Gudrid the Fair Part 16

Karlsefne and the men with him faced them with the best heart they had, but he ordered a retreat to the stockade, and when he was pretty near the entrance bade a man go in and bring out the bull. That answered.

The great beast stood in the doorway pawing the ground and breathing hard. When he saw what was in front of him, down went his head, and he charged. The savages scattered all ways and saved themselves. In a few moments the lake was black with canoes; it was, the tale says, as though the water was covered with floating charcoal. Karlsefne did not like the look of things at all. He doubled the watch on the ship and strengthened the stockade; but did not wish to frighten Gudrid, who was so happy with her child, and beginning, as he could see, to love himself. He knew that she loved him, because at all sorts of times he found out that she had been looking at him while he moved about, busy over something or other. He taxed her with it one day. "I think that you love me, Gudrid."

She put her head on one side. "What makes you think so?" He told her; so then she owned to it, and he wished to know why. She said that she could not tell, but in such a way that he saw that she could, and wished him to know. So then he pressed her. "Tell me, Gudrid, why you love me." She touched her child's head. "Because you are strong, and good, and brave. And because you gave me this. A woman must love her child's father."

"Ask Freydis that," said Karlsefne; and she answered him; "Freydis loves more than she chooses to say. When Freydis has a child, you will see that she will love it."

"But not her man on that account," he said. "It is only a heart like yours, my Gudrid, that can love because it loves. For I see very well that you love me because you love this boy, and did not until he came."

She looked gently at him, half excusing herself. "I liked you well, and was grateful."

"Ah, yes, maybe," he said, "but that was not how you loved Thorstan Ericsson."

She said: "I was younger then, and I loved him so much because our time was short. But I love you better than I loved Thorstan, because of the peace you have put in my heart."

[1] The Hudson River.

XXVIII

There was no further visitation from the savages for some time. The leaves fell, the nights grew short, and there came a spell of cold; but if this were winter it was one which no Greenlander could fear. The sky was blue, the sun warm on the skin; there was no snow, and the frost a mere white rime which melted in an hour. Their cattle never failed of feed, and as for themselves, they had so well harvested the wild wheat and the grapes that they had nothing to fear.

The winter, to call it so, was well advanced before the savages came; but one day they were reported in large numbers on the lake, and Karlsefne gave orders how they were to be received. None were to be let inside the stockade; all the men were to have their weapons; such stuff as they had for barter was to be held up from within the defences and thrown over in exchange. He himself with a few of the best men should stand in the entry.

Now while they were waiting for the savages and could still see some of them out on the water, while others were disembarking on the sh.o.r.e, Gudrid was sitting just inside the door of her house with her child asleep on her lap. She sat full in the sun, and was quiet and happy, as she generally was. Presently there pa.s.sed a dark shadow across the open door. Gudrid looked up quickly. A woman stood there inside the pillars of the porch and looked fixedly at her. She was dressed in black, drawn very tightly across her; she was about Gudrid's own height, and had a ribbon over her hair--which was of a light-brown colour, and not coa.r.s.e as most of the savages' was. She was a pale, grave woman, and had the biggest eyes Gudrid had ever seen. They were wide open, grey, and had a world of sorrow in them. Gudrid was not at all afraid, because she thought the woman looked too sad to be wicked or ill-disposed; besides, she did not believe that any one could be ill-disposed to her. So she smiled up in her face and waited for her to speak.

When she did speak it did not seem at all remarkable that she should be perfectly understood. "What is your name?" she said plainly.

Gudrid answered her simply, "My name is Gudrid. And what is your name?"

"My name is Gudrid," said the woman, and the real Gudrid laughed softly.

"Come then, Gudrid, and sit by me," she said, and held out her hand.

The woman stared mournfully at her, and seemed to have trouble in speaking again. She turned her head about as if her throat hurt her.

Then she said, "No, I cannot--I may not." Again she struggled, as she said, "Go from here. Do not stay." There came a loud cry from the stockade, and Gudrid started and got up. She went to the door and looked out. The woman was not there.

By that time she was very much frightened, and saw them fighting at the entry. The outside of the fence seemed thick with savages, and presently some of them rushed the opening and came in. Freydis was at the door of her hut and saw them. Her face flamed. "Have at you, devils!" she shouted, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a double-handed sword. With this she went stumbling towards them, being so far on with child that she could scarcely walk. She had the long sword in one hand, but needed two to swing it. Her shift incommoded her, so she ripped it open and let it fall behind her. Then bare-breasted she whirled the great sword over her head and began to lay about her like a man. Her yellow hair flew out behind her like a flag; her face was flame-red, and her eyes glittering like ice. The savages fell back before her, and at the entry were caught by Karlsefne, returning from chasing a horde of them, and all killed. The others had gone or been driven off. Two of the Icelanders had been killed, and many were hurt.

After this they had a council what had best be done. Gudrid told her story. n.o.body had seen the woman but she, and n.o.body could make anything of it. Freydis thought that she was a ghost, but Gudrid was sure of her reality. "I think myself," she said, "that she was a woman of our own people either stolen by the savages from a ship, or cast ash.o.r.e from a wreck, or lost by some adventurers of a former day. I never saw any woman with so much horror in her face. I would do a great deal if I could find her again. But the fighting began, and she went away without my seeing her go."

"I should like more to know how she came in," said Karlsefne, "than how she went out. But whether she lives or is dead she had a warning which we had best take heed of. I am for going home myself."

Freydis said that she should stay. She liked the country and was minded to live in it. Others were of her mind. About a hundred chose to settle there with her and her husband.

There arose then the question of a ship, and Karlsefne said that he could not go home and leave them there with no means of escape. He said that he would go out in his own ship and look for the others, but Freydis would not have that. "Leave us here; we shall do well enough,"

she said. "As for the ship that has Thorhall the Huntsman in it, I would far sooner have none than his, with him in it."

"We have tools enough here, and timber enough," Karlsefne said. "We will build you a ship as soon as look at you." So it was settled they were to build a new ship before they left. That night Freydis's child was born. It was a girl, and she called it Walgerd. That had been the name of Thorstan's daughter, who had not lived. Gudrid wondered why she chose that name. She could never understand Freydis--n.o.body could; yet she had been right about her in one thing. Freydis loved the child more than life itself. She was so jealous of it that she was uneasy when any one came in to see her, and used to lean right over it and hide it out of sight. Her yellow hair fell over her face, her eyes showed fire. She was like a wild beast guarding her young. As for Thorhall, her husband, she warned him out of the house, and he never dared put his head inside the door. She allowed Gudrid the entry, sulkily, it is true; but that was only her way of doing things. She was glad of her in her heart. "I am even with you now," she said, with her face to the wall.

"I am glad of it," Gudrid said. "I always wished you happy."

"I have never been so, since I became a woman," said Freydis, and Gudrid did not know what she meant.

"I was happy enough," she went on, in a grumbling, even voice--as even it was as the constant running of water in a drain--"when I was a child, running and sporting with the boys. I loved all the things that they loved--I could swim as well as any, and ride, and fight with stones. But when they began to find me a girl, and to hold me and try to be alone with me, I had horror. They made me ashamed. And worse was to come--and I almost killed a young man for it--and after that I hated men, as I do still."

"They mean no harm," said Gudrid. "They do after their kind."

"But their kind is not mine. To be held in a man's arm is horrible to me."

"It is good to me, sometimes," said Gudrid.

"But when I saw you with Thorstan's child about to be born--and saw how rich and sedate you walked the ways, and how peace sat upon your forehead like a wreath, then I grudged you." Freydis turned round in the bed and showed her burning face. "And I said, 'This woman has a secret joy, and for all she is so quiet and still she is stronger than I.' And when the child died I was glad. I said, 'Now we are level again, but I will be better than you, for I will have a child which shall live and be strong like me.' But you have had yours first, and it is a boy. So you are better than me still." Then her eyes filled with hot tears, which made her eyelids blink.

"Oh, Freydis," Gudrid said, "you don't grudge me my boy?"

"No, no, it is not that. It is that I am ashamed. You are good, and I am very bad. I hate myself now."

Gudrid kissed her.

"Tell me, Freydis, now," she said, "why did you call your girl Walgerd?"

Freydis did not want to answer, but presently she said: "I should have called her Gudrid if that had been lucky. But we must not use the names of living persons for the new-born, so I called her Walgerd, because yours had been called so. I went as near to you as I could."

It seemed to hurt Freydis to talk about it, but Gudrid kissed her again, and went away feeling happy about her. "It is good to be loved, even by Freydis," she said to Karlsefne, whose answer was, "Who could help loving you?"

XXIX

But before the ship-building was began Freydis changed her mind, and said that she would go home with the rest. n.o.body caring to stop alone out there without some chieftain over them, it came to it that all must go home in one ship. They killed what stock they could not take alive, and sailed out of the river at the beginning of summer. Gudrid's boy Snorre was just two years old, and Karlsefne was anxious to be safe at home before he had a brother or sister.

They waited about at the river's mouth for a fair wind, then set all sail and ran before it northerly along the coast. So they came again to Markland and stayed there for certain days. It was there that Karlsefne and some of the crew, on sh.o.r.e after game, surprised some savages in a hollow of the woods: a bearded man, two women and two children. He saw them, unperceived himself, stalked them with art, and made a dash into the midst of them. He caught the two children, but the others disappeared into the earth. He brought them home with him and gave them to Gudrid. "Can you have too many children? I don't think so." She took them gladly and brought them up. They were brown all over and naked; they had black eyes round and staring as beads, but a ring of blue all about them, as blue as that on a thrush's egg. In time she taught them her own tongue, and in time had them baptized--but that was not until she went to Iceland. When they sailed from Markland the wind still held good, and they came safely into Ericsfrith, and picked up their moorings in the haven. It was as if they had never been away.

Leif came down to welcome them, and they stayed with him the rest of the year. Eric Red was dead, and Leif not married. He had his son with him born in Orkney, but Thorgunna herself had not come, and Leif would not marry any other woman. Theodhild his mother kept house for him--it was no longer the great hospitality which old Eric had loved to maintain.

They heard of the fate of Thorhall the Huntsman lost in Ireland, and of Biorn who had sailed with him. Their ship had been driven out of her course by tempest, and had drifted into a strange sea which they called The Maggoty Sea. Here the water was full of worms, which fastened on the ship and ate the timbers, so that she became rotten under them.

They had a boat with them which the worms would not touch, and cast lots which should go in her and which remain. Thorhall drew a good lot and Biorn another; half the crew got into the boat. But then, as they were casting off, a young man who had been with Biorn in Iceland and on many voyages looked over the side and said, "Biorn, do you leave me here?" Biorn said, "Why, what can I do?"

"You should keep the promise you made to me when I left my father's house to go along with you," the young man said.

Biorn looked about. "Well," he said, "what would you have?"

The young man answered, "I would have you take me in the boat."

"Would you have my place? Do you mean that?"