fondly called Iceland, was spent with
Orme and Halldis, to whose kindness she thawed at last. She cried upon
Halldis's broad bosom, and revealed herself. "You see how it is with
me now," she said. "If I never meet him again I shall never love
another man. And I see no way of meeting him--and so I must be
wretched." Then she fairly wailed: "I might have been so happy--I
might have been!" till it was pity to hear her.
Presently she took out her token and showed it to Halldis. "That is
all I have of Einar's," she said. Halldis said that she had the girdle
he had given her. "Yes," she said, "but this has his teeth-marks in
it." Then she sat up on Halldis's lap and looked shyly at her, saying,
"I am going to ask you something."
"Ask, my child."
"If it should happen ever that I come home again, and want to see
Einar, will you give him this from me? He will know then what to do."
Halldis promised. "He is mostly here every year," she said. "But
there's no saying how it may find him."
"It will find him waiting for me," Gudrid said. "He promised me that."
"Oh, my dear, my dear," cried Halldis, "to be sure he did! What else
could he say or feel at such a time?" But Gudrid held to her opinion,
and to her token too. She said that she should always wear it; and
Halldis had not the heart to exclaim.
They sailed with a fair wind, having waited for it, and were soon out
of sight of land; but it did not hold. Bad weather overtook them,
contrary winds, driving rain, fog--that overhanging curse of Greenland.
They ran far out of their course and had to beat back again; cattle
died, provision ran short; to crown all a sickness broke out among the
company, whereof near half died. Thorbeorn kept hale and hearty
throughout; and Gudrid took no harm. The wet, the clinging cold, the
wild weather did not prevent her attending the sick, or doing the work
which they should have done, had they been able. She had no time to be
happy or unhappy, and was never afraid of anything.
It was hard upon the winter; the days were short, the nights bitter
cold. The fog, thick and white like a fleece, seemed incapable of
lifting. The wind came in short spells, the sea was lumpy. But one
day as they were labouring and rolling, the ship straining and cordage
creaking, Thorbeorn lifted his head, and bore hard upon the helm.
"Breakers!" he shouted, and the crew sprang to the rail. A dark form
seemed to lift out of the fog, like a core of blackness, and clouds of
sea-birds wheeled overhead with harsh clamour. They were come unawares
to Greenland the White, and within an ace of breaking up against her
cliffs.
None on board knew what headland this might be; but Thorbeorn knew it
was not Ericsfrith, which he had intended to make. They rounded it,
however, without mishap, and had a fair wind when they were beyond it.
At last they could see a shore with a rough breakwater of stones; and
presently upon that shore some men standing together. They cast anchor
and let down their sails, and before all was shipshape a boat came
rowing out to them, with a man in the stern in a blue cloak. The boat
came alongside, and they were hailed. "Who and whence are you?"
Thorbeorn told his name and port of origin. "I hoped to make
Ericsfrith," he said.
"You have made a poor business of it," said the master of the boat.
"This is Heriolfsness, a good ten hours' sailing from the frith; and I
am Heriolf at your service."
Gudrid's heart leapt. This was the father of Biorn, of whom Einar had
told her in the days of her happiness. That seemed for a moment to
bring Einar within touching distance.
Meantime Heriolf came on board and greeted Thorbeorn fairly. He was a
hale old man, with white hair and beard, and twinkling blue eyes. "You
will do well," he said, "to stay with me through the winter. This is
an unchancy country in winter time, what with fog and scurvy and one
thing and another. In Iceland you do better, because you have the
wind--but here the fog smothers everything. If my son Biorn were at
home he could tell you of a new country, my word! But he's away, and
no telling when he will be here again. Now, if you are willing, we
will be going. My people will see to the housing of yours, and the
stock shall be looked after as if it was my own. But you and your girl
here will be happy to be by a hearth again."
So it was done. They found Heriolf a good host, his house well built
and well stored. He had a comely wife, too, who took kindly to Gudrid.
"That's a paragon of a girl you have there," Heriolf said. "If my son
were at home I don't know how it would turn out."
"She's not for every one," said Thorbeorn, on his dignity at once.
"But my son Biorn is some one, let me tell you," said Heriolf. "He is
a traveller who has seen more of the world than any man living, I dare
say. And here in Greenland, you must know, a woman is a precious piece
of goods. There was a woman brought in here last summer with a sick
man who died before he had been a week in bed. Before he was buried
there were six men fighting who should be her next. And two of them
were killed outright; but none of them got her."
"Would she have none of them?" Thorbeorn asked, though he was not at
all interested.
"She had no opportunity," said Heriolf. "For another man came and took
her away before they had done fighting."
Thorbeorn held his head stiffly. "But my daughter is greatly
descended," he said. "And Eric Red is of my friends."
"All that may be," said Heriolf, "but your daughter is a woman, and
Eric Red himself no more than a man. In this country you have to deal
with people as God made them. But there is a wise woman in the town,
and maybe she will tell us what is written in the book of life."
"My daughter is a Christian," said Thorbeorn, but old Heriolf's mouth
twitched.
"I dare swear she will be wanting to know what the book of life says,
for all that. Let me tell you that a marriage is not over when the
priest has said his say. No, nor yet begun, maybe."
Nobody could have been more easy to quarrel with than Heriolf upon the
subject of his son, except Thorbeorn upon that of his daughter; yet
there was no quarrel. It may be that Thorbeorn was too happy to
stretch his thin legs towards a driftwood fire again, or again, that he
recognised the sweet kernel of his host under the cruddled husk.
However it was, he let the talk of wise women and the Book of Fate
float over his head as the spume of the sea passes over the tangle far
below. The spume creams and surges, then disparts; but the sea-tangle
sways to the deep currents of the tide undisturbed. All well and
good--but there was a Wise Woman.