Gudrid the Fair Part 8

XIII

Leif bought Biorn's ship from him that winter, and busied himself stocking her with tools, weapons and spare gear for his voyage. As soon as the weather was open he was ready, and then it was a question whether Eric Red would go with him. Eric was in two minds about it, old as he was, and extremely fat. He had been a great traveller in his youth, and was averse from exertion in these latter days, but he was uncomfortable at home, with no wife in the house, and all his sons holding the new faith. So he wavered until the last minute, and then said that he would not go at all. Leif was not sorry.

He had a crew of five-and-thirty with him, and sailed his ship as near to S.S.W. as might be. She ran for six days before a fair wind, and on the afternoon of the sixth they made land on the starboard bow. There were mountains with snow upon them, and much fog; but Leif said that he would land in the morning, whatever kind of country it was. "It shall never be said against me, as it has been against Biorn, that I travel six days over the sea and leave the land I reach because it is not Greenland," he said.

They found a good anchorage, waited the night through, and then rowed off in their boat and ran her up on to the beach. It was a naked country of broken rock and shale. No gra.s.s was to be seen, and hardly any trees, except a few stunted silver birch. They walked inland for a mile or more to where the snow began, and then saw, as it were, one vast unwrinkled sheet of snow stretching upwards into a bank of cloud.

The ground was all scree of slate and shaly rock. They saw no signs of habitancy, and few tracks of animals. Then presently they looked at each other, and Leif laughed. "I think there is something to be said for Biorn; but although this is a barren land there is no reason why it should not have a name. I will call it h.e.l.loland, for such it is." [1]

Then they returned to their ship, and up-anchor, and away along the coast, so far as that allowed, but always keeping a straight course.

They came to another land, lying low in the sea, and sailed in towards it. Here also they landed, but on a sh.o.r.e of fine white sand, very level towards the sea, but blown into hummocks, whereon gra.s.s grew, towards the land. That was a flat country, and swampy, with trees so far as they could see, in some places dense and in others more open; but where the country lay open there were the swamps. "This country pleases me more than the last," Leif said. "The least it deserves is to be named. We will name it after its quality, and call it Markland,"

he said.[2]

But n.o.body wanted to stay there very long, and there seemed nothing better to do than to get back to the ship again and sail. Leif considered the timber that he saw of little worth to them. It was mostly small wood, and soft or of open texture.

They sailed, then, once more, with a fresh north-easterly wind blowing off the sh.o.r.e, and were two days at sea without sight of land. But then they made an island in the sea, and south of that saw the mainland, and a great frith striking up into it. There was no snow hereabouts, and the air was balmy and scented, blowing from the island.

"Here," said Leif, "is a land worth visiting, I believe. Let us cast anchor in the lew of the island for the night; and to-morrow we will row up the frith yonder and see what we shall see." They found good holding-ground under the island, and then, as the light was good for several hours yet, launched the boat and rowed to the sh.o.r.e. The place lay peaceful in the level afternoon light, with trees softly rustling, and birds calling to each other from thickets. They wandered about, singing as they went, or calling to each other to see some new thing.

Gradually the sun sank and the light began to draw in. One of them by chance stooped down and felt the gra.s.s. There was dew upon it. He put his finger into his mouth; and then he said, "This is a holy place.

The dew tastes sweet." They all tried it that were there, and believed it. This filled them with wonder, and some of them walked about on tiptoe, as if they had no business to be there.

They slept on board ship, and in the morning very early found that the tide had gone down and that she lay on her side, high and dry. The tide went back so far that it was possible to walk from the island to the mainland. As for the frith, it had shrunk to a dribble of water.

But all this made no matter, so eager were they to savour the country which was heralded by so fair an island. They jumped off the ship's side on to the sand, which was firm and white, and ran to sh.o.r.e, and up the frith, where the going was easy for a mile or two. They found that it issued from a great lake, many miles in length, and many in width.

It was shallow at the edges, but in the midst looked to be deep enough.

On the sh.o.r.es of this lake were fine trees growing, of such wood as none of them had ever seen before; flowers, shrubs, birds were alike new to them. In the pools of the river left by the tide they saw great fish lying, which Leif thought were salmon.

They wandered about all the forenoon, and when it was time to eat something and they went back to the sh.o.r.e, the river was filling fast, and their ship was afloat. They hailed her, and saw one of the hands row off for them in the boat. Leif then said that they would tow up the river and cast anchor in the lake, and that was done when they had made their meal. They found good anchorage there and a snug berth out of all troubles of wind or water. Next day they took off all their stores, and pitched tents for themselves in a glade, for it was Leif's meaning that they should pa.s.s a winter there. He was very much in love with the country, and said that in all his travels he had never been in a place so little likely to be vexed by cruel weather. "In my belief,"

he said, "we should have no need to store fodder for the stock against the winter. It seems to me that there should be grazing here the year through--but we will prove that, if you are willing." Everybody agreed.

In a little time they had established order in their camp, for Leif was a strong and wise leader, a tall and fine man of wisdom and good manners, and all obeyed him cheerfully. Duties were a.s.signed to the men in order; some were to fish, some to hunt--for they found deer as well as birds in plenty--and some to explore. Leif made a rule that no more than half his party should be away at one time, and that none should wander so far as that he could not win back by nightfall, nor separate himself from hail of the others who were with him. So the time wore on and the seasons changed. A mellow autumn gave way to a mild winter in which came no iron frost, and very little snow. If they had had cattle with them, as Leif had foretold, they could have kept them out all the winter. They found the light very different from Iceland or Greenland. On the shortest day they saw the sun between the afternoon meal and the day-meal. What puzzled Leif very much was this, that in so fair a country there was no sign of habitancy. They saw no men, nor any traces of men--and yet it was hardly to be believed that such a country was empty.

It was late in the autumn when a great discovery was made.

[1] York Powell and Vigfussen translate this as Shale or Slate-land; and Laing says that it is believed to have been Newfoundland.

[2] That is, Bush or Scrubland. Believed to be Nova Scotia, according to Laing.

XIV

It happened one day that Leif had not gone out with the exploring party, but was by the tents expecting it to come home. When the men returned late in the evening he saw at once that a man was missing, and a man, too, of whom he was very fond. His name was Dirk, and he came from the south--that is, from beyond the Baltic Sea, from some distant part of Germany which no Icelander had seen. Eric Red had found him in his younger days in Bremen and shipped him for a voyage. Dirk had made himself useful, and desired to remain in Iceland. When it became necessary for Eric to leave home, Dirk went with him to Greenland. So it was that Leif had known him since he was a boy, and that there was much love between them. Dirk was as ugly a man as there could well be in the world, short, bandy and mis-shapen, with a small flat face, high forehead, little eyes, no nose to speak of; but yet he was active and clever with his hands and feet. The men told Leif that they had not missed him before the call had gone about to a.s.semble for the return.

They had looked all ways for him--but no Dirk. They had called--no answer. There was nothing for it, since it was growing dark, but to go home.

Leif was troubled. "You are good men all," he said, "and yet I will tell you that I would rather have missed any two of you than Dirk. I have known him all my life, and grown up, as you may say, between his knees. It shall go hard with me but I find him before another sunset."

With that they took their meal, and turned in for the night, all but Leif. He had Dirk in his mind and no way of thinking of sleep.

Instead, he wandered up the sh.o.r.e of the lake in the moonlight, and presently was aware of a whooping sound among the trees, as it might be of a coursing owl. As he listened, it seemed to waver from place to place, now high, now low; and then in the pause he heard something like a chuckling noise; and then last of all a great guffaw. "There is Dirk, as I live," he said to himself, and plunged into the woodland to find him. He had not far to go. Some bowshot within the forest, in a glade, he saw Dirk plainly under the moon, dancing and waving his arms, curtseying to his own shadow.

"Ho, Dirk!" he cried out sharply, and Dirk stopped short and looked about him. Leif watched him.

Dirk stared into the dark, then shook his head. "I made sure somebody called Dirk," he said, and then--"But I don't care," and fell to his dancing and whooping again.

Leif stepped into the moonlight, and Dirk saw him, but without ceasing to caper. "Dancing," he said, and went on.

Leif went to him and clapped him on the shoulder. "Are you drunk, then?"

Dirk nodded. "I am very drunk. That is just what I am."

"Come you with me," said Leif, "and you shall be no more drunk." Then it was that Dirk said, "Let us sit down. I'll tell you where I've been." So they sat down together in the moonlight.

Then Dirk told him that he had outwalked the others and pa.s.sed out of the forest belt and reached a ridge of low hills. When he came to them he found that they were a tangle of wild vines. "And I know what vines are very well," he stopped to say, "for in my country there is no lack of them." Now these vines, he said, were loaded with grapes, some still ripe, but mostly over-ripe and fallen; and in a hollow of the rocks he had come to a pool of water wherein the grapes had fallen and fermented. "There," said he, "was my wine-vat, and there was I. The rest, master, you know."

"Can you take me to that place to-morrow?" Leif asked him. Dirk said that he could.

"Well," Leif said, "here is our work then. We will collect what we can of your grapes, and load our ship with timber. That will fill up the winter for us; and in the spring we will go home."

And that was the way of it. The timber which they got was fine wood, and fit for building. They stored what grapes they could, and having a good-sized meal-tub on board, they made wine in it. They had samples of self-sown grain, too, and the skins of animals which they had trapped or shot with bows. When the spring came, they loaded their ship and sailed out of the lake into the open sea; but they left on sh.o.r.e the huts which they had made, meaning to return. At parting Leif said: "That country deserves a good name, and shall have one. I call it Wineland the Good."

XV

Leif in after days had his name of The Lucky, not for the great country which he had explored, nor for what he brought back from it, nor for the good pa.s.sage home which he made, but for another reason altogether.

It was the fact that the wind never failed them from the day they set out until that one on which they first saw plainly in the sea the snow mountains of Greenland. Everybody on board was in high spirits. Leif himself at the helm, and the look-out man was waiting for the first view of the great headland beyond which Ericsfrith with its two rocks would open up, and a straight course for the haven. And then, suddenly, Leif put down the helm, hard, and the ship veered several points off the land.

"What will you do, master?" one asked him, and Leif replied, "Look out and see what I will do. Do you see nothing on the water?"

The man said that he saw nothing out of the common. "Well," said Leif, "look again. I see a rock, or else a ship--and if a ship, then a ship on a rock."

They all saw the rock now. "Yes," said Leif, "and there's a ship too, or a piece of a ship; for there are men on the rock."

That was true too, but before they were near enough to count the survivors of a wreck, pieces of the wreck itself, and baulks of timber, which they supposed her cargo, came drifting by them; and then presently a drowned man with a white face turned upwards.

Leif ran on, as near to the rock as he dared, near enough at least to see the men huddled on the ridge of it, and their hands up signalling to them. There, too, were the bows of a good ship rising high into the air like a seal. The rock was a sort of shelf in the sea, and stood out some ten furlongs from the great headland.

Leif brought up his ship and cast anchor. He had the boat out, and himself rowed out to the wreck. "They can do us no harm, whoever they are," he said; "but I think they are friends of ours." Some fifteen men were huddled together, and apart from them was a woman in a blue cloak, with a man lying beside her, his head on her lap, and a cloth over his face. She did not move as the boat drew in, but all the others came scrambling down the shelf to the water's edge.

Leif shouted. "Who are ye? And of what country?"

"Th.o.r.e's people--from Ramfirth."

"Where is Th.o.r.e?" They pointed to the woman.

"Yonder he lies hurt. That is his wife."

"And you are for Ericshaven?"