Chapter 2

Now Helga being weary arose, and leaned towards my lord Snore to kiss him ere she went to her chamber, and I who sat by the side of my lord, looked up at her, smiling; for she had never kissed him before among men. And looking, I saw, ere their lips met, a change come into the eyes of Helga and she stood still. Then, making a little gesture as of casting something away from her, she stooped again, but the change grew in her eyes and she could not. I followed her look to where it rested on the curtained door that enters the hall from the apartments which face on the water.

Slowly I reached for my axe, and leaning to look at my lord as I lifted up his, I saw him waiting expectantly, shyly before his men, for Helga's good-night. So I leaned a moment. Then I whispered to him, and put the axe in his hand.

The great table is overturned, the broken stools and benches lie over the floor, the fire is scattered, and the flying ashes drift in the smoke and swirl around the heads of the combatants, making them cough as they strike. The drunken men along the walls are stabbed or trampled among the torn rushes, and the foe that have stolen in through the seaward windows are pressing over the benches.

We are behind the upturned table, and fighting desperately, our backs to the wall. The enemy rush against the table but the long arms of our men drive them back. I am holding a boat-shield from the wall over Helga and using my axe with the other hand.

Lord Snore is sweeping the space in front of him clear; he has thrown aside his shield. We seem to have been fighting for hours in the dim hall.

Our men begin to fall behind the table; they are in their leather coats, and guard badly in the murk.

The swords clang on the edge of the table; the men stumble over broken dishes. I see through the smoke one of them with his foot fast in a wooden beer mug. They run along the table striking. The smoke comes in my eyes, and the forms grow dim.

Now they go back leaving us, and a tall man dressed in strange armour, breaks through them, and stands, banging his leg with his sword.

"I am Swend, kinsman of Rudolf of Lolland; and I came and found his hall ashes. Say, dost thou think that a ship with the dragon beheaded, can sail where it will and no man be the wiser? And who was it, think you, that drove your ship--laughing?" And he stood, snarling and digging the floor with his sword-point, like a wolf in his anger.

Then Lord Snore, resting his axe on the table--"If thou art the man who fought with my father and called two fresh ships to thy helping then I am glad thou art come to my feast in my hall!"

Then Swend--"Thou hast murdered thy host for the sake of his daughter! I, his kinsman--" and he stopped while the smoke swirled down and I heard him coughing.

"Who would have been kinsman to me had I slept in my ship, Rudolf's guest? And the maiden chose freely. He would have bit on my axe-blade--though he were Odin!" And Lord Snore lifted his axe, shouting aloud in his anger.

I hear Swend yell to his men through the smoke; the floor shakes as they come running towards us. They break out of the gloom; they leap on the table smiting and stabbing. But the long arms of our men pull them down; they fall. Lord Snore's axe swirls and bangs on their armour; the table is cleared. They draw back, gasping like dogs; their wounded lie against the wall in the drip of the candles. I see the chests of our men heave in their weariness. They lean with their backs against the wall, wiping their slippery hands on the skirts of their garments. The smoke comes down; again they come. The fight closes in again the struggling forms striking over the table, I catch dim sight of swift grey shapes and the flashing of swords high in the air. Our men are panting like bulls; I hear the straining of their leather coats as they lean, striking into the mist. Bodies of men come shocking against the table; there is roaring, and trampling of feet, and banging and clashing of armour, and breaking of wood, and the sound of Lord Snore's axe falling regularly comes through the darkness.

All this comes to me, dimly, as though through a dream, and dreaming, I catch a passing sight of the shadowy figures in the smoke on the other side of the table. The fight goes on; it goes on for ever and ever it seems; and the world in the smoke and the noises and sounds of the combat grow farther and farther away; they come to me unreally, in a far-off roar, like the sea.

I hear the sound of waves; the water roars, and roars, and roars--farther and farther--then nearer again; the ship moves and heaves and turns slowly round under the motion. And now I hear the sound of my harp playing, coming through the sound of the water; that ceases, and I hear the sound of Snore's and Helga's voices speaking softly. I hear the words--they come to me over the continuous sound of the water--and they are silly words, about a piece of her hair that she has given him--and I laugh--

And my laugh awakens me, sounding ghastly under the dull smoke; and the tumult and ringing and roar of the combat springs up around me again.

And now, over the banging of metal and the clashing of armour on armour and the sounds of the trampling and breaking of wood and the howling, comes another sound--surely my Lord Snore's axe! But the blows are so quick, there is something awesome, unnatural, in the blows of a man falling so fast.

And now I am aware of a change that has come in the fight. I no longer see the ghost-figures passing, dim in the smoke. The sound of the fighting comes from out in the hall. I wait, peering into the smoke. Slowly it lifts from above the table--lifts, growing dimmer.

Outlines come out of the distance. The opposite wall of the hall looms up into the darkness. The candles glimmer and show through the smoke. I look down the hall. A grey mass, moving indistinctly, and the sound of a great continuous crashing coming from somewhere within it.

The smoke lifts more; bodies of men on the floor come out, and I can see the dim tapestries waving on the walls; and now the great sound of the crashing comes louder.

The smoke lifts yet more, it is pouring out of the windows and under the roof; the walls spring out into distinctness; and I see, plain, the end of the hall.

A crowd of men struggling and falling over each other against the great door; the flashing of armour, swords thrown in the air, clenched hands raised and falling, the end of the hall full of tumult of arms and legs and bodies, as the men rush and surge over each other against the outlet.

But, dominating all in its hugeness, striking the men before it, making a glory with its flying axe--enormous, irresistible, clothed in red, seeming to shake the air with the roar through its skin, yet utterly silent--Lord Snore, gone mad with the combat, striking with the strength of a falling tree--sweeping out the hall before him!

The door is open! The men pile up on the threshold; the door grows high--is darkened--is full. Grows open--men whirl along the floor under the axe--the wave breaks, it recedes, it runs away into the corners, it dissolves and runs away in foam--the door is empty.

The last of the smoke rolls around under the roof, the walls rock with the reverberation, and the sounds of our voices calling to one another are lost in the echoes. The hall heaves, the sounds die, going out with the smoke under the roof; and the pale light of the daybreak falls through the long windows. The candles gutter and go out, falling down from the walls, from the burned-out spikes. We stumble over the table, on, over the broken benches, and over the bodies.

It was a good fight, O king, when Lord Snore swept his hall! There is now but little more to tell. We found a great figure standing idly by the door when we came there; it was swinging a great axe in its hand, with its head sunk on its chest, and it swayed when a man touched it, and fell back limply into our arms.

As they carried him up the hall towards the great bench a white figure ran past me.

Then the lights went out, the world heaved, and I fell down across the table; for both my hands had been cut off upon its edge.

When next I saw the hall, having come back out of the long unreality that had lasted so many days, the first snow of the winter lay on the window-ledges and the great fire was blazing merrily. I remember how strange it all looked. And there, walking up and down slowly, and leaning on my lady who guided him, was the wreck of a great man who grasped weakly for support at her robe. I went up to him and stood silently. My lady touched me with her hand and whispered to me to speak to him. Then said I to my lord with a strange softness in my throat: "I hope my lord is better--after his sickness." And he answered, "Yes, yes--yes, yes--yes, yes--" nodding his head, sillily. And then my lady led him to the great bench, and, seating him, talked to him child-talk and tended him gently.

That night, as I sat by my lady, silent, the boy who fed me having gone away to the others, one rose, and thinking to please me I suppose, brought me my harp out of an inner room.

I think we were all glad when my lord died at the last snow. Then my lady used to go among the cottages of the villagers, tending those who were sick, talking with the young girls, and comforting all who were in any sorrow. The women used sometimes to cry when she spoke to them. And in about three months after we buried my lord, when summer was come again, and the sun had already begun to warp the timbers of the ship on the beach, when the boys ran shouting in the shallows, died my lady also, and we buried her by the side of my lord.

Then left I the castle; and men tell me that it is pulled down to build more houses for the villagers, and that the old ship has mouldered away on the beach and can no more be seen.

And all this happened years ago and is forgotten. If some one will hold my cup I will drink "skaal" to the king that he has listened.

And this is the tale of the sweeping of the hall, that the old minstrel used to tell at the board of King Gorm, waving his handless arms in the glow of the firelight.

AN INCIDENT

The great fog lay dun over the sea, and the shadows moved over the motionless ship, passing swiftly; yet there was no wind.

We lay wrapped in the wood-ashes coloured air, through which the mast shone glimmering in many lines when you looked at it, idly swinging under no wind. Easily the water slipped by, dimly streaked, through the cloudy vapour. The men from the stern could not be seen by those in the bow.

We yawned and stretched ourselves, the peculiar smell of the fog rising into our nostrils. The warm air lay like the weight of a cloud on our foreheads, and we grumbled wearily, wanting a sight of the sun.

While we waited thus sighing, out of the dun vapour on the right came a cry indistinguishable. After we had been on our feet for some moments, there came the swift wash of oar-blades, and their rabble on the gunwale, going very fast.

Then the sound of a far-away crash, and, after a little, clinking as of knife on glass, and a dead murmur of voices in the fog.

We straightened ourselves, and after a moment of hesitation, my lord gave the word to get out the oars, which we did very gladly though with little noise, pulling carefully, our mast-top lost in the shifting roof. Very soon we could hear the sound of the fighting coming quite plainly over the dusky sea; and in a little time thereafter, we saw, while the vapour swirled back for a moment, three brown hulks near together. We lay on the edge of the foam-touched space of water, catching occasionally glimpses of the moving shapes: only a large piece of wood floated past us.

Have you ever listened to a fight at sea? The men were leaning over the bulwarks, their hands on their axe-handles, their feet grasping firmly the deck. My lord raised himself in a moment; we ran swiftly along the water under the quick, ragged stroke, the ships rose before us, we swept past the side of the largest one, dropping the oars.

The man next to me leans back suddenly just as my bow twangs; arrows strike into the bulwarks.

Fierce faces and bent bows send their sound of shouting and twanging at us over the close side of the enemies' ship. We thrust with our oars that slip along the timbers; the arrows sing and streak past, their long feathers grey like storks.

Then the ship by us turns off into the fog with a dash of oars that sends the white spray flashing for a moment; it is a shadowy form in the mist; a tall brown thing disappears beside it; we are alone on the smooth water with the ship we have come to help.

The hillside is sprinkled with flowers, the setting sun draws our attention from them. "Come," says Lord Erik to my lord, "let us go in." They walk slowly over the darkening blossoms.

"Ever since you called out to me through the fog," says Lord Erik, "and came on with me and became my guest, I have trusted you with all that I care, or think, or am, and you have never before told me of this."

My lord smiled rather sadly at the handsome, eager, young face, where the emotion of disappointment lay, like all emotions on those expressive features, bare.

"We do not always speak so easily of what we like," he answered.

"Oh, it is like an old sail you speak of her--why do you not care?" And the beardless mouth went down. "Does she not like you?" glancing at my lord's strong limbs.

"Perhaps; girls do not usually love old men," my lord answered, looking kindly, amusedly, at the boy.

"You old! You are not old! I think of you as something with me, you----"

"Try your success with women, my son," broke in my lord laughing; "you, a young lord--come."

They went in.

A word about us. We were Eastern men from the island; my lord, old, burned-out,--though not with years,--restless--deliberately--silent, kind, secretive, and wise in some old-gained sad kind knowledge of men. So we had cruised where my lord was quiet, seeming content, till in the fog opportunity brought us new friends, at whose sunny, lonely town we were guests. When my lord had told his host of the woman to whom he was betrothed, idly, we men who stood by watching noticed them keenly, for we were interested in my lord and the why of his choosing the maiden. She, the daughter of a timid lord, her mother dead--a fair thing who gave flowers to boys in fun.

This is what we were.

Now, whether it was the beer we drank that night, or whether the long rest--though I think the long rest--the men began to speak in loud voices with sea-tales. Now, the young lord, his slim right hand on the great mug, laughed to my lord: "Let us go and make some sea-tales!" and laughing, raised his mug to his lips, glancing merrily at his guest over the top as he drank.

"But your ship," said my lord looking at him.

"Let us go in yours, mine is too battered," answered young Erik. "Ah--that was a joy--the fog and the shouting and the grey ships!"

His face grew pale in the light with excitement. My lord seemed reluctant.

"Yes"; he said. "Where shall we go?"

"There--here--anywhere!" cried young Erik, jumping to his feet and waving his beer-mug to three points of the horizon.

"The men in my town will take care of the harvest."

We were at sea again; my lord cynical on the after-deck, young Erik talking to the men.

We were passing a sand-spit that ran out into the calm water just touched with ripples. Over the top of the sand we saw masts rising, and came out into the open again, where we could see the yellow over our sides through the light green water, the sand-spit falling behind--we saw three great ships, heavy-masted, long-yard-armed and with sharp prow. These slowly neared with flapping sails, and we could see that the decks were crowded with men. They passed by, as they went hailing us in rough tongue, laughing out many-languaged questions as to where we had come from.

Then came something that was very strange. A few men and myself saw my lord very slowly take up a cross-bow and drawing it, deliberately shoot an arrow into the side of one of the nearest ships. A yell of defiance came over the water, and young Erik cried to every man to take his arms.

Why had my lord shot that arrow? Who can say? We do not know.

They came down on us singing Icelandic songs, as is the custom of most of these people, for the ships were principally full of these men.

One ship passed close by us and the men shouting over the sides, threw spears at us as they went by, brushing us with their oars. Then this ship rounded on behind us, and the spears came in showers over the stern.

But part of our men, dropping their weapons, and throwing themselves at the oars, drove us over the sparkling sea, toward the ship that came gliding toward us, with a howl from the enemy that reverberated in the ears of the straining men inside our wooden bulwarks, our long prow cut into their ship's side. I saw their mast bend away from us. The other ship now came on, singing.

We shoot at her with our long-bows, and the singing is turned to shouting as they come toward us. My lord shouts to pull on the right-hand oars and while some of us tug wildly the others shoot over the side. Slowly we turn, and the heeling ship before us comes into view over the bow--slowly we turn, as the third ship nears us. We move round, and, their arrows in our faces, they go sweeping by--just by--the oars grazing.

And now we can see the ship we have run down as she turns over her deck to us; the men tumble down the rowers' benches; they leap into the water; she settles sideways, the water bubbling.

Now come the two other ships from behind us.

Young Lord Erik lies wounded on the after-deck. Half of the men sit white, about the arrow-struck mast. The other two ships come on.

My lord cries to face them, and we move slowly, seeing over the bow the ships rush on over the place where their comrades sank, striking the heads of the swimming men with their oar-blades.

We drop our arms and, heaving three times on the long-oars, send our ship between the other two.

A flight of arrows, a glimpse on each side of a passing mast--they are behind us. My lord calls from the after-deck, "Row away, row away!"

Turning my head to look at him I see him laughing, the bow still in his hand.

We rowed round the sand-spit, and as we went round it we saw the two ships close together picking up men from where a mast stuck up out of the light-green water.

"It is the second time we have been comrades," said young Lord Erik, his right arm bandaged, gazing up palely at my lord as they stood by the rail.

My lord smiled.

"Yes, true," he said.

We were running along a forest-covered strand, where the roots of old trees gnarled themselves into the water.

"Now we must go to the hall that I told you about," said my lord.

"Yes and see the girl I am so eager to see!" exclaimed young Lord Erik, his white face lighting as he gazed up smiling to my lord.

He laughed.

"Ah," he said, "it is both pleasant and good," and he gazed along the depleted seats.

The next day there was a strange excitement in my lord's eyes, and we began to put together our clothes. And late in the afternoon we came into the little bay on the shore of which lay old Raud's castle. We ran through the water hauling our ship up with cables, and with shouting from the people coming welcomingly down from the castle, we hastened up the beach.

As we sat over the meat that night, a curtain was pulled aside from the door by Lord Raud's chair, and he, rising feebly, my lord slowly, and smiling, and young Lord Erik jumping to his feet eagerly, we saw her come gliding in whom we had seen often before. She gave her hand timidly, yet with a little laugh, to my lord, shyly yet kindly to young Lord Erik, and welcomed them as her guests as her father had welcomed them as his at the castle-door as we passed over it. How such a maiden could be the daughter of such a feeble, timid, dainty old man as Lord Raud, I could never know. As a child pretending to ask for forgiveness was her face--half-laughing and half-sorrowful. Her moving was like a ripple of blown cloth, it was so springing graceful. And her eyes, when they occasionally looked at you, had a woman's innocence, never a man's straightforwardness.

It was sunset three days later. Walking on the beach I could see my lord and Hildur pacing slowly, he laughing, along the grass that stretched by the path to the houses in the wood. The scene was lit up by one of the sometimes far-reaching clear sunsets of autumn. I could see her hand raised in remonstrance, and though I was too far, I could see that they were both laughing. Presently she nodded her head of gold hair to him, and turned into the castle-door, leaving him alone in the soft, far, unusual, light. He turned.

As he moved, I saw that he was not laughing. As he came down to the beach, I could see the same excitement in his eyes that had always been there when he came near her, since his hair began to grizzle, and she used to bring the cynical old father's friend his beer in the great hall after meat--a little maiden.

He passed me and turning at a word behind me, I saw him meet young Lord Erik; smiling again. But the young man's face was troubled, that face on which all emotions were like shadows on even water.

Not a word, after my lord's greeting, passed.

Suddenly, my lord called to me over his shoulder:

"Lord Erik wishes to go home, wilt thou take ship with him and come back to me?"

Their figures were dim in the lessened light.

"Let another man go; I stay. Send one of the younger men," I answered.

My lord held out his hand to me. Young Lord Erik's face was white in the dusk.

Over our beer, by the firelight, I could see the glances Hildur threw to young Lord Erik, I could see his hard-shut mouth; I could see my lord's cynical smile and the gleam of the excitement in his eyes; I could see old Lord Raud, daintily fingering his beer-mug-handle--thoughts far away. And I was glad I had stayed by my lord.

So, the next day young Lord Erik went north with the ship. And my lord stood on the beach smiling gaily and called out gay words of next summer. And the young face brightened for a moment as the ship drew away.

Well, all that day I followed my lord about, smiling at his gay moods, quiet when he forgot--which gave me pleasure. I am sure he tried to leave me behind him sometimes, after mid-day, by fast walking, but I came. And toward evening, as we tramped back along the beach to the hall, I coming behind, my lord turned, and started running. In a moment I caught him; and he bent suddenly over my shoulder, with a sound like a seal grunting. So, I held him for a moment till he shook himself into himself again and walked up towards the castle, I falling back again; we never said anything about this.

Now I go out on a long ending, that is only true. After some days of silent smiling on the part of Hildur--to me she looked very ugly--and much laughter--which cheered old Lord Raud--on the part of my lord, he asked Lord Raud to give him the maiden now, for he was anxious to take her away. So my lord spoke to her about it, and she said yes.

Then we went away; and old Lord Raud stood on the beach, our ship being back, and large tears came down from his eyes. So we all went home again and took the maiden with us.

There is little use in telling a tale of women. Yet some scenes rest with me that concern my lord, so I tell it all. Thus those two used to walk past the door of the hall, and past again, while I stood in the doorway; and I would hear what they said, for my lord did not care for me, and it was very loving. But after it was over he would go down to the water and look out, and stretch his arms, and yawn--then break in with a laugh and walk back again.

Often in mid-summer came ships, and their men were well fed and liked us.