Salt and scarred from the northern seas, the _Taernan_, deep-laden with
herring, nosed in at the Hanse quay in Bergen. Thorolf Erlandsson looked
grimly up at the huge warehouses. Since the Hanseatic League secured a
foothold in Norway, in 1343, most Norwegian ports had been losing trade,
and Bergen, or rather the Hanse merchants in Bergen, had been getting
it. Between the Danes and the Germans it looked rather as if Norwegians
were to be crowded out of their own country.
The Hanse traders not only received and sold fish for the Friday markets
of northern Europe, but sold all kinds of manufactured goods. It was
said that they had two sets of scales--one for buying and one for
selling. Norwegians had either to adapt themselves to the new methods or
give their sons to the ceaseless battle of the open sea. From the Baltic
and Icelandic fisheries, the North Sea and the Lofoden Islands, their
ships got the heaviest and the hardest of the sea-harvesting.
But it takes more than hardship to break a Norseman. In his four years
at sea Thorolf had become tall, broad-shouldered and powerful, and at
eighteen he looked a grown man. He did more than he promised, and
listened oftener than he talked, and his only close friend was Nils
Magnusson, who was now coming down to the wharf. They had known each
other from boyhood.
Nils had been for three years a clerk in Syvert Thorolfsson's warehouse.
While not tall he was neither stunted nor crippled, and easily kept pace
with Thorolf. As he set out the silver-bound horn cups to drink
_skal_[1] with his friend in his own lodging, the croak and sputter of
German talk sounded in the street below.
"Behold a new Bergen," observed Nils whimsically. "Let us drink to the
founding of a new Iceland. Did you go to Greenland?"
"We touched at Kakortok with letters for the Bishop. The people are sick
and savage with fighting against the Skroelings."
"Now," said Nils, rubbing his long nose, "it is odd that you say that,
for I was just going to tell you some news. The King has given Paul
Knutson leave to raise a company to fight against the Skroelings in
Greenland--and parts beyond. He sails in a month."
"I wish I had known of it."
"I thought you would say that. This is between us two and the candle,
but Anders Amundson is going, and I am going, and you may go if you
will."