Gudrid the Fair Part 2

"And what adventure is that?"

Einar said, "I cannot tell you at the moment. It is not a settled thing by any means."

Halldis looked at Orme, and Orme nodded his head.

After that Einar saw much of Gudrid, and used to tell her tales of the sea. He was busy, of course, most of the day, but found time in the evenings; and in the mornings, too, he had the habit of going to church at Ma.s.s-time and kneeling behind her. She was pleased to find him there, and the first time showed it plainly. After that she was more than pleased, but careful not to show it. They used to walk home together, and sometimes did not go the straight road, but went round by the frith and looked at Einar's ship lying out at her moorings, swaying with the tide.

One day, looking at the ship there, Gudrid asked him again what his adventure was, and whether anything was settled. No, he said, nothing was settled; but he hoped it might be settled soon. "It does not depend altogether upon me," he said. "My mind was made up at once."

"But," said Gudrid, "if that adventure were settled and done with, would you not then think of seeking the new country which Biorn saw?"

"Well, I might do that," Einar replied. "But a man tires of the sea after a time, and I have had plenty of it. I am very well off, you must know. I might set up my house-pillars, and find me a wife."

"But you would not do that?"

"Ah," said Einar, "but I am sure that I would." She kept her gaze for the tide in the frith, feeling it would be indiscreet to say more.

A little later on he told her what the adventure was on which his heart was set, and when she had heard it she gave him her hand. But she told him that it did not rest with her--as he knew very well it did not.

They sat together on the brae in the sun, and her hand remained in his keeping. Presently she said, "If my father says that we may, we will go out to find the new country together."

"We will go where you will," said Einar. "It will be all one to me."

Again she thought, with her face set towards the sea. Then she turned suddenly and put her arms round his neck.

IV

Einar spoke to Orme about the affair, and Orme put on a scared look, though he had been expecting something of the kind. "You will find Thorbeorn hard to deal with," he said.

Einar replied, "Hard or not, I intend to come at him, for I love Gudrid, and she loves me. She is worth fighting for, being as good as she is fair."

"She is so," said Orme; "but, to tell you the truth, I don't know how you will set about it."

"I shall ask you to be my friend in it," Einar said. "He will listen to you sooner than any one."

Orme put his head on one side. "I don't care much about your errand.

You will get me into hot water with Thorbeorn. Don't I tell you that he is a great man, an old settler and what-not? He knows his forefathers back to Baldur the Beautiful."

"You are telling me what I know already," said Einar, who was rather red, and showed a frown. "My own birth is no such thing. My father was a freedman. Well, I couldn't help that."

"If I am telling you stale news, neighbour," said Orme, "it is only that you may see what I have to tell Thorbeorn."

"Yes, yes, I know," Einar said. "He is a man of rank, and I no such thing. I grant it. But I have money, do you see? I am well off both in ships and credit; my name stands well in the world. And I am young, and he is old. I think I could be useful to Thorbeorn, if he would allow it--and I need not tell you I set no bounds in reason upon what I would put down for the sake of the match."

"Well," said Orme, "I will go and see him."

Gudrid could hear nothing of this until the morning; but then Einar told her what he had arranged with Orme. She now considered herself as pledged to Einar, though she was nothing of the kind. Loyalty to him persuaded her of it, and he found that very sweet, and was touched.

They sat close together on the brae; she allowed him her hand, and rested her cheek on his shoulder. Einar, who was an honest young man, began to fear that he was doing wrong to allow it. But he could not resist a word or two for himself. He told her of his birth, saying that his father, Thorgar, of Thorgar's Fell, had been a freedman, but had done well since. "It is right you should know these things," he said.

Gudrid said that it was nothing to her; but Einar warned her that it might be much to her father. He went on: "To you perhaps it is enough that I love you dearly--and to me it is enough. But who knows? Maybe I shall not have the right to talk to you after to-morrow or next day.

Now I wish to say this to you, that I shall never look at another woman, and will bind myself to you if you will accept it of me."

She sat erect at that and looked gravely at him. "You ought not to bind yourself," she said, "since I cannot."

"You cannot. I know that," he said. "But I both can and will."

Thereupon he brought out a handful of money from his breast and chose a gold coin of thin soft gold, with the head of a ragged old king on it.

He told her where it came from, and how he had had it from a dead man after a battle in the mouth of a great river in Russia. Then he bit it in the middle with his teeth, and indented it fairly. He bent it to and fro until it was broken in half; and next he bored a hole in each portion, and gave one to Gudrid.

"Now I have tokened myself to you, my love," he said. "Do you wear that upon a chain which I will give you presently, and remember when you look at it, or take it in your hands, that I wear the fellow. If ever you want me, you have only to let that half-moon of gold come into Orme's hands, and sooner or later you will see me again. And so let it be between us from henceforward if you will."

She took the coin, and closed her hand upon it until he should give her the chain, but having it, she could not be to him as she had been before. She sat up straight and looked at the sea. Her hand was free for him; but he did not take it, and she felt sure he would not.

A constraint fell upon them; neither could find anything to say. Fate was between them.

So it was until Orme came back with his news.

He had nothing good to report. Thorbeorn had heard him with impatience, and as soon as he had ended put himself into a rage. His thin neck stiffened, his faded eyes showed fire. "Do you offer for my daughter on behalf of a thrall's son? Well for him he put you forward instead of a smaller man. But I take it ill coming from you whom I have always treated as a friend."

Orme had excused himself on the score of Einar's merits--for which he could answer, he said--and well-being. "He has two ships at sea in the Norway trade. His credit stands high on each side the water. There's many a worse man than he well married--and he loves your Gudrid beyond price. There is nothing he will not put down for her."

But that had wounded Thorbeorn in his most sensitive part. He knew that he was ruined and could not bear that other men should know it also. "It is hard that his money should tempt you to insult a poor man," he said. "I am what I am, and that is a man not so poor but he can keep his honour clear. You must think me poor indeed in other things than goods when you ask me to trade my own flesh and blood. Let me hear no more of it for fear I may get angry. It is the case, I see, that I rate my daughter's marriage more highly than you seem able to conceive of. I made a great mistake when I left her in your charge precisely to avoid what you have brought upon me. Now she shall come home, where she can be valued at the worth of her name and person.

That is what I have to say to you, Orme." With that he had looked Orme straight in the face, and there had been no more to urge.

Einar heard it from Orme, but it was Halldis who told Gudrid the news.

Gudrid received it in silence, but put her hand up and laid it over the token which fluttered in her bosom. "My pretty one," said Halldis, "I blame myself."

"No, no," Gudrid said, "you must not do that. n.o.body is at fault."

But Halldis thought Einar had been much to blame. She would have comforted Gudrid and made much of her if she had been able--but Gudrid would not have that. She served the table as before, and sat by Halldis afterwards while the men talked and pa.s.sed the mead about. She was pale and silent, but did not give way, nor leave them till her usual time. When she was in her bed she sobbed, and buried her hot face in the bolster; but even then she did not cry. She was always impatient of deeds which led nowhere--and crying is a great deed.

In the morning they parted. "I shall sail as soon as may be now," he told her. "Iceland will be hateful to me if it hold us two apart."

"Maybe you will seek out the new country," she said, with a bleak smile.

"Maybe," he said. "But it may be you who see it first." She shook her head sadly.

"We do foolishly when we talk of my fate," she said, and then there was a silence which was like a winter fog. She broke it by throwing herself into his arms.

"Listen," she said with pa.s.sion, "listen. They will give me to another man, but I shall be yours all the while. They might give me to two men, one on the heels of another, but it would be nothing. Do you believe it? You must believe it, you must."

"I believe it," said Einar; "but it is dreadful to talk about."

"No, it is not dreadful, because I tell you it is nothing," she said.