Chapter 6

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 assigned 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 assemble 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 shore 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 passed 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 shore 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 passage 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?"

"Thore's people--from Ramfirth."

"Where is Thore?" They pointed to the woman.

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

"And you are for Ericshaven?"

They said that they were. "Then you are well met," said Leif, and stepped on to the rock.

Gudrid's eyes were great and serious. Leif came to her and took her hands. "I little thought we should meet again like this."

"We must have died without you," she said.

Then he asked to look at poor Thore. He was unconscious, and had a great wound in his temple, cut open almost to the bone. Gudrid told him that when they struck, Thore, who had been at the helm, was thrown out upon the edge of the rock. One of his men, thrown out also, had pulled him up out of the sea. Gudrid herself had been below, sleeping. She did not know how she had been saved. She awoke at the shock to find herself in water. Then Leif saw that she was wet through and almost rigid with cold. He did not believe Thore was dead, nor did she. "No, no, he won't die so. He will die in my arms." So Gudrid said.

They took off the sick man first, and Gudrid with him. Both of them were put to bed, where Gudrid, who was now in a fever, soon became light-headed. Leif attended to her like a woman. It was wonderful to see so big a man so gentle and light in the hand.

He brought them all in safely, and Thore and Gudrid were taken up to Brattalithe, to lodge with Eric until one at least of them was well again. Gudrid very soon recovered, and seemed none the worse, but in all her glow of beauty and health. Thore was much slower. His wound pained him a great deal. Cold had got into it and inflamed it. The pain made him fretful; he seemed much older than a year and a half's absence could account for, and was anxious to get home.

Gudrid wished to go also. Everybody was very kind to her at Brattalithe. She was a great favourite with Eric Red, who used to tell her that she ought to have married one of his sons. "Then I should have been sure that things would go right here when I am out of the way." Gudrid once replied to that that none had asked her, whereupon the old man looked slyly about him, and then said: "There was one at least was thinking of you--and so he is now."

She knew that too well. Thorstan was consumed by love, and must always be with her if he could. She was gentle with him, as she was with everybody, and had to own to herself that it was Thorstan who now possessed her thoughts. That may have been going by contraries, for if Leif paid her nothing but the good-humoured civility he had ready for everybody, Thorstan, on his part, seemed afraid of her, and was speechless in her company. But there's all the difference in the world between a man completely easy in your company and one completely uneasy. Leif was a young giant, the best-tempered giant in the world; but it was clear to Gudrid that he had other things to think about besides love. He was full of the exploration he had made, determined to get more of the good timber over, and with more than half a mind to go out and settle in Wineland. Dirk made wine of the grapes which they had brought back. There was a great feast, and everybody got very drunk. If Eric Red had not died and left the Greenland settlement on his hands there is little doubt but Leif would have colonised Wineland.

Meantime, Thorwald, the third of the brothers, was on fire with the thought of going. He said that he should go out next spring if Leif would let him have his boat. Thore--to the surprise of all--said that he would go too, but nobody seemed to want him. Leif said: "I don't think you a lucky man, Thore. And I don't think your wife will care about so long and rough a voyage, seeing what you made of her last." The laugh went against Thore.

"Gudrid shall stay with her father," said he; but Gudrid said, "I shall go if you do." Thorstan's face fell, and Eric Red burst into a great shout of laughter. "Oh, sour face," he cried out, "let us hear what you have to say about all this."

Thorstan was very hot, but he answered his father. "I think that Gudrid should not go, nor Thore either"--which made Eric chuckle.

When he was with her the next day, after a long time of brooding, Thorstan said that he hoped she would not go to Wineland.

"I must go if Thore goes," she said over her needlework.

"If Thore goes, I shall go myself," Thorstan said after a pause. Gudrid looked up, but said nothing.

"He is not a lucky man--that is to be seen," Thorstan said then. "And he has no great knowledge of the sea, and is moreover infirm. It would come to this, that he would hurt himself, and you would have the care of him as you did upon the rock out beyond the head."

She answered him gravely. "It may be as you say, that he is not lucky. Indeed, I know it too well. For it was told me before ever I saw or heard of him, that he would die before me."

Thorstan was now strongly moved. He wrung his hands together. "I beg you to tell me just what was said about that."

She coloured deeply. "No, I cannot tell you."

But Thorstan said: "I know what it was. It was said that you would have two husbands. Was it not so?"

She could not tell him the truth; so she said, "Yes." Then Thorstan said in a voice which did not sound like his, "That is another reason why I must go." And then they looked at each other for a measurable space of time--and then Thorstan got up and left her.

When they met again he was as he had always been before; but Gudrid was frightened, and insisted on going home to Stockness. It was hard to persuade Eric Red to let her leave him. He had grown very fond of her, and the more so because he hated his own daughter Freydis. But Gudrid held to her determination, and won her own way. At parting old Eric took her in his arms. "I am loth to let thee go, dear child," he said, "and afraid lest I lose thee altogether. But thou art between two old men who love thee, and Thore has the first claim. Promise me this, that if he die before me thou wilt come back to Brattalithe and be a daughter to me."

"Yes," Gudrid said, "I promise you that."

"Right," said old Eric. "Then I shall live to see thee again." With that he kissed her and let her go.

XVI

Thorwald told Leif that he had been too faint-hearted in his explorations of Wineland. "You were bolder than Biorn, I grant you," he said; "but you only nibbled at the rind after all. I promise you I will dig down deeper into the meat."

"Dig," said Leif, "dig by all means. But look that you don't dig your grave. I saw no men the length and breadth of the land; and yet it is unreasonable to think that no men have been engendered to live in such a fine and fruitful country. If our father were not so old and hard to move, I tell you I should be for cutting adrift from Greenland and settling out there. But then I would go in a larger way than you intend. I would take a wife first of all----"

"So would Thorstan, our brother, if he could get her," said Thorwald.

"But he cannot get her," Leif said, and then Thorwald, "He won't move from her until he does get her."

Leif said: "He will go if Thore takes her out with you. But never mind all that. You will need a stock of cattle if you are for settling, and a strong body of men. It is not the way of our people to live in tents and eat only of the beasts that we chance to take. We are too fond of the earth to care to live without what she can give us. And if by incessant toil you win a sustenance out of this frozen land, consider what you could do in Wineland, where there is no frost, and but a sprinkling of snow, and where the soil is four feet deep, or double that for all I know."

"You are talking of one thing, and I thinking of another," Thorwald said. "Time enough to settle when I have discovered the country for you. That's what I mean to do."

Leif helped his brother with a ship and good advice; and Thorwald sailed west in the spring with a sufficient crew. Thore did not go; for that winter there had been a great deal of sickness, and old Thorbeorn took it badly, and died of it. Thore himself had the sickness, and Gudrid nursed him through it; but he was not fit for a long voyage. And Thorstan would not go either, though he kept away from Stockness, and saw nothing of Gudrid. Thorwald would have been glad of his help, for Thorstan was very strong and a man who could be depended upon; but he saw the trouble in his eyes and forbore to urge him. It came to this, then, that Thorwald was in sole command. He was young and full of spirit; he did not doubt himself the least in the world: but Leif doubted him, and threw away much sound advice upon him.

They sailed out of the frith one fine afternoon, and were lost to sight. They had a prosperous voyage throughout, and no trouble in picking up the Island of Sweet Dew, the river and the lake. There, in a glade of the forest and in full view of the lake, they saw the booths still standing, which Lief and his men had set up. They were intact, the bolts seemingly not drawn, and not much the matter with the goods within, but what fresh air and sunlight could amend it. They spent the better part of six weeks in and about those shores, but then, leaving a garrison at the booths, Thorwald and the rest of the crew went far and wide over the land, travelling mainly by boat up the great river which fed the lake on the west. They did not return till late in the autumn.

They reported to their friends that so far as they had been the forest land extended, with timber in it of incredible size and height. It increased in density the further they went, and the country all level, with no mountains to be seen. In the river were many shallows, and islands too; the shores were white sand and firm to walk upon. They had met with few animals, and no signs of men at all. Thorwald, who was unaccustomed to a forest country, said that he should never settle there, and that he should go further north, where a man might perhaps see where he was going. But they stayed out the winter where they were.

In the spring they made their preparations to depart. They sailed east in the first place, but always north of the land, but encountered rough weather off a great headland which drove them on to the beach and broke the ship's back. That gave them a great deal of work, and involved a long stay while they mended her. There was abundance of timber, and of good quality, and they were well stocked with tools; but there was much building to be done before they could get at their work, and it took them the best part of the summer. But they were away about the time of harvest, and still sailing north, and being east of the mainland, the country appeared to grow more open, the trees were sparse, and they could see hills to the far west of them. So presently, when there opened out to them the mouth of a great frith, Thorwald sailed up it some distance till he came to a place where there were bluffs standing up sheer in the water, and beyond a headland a broad bay. Thereabouts, standing close inshore he berthed his ship, and was able to run out gangways and walk from ship to land. He himself with a party went into the country to look about them. It was fine open land, with a good deal of wood growing on it, but well-watered and with pasture of fine quality. "This country suits me," Thorwald said. "I shall stay here and make a homestead in it." As it turned out he spoke more truly than he thought for.

On their way back to the ship they struck the frith nearer to the mouth than where the anchorage was. They jumped down the cliffs to the beach, and in the very act to jump Thorwald saw something move between two hummocks of sand. He collected his men together and advanced quietly. There behind the hummocks they saw men. Three hide-boats lay at the water's edge. There were three men to each.

Thorwald said, "We must rush upon them suddenly. Let each of us make sure of one man." There were twelve men with Thorwald, counting himself.

The men, who were short and very dark, with black hair, in which were feathers, had bows with them; but Thorwald gave them no chance of using them. At a signal his party sprang with cries from behind the hummocks, and fell upon them. Three fell at once; the others took to the water and were slain there, all but one. He, as he went, slid out a boat, and scrambling in, made off at a great pace, and was soon out of sight behind the cliffs. Thorwald took the hide-boats and the weapons, but left the dead men where they lay. Then he went back to the ship, uneasy, thinking what he had better do.

It was everybody's advice that they should seek an anchorage further from the shore--and that they did. Setting a watch, they went to bed. Nothing disturbed them until the grey hour of the morning; but then the watchman called loudly to Thorwald: "Thorwald, Thorwald, arm yourself, and come up!" Thorwald leapt to his feet and ran out to look. The water was very smooth and still, but listening intently, he could hear countless paddle-strokes; and by and by in the mist the water appeared to be moving, so many and close together were the boats, and so shadowy-grey the men in them.

"Out with your war-wall," Thorwald cried, and all the crew, now wide awake, obeyed him. The war-wall was run up and made fast. Every man took spear and shield and stood behind it, ready for the worst.

The natives came within easy shooting range and rained showers of arrows at the ship. They did not venture to get at closer quarters, but held on until they had shot all their arrows; then made off with cries. The Icelanders looked at each other, and Thorwald, who was very pale, said, "Is any man here wounded?" They told him No. Then Thorwald, smiling rather queerly, said: "There slipped in an arrow between the rails of the board and my shield and struck me under the arm. You shall take it out, one of you, but I declare it my death-wound. I feel the venom working in me; and now I see how wisely I spoke when I said that my homestead should be out yonder. So it will be, but a smaller one than I thought to have put up. Now," he said, lying down upon a skin which they had spread for him, "pull me out this accursed dart, and listen to what I say. You shall bury me there where my homestead is to be, and put up a Cross over me. For though I am not long christened I know that I belong to the true faith. Call that place Crossness in memory of me, and when you go home tell my people where I lie, in case any of them come out and are minded to see if I need anything."

He bore the pulling out of the dart with great cheerfulness, and composed himself for his end. The poison worked swiftly. He was soon discoloured, and rambled much in his talk. Towards the end they had to hold him, and at sunset he died.

Everything was done as he had ordered it. They dug him a grave, rather than piled a cairn about him as the custom had always been; but sat him up in it with his weapons, thinking that more honourable. There were no Christians among them to say any prayer over the grave; but they made a great Cross and carved runes upon it. Then they went back to the ship and got the anchor up, being ill-disposed to stay there another day. The night passed without attack, and by daylight they rowed out of the frith, and out to sea. They beat their way back to Eric's booths in Wineland and found them unmolested. There they remained for the autumn and winter following; and then went home to tell Eric Red and Lief the fate of young Thorwald.

XVII