The Sentimental Vikings Part 7

Soon we were at the ship in the darkness; we shoved her off in the darkness; we men hoisted the mended sail in the darkness; we heard the water begin to sound under our sides, then-a faint roll of thunder from far away, a long flicker of light across the sky. We saw my lord standing alone on the hind-deck, the beach, the lights of the hall-the lightning gone, and we heard the water rushing around our bow in the darkness.

Not a drop of rain fell; the air was very still.

When the day broke pink over the far level waters, my lord was leaning on the rail yet. As the yellow light reached over the water till it touched our ship I saw his face, and it surprised me, being quite gay. I went up to him, and, the men gazing silently at us, spoke to him.

"The men," I said, "will carry you home, or east, but then--" I stopped, for there was something in his face that made me stop.

"Yes," he said.

"And then we will leave you. If you wish, you can get a new crew."

"Ah," he said.

"I do not know how many days-when--"

"Yes," he said.

I stood silent; in the silence again; "Yes," he said, smiling to himself as if in fun.

I moved myself so as to get a look at his face. There seemed a horror in the eyes, and a stopping of all hope, that made me uncomfortable.

Waiting for a little time, I said again:

"If we come home--"

He did not answer. I was angry with him, and stood one foot uncomfortably over the other for a little while, and then went back to the men.

"He will answer only 'Yes,'" I said angrily. The men grunted, and I sat down, angry, yet not quite understanding, leaving him still smiling.

All day I sat, angry, and when evening came and we had eaten, grumbling, and cursing-all save my lord, who had eaten nothing-I got up and clambered again on to the hind-deck.

When I came to him I stood, all the words having left me. I seized my courage hard and spoke.

"When we get back, if we ever do, the men will leave you."

I waited; he gave no answer. I started to speak again, but no words would come. I tried again. Then, with a sudden movement I leaned round on the bulwark and saw his face. For a moment yet I stood impatient; then with a cry of rage and pity I seized his hand and held it a moment, then dropped it and rushed back among the men, and hid my face in a dark corner, and sat there cursing weakly in a childish feeling of impotency-oh, the shame; and the great woe he carried in his smiling face!

Toward evening the wind fell, and as the sun went down the water shone smooth, and the light blazed in our faces. The cool of the dusk was a relief, and long after the great red moon had risen, we lay, restlessly, surely a strange ship-load, lost on the limitless seas.

When morning came we pushed out our oars and toiled regularly, creakingly, over the level water. The sun blistered the wood of the bulwarks and burned our faces, and we longed for evening. So for twelve days; till the yard was crooked, and our faces the colour of tanned skin. The men used to groan at the oars. On the twelfth day, midway between sunset and dark, came a little breeze over the water, that made the men shout. And for two days we went unsteadily eastward and northward with the little puffs of wind.

All this time we saw no land and no streak of foam upon the sea, that was the colour of wood-ashes; only brown seaweed drifting northwards.

My lord had become very brown, and had a way of always turning toward the light, looking east when the sun rose and west when it set.

Now, for some days we went northward; then for more days we went east, till one morning, just after sunrise, we saw land, black hills which we had come near to during the night. And for two days we coasted along the great cliffs where the water beat white at their black bases. Then we came to some houses, then to a curve and dying down of the cliffs. Then a great wind took us and we were blown in, and all the rest was storm.

Once we drove past a sandy desolate point of land that was gone in an instant; and once the ship grew almost full of water which we baled out in the darkness.

On the second night, as we were flying through the half-dusk-the moon shone sometimes-we heard a deep rushing before us just a little louder than the sea's rushing. In a moment there grew up in the darkness a sh.o.r.e of waving trees-we were among rushes-the ship high on the ground.

We were splashing ash.o.r.e in the dark and the swishing wind, and we sat and listened under the tossing, complaining trees till daylight.

Two days' travelling under darkly-dripping branches brought us to a hall. It looked familiar-it was our own hall!

We had come home!

How quickly wonders fade under joy, though sorrow preserves them long.

By that evening we had come to think of it as very natural.

Three days we pa.s.sed in eating and drinking, and on the evening of the third one we sat pale from our drinking along the board. Outside the ship lay, having been brought round by those sent.

My lord sat on a low stool by the corner of the fire. The talking grew slack and we yawned, the edge of our home-coming having been ground down by welcoming. Some of us rose to go to our sleep.

Then my lord stirred, uneasily, for a moment, got up, walked slowly to the end of the long room, and sat down. We glanced around at the sound of his tread and then the little talking ceased, for we saw that he meant to speak. After a moment he spoke.

"I will go there to-morrow, and I would know what men would accompany me." His lips were tight closed and he was pale across the forehead.

No one spoke.

"Will no one go?" he asked softly.

After a moment, I said, "Where?" all the men frowning.

"To where we have come from, across the water," he answered, pressing his lips together till he showed white round the mouth.

The men sat, perfectly silent.

He came slowly to his feet, stopped, and then began to speak, softly and strangely, with a great kindness.

"Ye do not ask it, but though I believe ye do not even want it, I will speak in justification. I would tell ye a few things. In that far place she had seen but few men, only woods and trees and natural things. The man to whom she was betrothed not against her will-I will be fair-was little more than these to her in that dreamy place. Slow and dull, he had nothing to answer in her own-taught beauty. When we came, she did love me, truly, but in her kindness, she would stay his wife. She had Freya's soul. Her father's brother liked me. Thus things were when the night came of our leaving.

"One more-I had never asked her to be not true to her betrothed, so, I was dreaming, my soul drawn all one way.

"That night when I sang her the love-song-oh ye men of my house, have ye never done wrong? Are ye sure that the souls within ye would stand firm while they were pulled with mighty cables? Have ye never had an evil thought? Have your spirits always been level within ye? Can ye never be mad, and rock to the torment of it? Do ye understand?

"Well, the music went out of my harp, and tore me-Are ye stone walls, that ye would not have shaken down like the leaves of trees? I could have wailed like a child for its mother, or, like a hammer on beams, crushed a man's head with my hand.

"Are ye more than are men? Have ye never done any ill? I say, I stood there, dreaming, playing; my soul drew her to me; I stood there playing the old love-song, in agony. Then there was a noise of voices, and we went to the ship, and were many days coming home, being becalmed."

He stared straight before him-a wakening came into his face-he on a sudden raised his hands in the air, and, the shaking fingers widespread, called through the hall in a strange voice. "Oh great G.o.ds, come!"

We sat silent in the lit hall, and the call died away into silence.

"Shame!" cried a woman's voice; "ye are not men!"

We stirred not even at this reproof from a woman.

"I will go!" cried the voice again, and one of the women who helped in the cooking stood forward with her great ladle held like a sword.

"Ay, and leave the ladle for the men to manage!" cried a second, a bare-armed, laughing woman, ranging herself by the other one, and turning a saucy face on my lord.