WHITE ROSE AND RED.
Now the third day of the feast had come, when the guests bethought them
of going their ways homewards. Thorstein went out with Asdis to catch
her nag for her, and to set her on the way with Asmund and his men. But
when they got up to the fell-pasture where the horses were, thralls were
cutting wood from the stubs in the coppice hard by. And just as Thorstein
was laying hold of the nag, what should he see but a poor, thin, gaunt
figure in rags, among the woodcutters, carrying a huge load of sticks,
and the red hair hanging down unkempt over her face. One of the men, in
rough horse-play, as rude rascals do with a strange new fellow-servant,
put out his foot, and let her trip over it, and tumble with the load and
all. Then another went up to her and cursed her for a fool and gave her
a kick. Thorstein flew at them, and it was right for one and left for
t’other, and down they went, heels over head, one with a broken jaw and
one with bloody nose. Thorstein picked up the lass, and would have kissed
her, but she fought herself loose and struggled away.
“Raineach!” he cried; “Raineach!”
She turned and looked at him in his finery. Then she looked at Asdis who
had come up, staring. Then she looked down at her tatters, and black,
bare feet and fingers.
Asdis put her hand on Thorstein’s shoulder. “Eh, what breaks!” she
giggled, and then burst into shrieks of laughter. Thorstein shook off her
hand, and darted after the ragged lass, who fled through the wood.
“Oh, Raineach!” he cried after her in her own language, “Raineach my
darling! forgive me, forgive me! Listen to me: only hear me! Stay,
Raineach, only stay, and hear me!”
Poor little thing, she was too weak and ill to run far: and stopped at
bay under a ridge of rock in the wood. But still she kept him off with
her hands, while she wept and laughed and wept again.
Thorstein grovelled on the moss before her, and poured out his heartful
of passionate words: blaming himself for knave and fool: and excusing
himself by telling her what had passed, and how his mother had promised
to have her well bestowed in a thrall’s cot, out of the way of the stoore
of the guests: and how he could not come nigh her till they were gone:
and over and over again he said it, till he had no more to say. At last
he lay quite still, sobbing bitterly.
“What’s all this?” shouted a rough voice through the wood. It was Orm.
“Look here, young fellow, don’t go knocking my thralls about: I’ll thank
you to learn manners, if you mean to stay. And who is this ugly goblin,
I’d like to know?”
Thorstein was on his feet in a moment, and Raineach in his arms as if
they had never parted.
“She’s my sister, kinsman: the child of my foster-father. And I give thee
to know, that there’s not a lass in the land to match her.”
“One would think the giant had fostered thee, barn,” said Orm, using the
old byword, and laughing scornfully.
“Then beware of the giant’s fosterling.”
“Well, come and show thy mother what a prize thou hast got.”
“Aye, that I will, and all the world,” answered Thorstein, as she nestled
to him, and clung to him, sobbing no more, but tall and straight and
proud, in her rags and dirt.
And then he led her to Greenodd house, whence all the guests had gone
away: and speaking in her tongue, told his mother who she was. And his
mother answered him, and spoke to her words that she could hear, and that
made her weep for gladness. And when she was washed and fed, and dressed
in clothes from Thorstein’s own store, simple things that Asdis had not
cared to take, she sat by the fire while Thorstein told them, far into
the night, the story of his wanderings and of her kindness to him.
As the story went on, Unna drew nearer to her the child, that wondered,
and understood nought of the tale but what she guessed from their
glances: until her head was on the good mother’s lap, and from her eyes,
half shut, the tears crept out, and through the great red mane, upon the
kind hands that petted her.
When Thorstein had done, Hundi kissed him, and Orm came over out of the
high-seat he was proud to keep, and held out his hand. “Kinsman,” he said
“let bygones be bygones.”
“Why,” said Thorstein, holding his brother’s hand: “What is there to
forgive?”
But Unna said, in the soft Erse tongue that came back to her like a dream
of childhood, “Many a time have I prayed, whiles to the Allfather, and
whiles to the White Christ, for a little lass, though I dared tell no
soul else of the folly. And he has heard me, whoever it is hears poor
folk’s prayers. He has taken my man to himself, and he has sent me this
bonny maid.”