IX

Gudrid's fortune was envied by the girls of the house, who expressed

themselves freely about it. "With your looks," they said, "it was to

be expected she would take notice of you. But to see so much, and to

tell you all!" The poor girl herself, however, took it very hard, and

saw herself punished for impiety. She felt as if she was branded for

ever--the girl who was to kill two men, and perhaps a third. In her

mind's eye she could see that doomed first husband of hers, the shadow

coldly upon him, herself looking sorrowfully at him, seeing him in the

shadow but not able to speak of it. Her heart gave a leap of gratitude

that Einar had been sent away by her father. It might have been he in

the shadow. But would he be the second? Ah, no, she vowed he should

not. Or would he be the third? Not if the third was to be an ugly

man. Then there was the promise of the end: "Your ways tend to Iceland

. . . thither you will return . . . you shall end your life-days in the

way that pleases you best." Could that mean that Einar----? But after

three honourable men had received death at her hand! She shuddered and

hugged herself against the cold. Not even the promise of Einar seemed

fortification enough for that. Nevertheless, there was comfort in the

last days. She told her bedfellow stoutly that she did not believe a

word of it, but the girl merely stared at her. Then she said: "I know

who your first husband will be if he can persuade Thorbeorn. It is

Skeggi of Whitewaterstrand." After that Gudrid had to be told all

about it.

She told her father too--but not so stoutly--that she did not believe

it; but in her heart she felt that it must be true. As for Thorbeorn,

who had heard it all through the wall, whatever he may have thought, he

was very indignant, and angry with her too. "Put such mummery out of

your head. We are not Christians for nothing, I should hope. A

scandalous hag with her bell-wether voice and airs of a great lady!

What has she to do with good women, well brought up? A woman's duty is

to leave match-making to her parents, and the future to God and His

Angels. Who can foretell his end? Can the priest? Can the bishop?

No. And who would wish to know it? Ask yourself. I am vexed that we

should have fallen upon a heathen house, and much more that you should

have lent yourself to its wicked customs."

Gudrid excused herself. "I couldn't help myself. They are kind

people. It would have been ungracious. And I did know the songs. How

could I have said I did not?"

"And who taught you such songs?"

"Halldis sang them," she said; "I learnt them of her."

He had to allow for much that she urged. "Well, think no more of it,"

he bade her.

"No, I must not," she said.

"When the time comes, when we are settled by Eric Red, I shall find a

good husband for you, beyond a doubt."

"Yes," said Gudrid.

"Then we shall have the laugh of these mystery-mongers."

"Yes."

"As for me, I never heard such nonsense in my days."

"No," said Gudrid, looking about for a way of escape. She could

neither put it out of her head, nor believe it nonsense. Fate hung

heavy on her like a pall of smoke.

She had Skeggi of Whitewaterstrand pointed out to her by her room-mate,

and recognised him as a young man she had often seen at the house. Now

immediately she looked upon him with tenderness, and received his

advances to acquaintance with such kindness that he conceived high

hopes and went about with his chest swelling with pride. But all the

time he was talking to her, or at her, rather, with the other girls,

her heart was calling to him, "Do not marry me, do not, do not----"

which he, unfortunately, interpreted in the opposite sense.

Oddly enough, though every one in the Settlement had heard the

soothsay, and nobody doubted it, she was the only person concerned who

took it closely to heart. Young Skeggi was earnest to have her to

wife, and asked Heriolf to put his case forward to Thorbeorn.

Thorbeorn, however, would have nothing to say to him. Skeggi

disappeared, and Gudrid had a moment's ease.

The first things foretold by Thorberg came about with the quickening of

the year. With the first blowing of the warm wet wind of the west, the

fogs began to roll away off the land and pile themselves upon the

flanks of the mountains. Then, when the earth had warmth enough in her

body to thaw the iron mail about her ribs, the sickness in the

Settlement abated. Men felt the light, and saw whence it came. The

sun showed himself, first like a silver coin, then with sensible heat.

The cattle were put out to pasture, the sheep could move and nibble

about the foothills. Hens began to lay, cows to give milk, sheep to

drop lambs. Thorbeorn made ready to sail to Ericsfrith, and Gudrid was

able to forget that she was marked with a curse.

So the day for sailing came, a bright spring day with a soft wind,

which crisped the waters of the bay and heaped froth upon the stones.

At parting, old Heriolf twinkled his kind and frosty eyes upon Gudrid.

"Farewell, my child," he said; "you are a notable woman who will do

great things." She smiled, but sadly. "It seems I am to bring

unhappiness to many," she said. "No, no, that's not how I look at it,"

said Heriolf. "Men must die, we all know. But more than one are to

have your love and kindness while they live--and that is more than they

ought to expect. If I were not so old, or my son Biorn were at home,

we would keep you in the family. Who wants a long life? Not I, though

I have had it. But who wants a good wife? Who does not?"

Gudrid said, "To be good is the least I can do. It seems very easy.

But to be happy is difficult."

"I never found it so," said old Heriolf. And so they parted, she

whither Fate beckoned her, and he to go fishing.

X

Eric Red, who lived at Brattalithe in Ericsfrith, had been a notable

man all his life, and a man of mettle. In Earl Hakon's day in Norway

he had been a Viking, had made a few friends and many enemies; then he

had gone out to Iceland and founded a family in the west country, which

might have endured to this day if it had not been for his headstrong

way of doing. But, as before, he made more enemies than friends; and

when he killed the son of Thorgest the Old, and was pursued for the

slaughter at the Thing, he found that there was more feeling against

him than he had reckoned on, and that Iceland could not hold him much

longer. By what shifts a ship was hidden for him among the islands,

and how his friends got him down by night, and rowed him aboard, and

how he slipped his cable and escaped pursuit, cannot be told here.

Enough to say that he found his way to Greenland, and chose out a fair

haven for himself and his company. When he was settled in, and had his

town of Ericshaven marked out, and his house built, he felt himself

like a king and cast about for alliances. He sent out messengers to

Iceland calling upon all men who had been his friends to rally about

him. Many came, and by the time his friend Thorbeorn had decided to

join him there was a strong settlement at Ericshaven.

Eric was now grown old, and was very fat. He thought himself that his

work was over, but had hopes to see it continued in his sons. He had

three sons by his wife Theodhild; the eldest was Leif, who was abroad

at this time, supposed to be in Orkney. Leif was a fine tall man who

took after his mother, and had none of Eric's fiery colour; the second

son was Thorstan, who was as red as a fox; the third was Thorwald, and

resembled Leif, but was of slighter build. Then there was a

tempestuous daughter, named Freydis, a strongly made, fierce girl, who

was fated to do terrible things. She was married to one of Eric's

vassals, a man called Thorward of Garth, but treated him with great

contempt and did just what she pleased. As for Theodhild, Eric's wife,

she was a Christian at this time, and had taken herself out of

Brattalithe for religion's sake. She had built a church in Ericshaven

and found a priest to serve it; and now she lived in a small house hard

by and practised austerities. She was a very stately woman, and held

in great estimation all over the settled country. Eric Red was uneasy

with her, because he believed that she scorned him; but her sons used

to go to see her. She had quarrelled with Freydis irrevocably, and if

she met her anywhere would never take any notice.

Thorbeorn was made welcome at Brattalithe and great attention shown to

his fair daughter. Women were scarce in Greenland. Eric's two sons,

Thorstan and Thorwald, immediately wanted her; but Thorstan was the

elder and stronger, and soon came to terms with Thorwald. "My mind,"

he said, "is set upon Gudrid, and I am older than you by a good deal.

I advise you to be my friend in the affair, otherwise no one knows how

it may turn out." Thorwald said that that was fair enough: "But I

advise you to be sharp about it." "Why so?" said Thorstan. Thorwald

told him that he would be only one of many. He named one or two, and

Thorstan frowned. Thorstan was a very honest man; he was a good poet

and a great man for dreams, but slow and heavy minded. "A man must not

be driven in such a matter," he said. "A man should not need it,"

Thorwald replied. "As you have spoken to me, so do you speak to

Gudrid's old iron father. Hammer him smartly; knock sparks out of him.

If you do not, some one else will, and I shall have wasted benevolence

upon you. If you are not to be the lucky man, why am I to be thrown

aside?"

This was in the very early days, before Thorbeorn had taken up lands in

the Settlement. He was all that summer the guest of Eric at

Brattalithe, and there was a great deal to do. Eric and Thorbeorn rode

about the country, talking of this land and that. Gudrid fell into the

ways of the house and made herself useful. She was taken to see

Theodhild, and became friends with the stern, lonely woman. Theodhild

spent much of her time in the little dark church she had had built.

Until Gudrid came, she and the priest had had it pretty much to

themselves, for the people in the Settlement stood by Eric, their great

man. But Gudrid went to church with Theodhild, and renewed her

emotions. She seemed to escape from her shadow in there. One little

twinkling light before the altar shone to her through the fog and bade

her still to hope.

Then there was Freydis. Oddly enough Freydis took to her, though she

pretended to despise her. "You are one of those women whom men go mad

about--one of the meek, still women who madden men," she said. "But I

am one whom men madden rather; for I hate them and detest their ways,

and yet cannot get on without them." Gudrid denied her maddening

qualities, and denied that she was meek or still. She assured Freydis

that she herself could get on very well without marriage. "I used not

to think about it at all until I came to this country where, it seems

to me, nobody thinks of anything else. The first thing that happened

to me was dreadful. It is no wonder if I think about it now."

Freydis wished to hear what dreadful thing it was, and with a little

pressing Gudrid told her what Thorberg had prophesied. Freydis stared.

"Is that all? You have only to live in Greenland and live to be a

hundred and you might have as many husbands. People die here in the

winter like tadpoles in a dry summer. Three! Her moderation alarms

me."

"But I must be sure of the death of two men!" said poor Gudrid.

"You must be sure of the death of every man in the world," said

Freydis. "It may be that you will be glad enough to be sure of it

before you have done with them. I am sure that I should be."

That was all the comfort she got out of Freydis; but happily she had a

diversion of her thoughts. Biorn Heriolfsson, who had come round the

Ness soon after Thorbeorn sailed, now came up to see Eric Red.

He was a brisk, vivacious man, with a good conceit of himself, and had

much that was interesting to say of the new countries he had visited.

Gudrid was rapt in attention, for every word he said seemed to make

Einar visible to her, with his bright eyes, his ear-rings, his soft

eager voice and his white teeth. Einar now stood for all sorts of

things besides himself to Gudrid. He stood for home; he stood for

Halldis and Orme who had loved her well; and he stood for the days when

no heavy fate hung between her and the blue sky. He stood to her as to

us the song of a lark may stand, when we are shut up within the walls

of a town. She would have married him gladly, but for the Fate; but

she no longer thought of him as a lover.

Therefore on account of all that he stood for--home, freedom,

loving-kindness, hopefulness--she was enthralled by Biorn's talk, and

could not hear enough of the new countries which he had seen. Einar's

account of what he had done and where been was quite true. A fair wind

took him out from Reekness, and he sailed before it until he had lost

the land for two days. Two more days it held, then veered to the

northward and blew down upon them the dense Greenland fog. He was now

helpless, and for a week or more had no knowledge of his course; but he

observed that a strong current was bearing him, as he thought,

westward. That might be all to the good, he judged, forgetting how far

south he had run before the thick weather caught him; anyhow, there was

nothing to be done except to keep a sharp look-out for land

a-starboard. He passed several icebergs and had a touch-and-go

business with some of them, he said.

At last the fog lifted a little, and a light and fitful wind began to

blow--from what quarter they had no means of knowing, but it was a

chill wind. Biorn guessed it was northerly. He saw the stars before

he saw the sun, and got his bearings. Next day it was fair. The sun

rose out of the sea. The ship was heading nor'-nor'-west. He hoisted

all sail, and made brave work of it. In the course of that day they

saw land ahead, a long low line of dark, like a bank of rain-cloud.

Biorn ran on, heading straight for it, but he had his doubts from the

first, and when they could make out the country better he said to his

mate, "That's never Greenland."

Sounding carefully, they came within two miles of the land, and could

hear the thunder of the surf, and see it too. The sea was like a hilly

country with troughs between the rollers like broad ghylls, Biorn said.

He would be a bold man who tried to land there from a boat.

The country looked to be low-lying, with a sandy shore blown into small

pointed hills. Behind those, so far as the eye could reach, there was

a dense woodland--most of it black, or looking so, but with patches and

belts of red and rose-colour; like flames, said Biorn. No mountains,

no snow at all, though by now it was winter in Iceland. Biorn said, "I

knew very little about it, to be sure, but knew it was not Greenland

the White."

Eric asked him why he had not landed. "How should I land in a surf

like that? And what was I to do in the country with my Norway

merchandise still aboard, and my father God knew where? I knew he was

not there--and that was enough for me."

"But, Biorn," said Gudrid, flushed and eager, "that was a new country

you had found. How could you pass it by?"

"All very well," said Biorn, "but I'll trouble you to remember that

Greenland was a new country to me--and my father in it moreover. And

one new country at a time is enough, I suppose."

He went on to say that he coasted those flat wooded shores for the

better part of two days and nights, keeping the land on his port bow,

but when, as it seemed to him, the coast-line turned westward as if to

make a great bay, thinking he would cut across it, he held on his

course. It was another two-three days before they made land again, and

then it was the same thing as before--woods, swamps, sand, driving

rain, or good sunshine; and still no snow. Now he had trouble with his

crew, who were for running into the land. They wanted wood and water,

they said; but Biorn wouldn't have it. "I wanted my father," he said,

"and besides there was abundance of water."

"What you wanted your father for beats me," said Eric, and Gudrid's

bright eyes sparkled their approval of his judgment.

"A man may want to see his father more than a foreign country, I

suppose," said Biorn. "You forget that I have seen a deal of foreign

countries--Russia, Sweden, Dantzick and what-not."

Well, then they sailed for three days and nights before a spanking

breeze from the southwest, and ran into the true winter cold, and

presently saw land for the third time--snow mountains wreathed with

cloud, snow upon the sea-beach itself. Biorn said it was an unchancy,

inhospitable kind of country where his father would never choose to

live. It was deep water so that they could come close in. There were

no signs of habitancy; but there were white bears to be seen, in

plenty. That was an island, he said. They held on their course, which

was N.E. by E., the breeze stiffened into a gale; and then it came on

to blow hard. They had more than enough of it under shortened sail,

and shipping green seas every fourth wave. Then, for the fourth time,

they sighted land, and a great ness which ran far out into the sea.

"Greenland!" said Biorn; and Greenland it was. On the lee side of that

ness was the very town about his father's house; and the very first man

he saw was his father, with lobster-pots all round him.

That, he said, was how it had been, and anybody was welcome to the

news. As for himself, he was a trader, and had no mind for fancy

voyages. Eric said that he might take the adventure up himself, but at

any rate his son Leif would take it up. Thorwald said that he intended

to go if Leif would take him. "I want to see that country where there

is no winter. That's the place for me. Will you come too, Thorstan?"

But Thorstan was looking at Gudrid and did not hear him.