Book II
I
Years passed and nothing happened. There was much talk of disturbance and disquiet in the north of the country. The young King Harald and his uncle, Guttorm, were continually engaged in warfare. Various raisers of disturbance had already been suppressed, but new ones were continually starting up. The latest rumour current was, that the young King purposed, as soon as he had given peace to his Kingdom, to extend it. It did not look as if he had peaceful intentions. Dalsfjord as yet was ravaged only by rumours. No events themselves, only the faint thunders they aroused, came near there.
Orn, however, was always of opinion that it was safest for Rodmar to remain; especially as Leif had now undertaken the management of the property, and Rodmar might as well remain in one place as another.
Much beer was brewed in Orn’s house. Perhaps it was not without some connection with this that Orn and Rodmar’s talk took all the more a prophetic tinge. Obscure and rather disconnected wisdom flowed liberally from their lips. Leif called this wise talk nonsense, and was not ashamed to laugh openly in his father’s face when he was more wise and obscure than ever. Ingolf, on the other hand, although with some difficulty, continued to invest Orn with a halo of dignity, and showed him all possible filial reverence. He always consulted him in important questions, although certainly only for form’s sake. And he never brought forward a matter without having first procured permission to speak. This pleased Orn in a high degree, although he sometimes felt somewhat embarrassed by it, and almost always showed peevishness to his son.
Orn was by no means easy to deal with. For example, Ingolf, at the beginning of the spring when he completed his nineteen winters, went to him to hear his opinion regarding the sowing plans he had made for the summer, and also about a necessary enlargement of the salt-kilns. Orn looked up at him with a scornful and malicious look in his drink-swollen eyes, heard fully all he had to say, and at last broke out harshly on him.
“You are only a peasant! A good-for-nothing you are, although you are tall and heavy enough! You wear the family bracelet! What honour have I from you? There is no energy in you. Do you think one finds honour in the fields? Do you think one can plough it out of the ground? Food you find, but never any honour. Do you think a man keeps fresh by burning salt all his life? Keep away from me with your salt-burning and your sowing-plans. Would any one believe you were a free man’s son, and soon full grown? Speak with the serfs about it. No—Harald, Halvdan the Black’s son—there is a fellow with some stuff in him! You’ll feel his knuckles one day—wait and see! He’ll mark you all with the brand of slavery—every man of you. Each and all of you will have to pay tribute to him, if you do not want to be shorter by a head or to have your necks stretched! It is said that he intends to subdue all Norway and to become sole King. How old are you now? Nineteen winters? He is four years younger! You are no King—no! You are right in that. But your forefathers were chiefs, and ruled themselves, and ruled others as the King’s peers. Go off to your fields and your salt-burning—I won’t listen to you any more. I won’t see you! Go! Ha! Wait a little. Go first to the smith, and have your fathers’ weapons smelted down into meat-axes! Have you not increased your stock? Are you not in want of meat-axes! No, it was something different in my youth. If I had been in my prime now, the good Harald would have found at least one neck he could not break. Unless, indeed, I had deemed it wisest to assist him. That also might be a way to honour. But you have only thoughts for your fields and your salt-burning. Go!”
Thus Orn spoke, and was very irritable. Ingolf listened to him patiently without moving a muscle. And when he received the command to go he retired with a respectful salute. He honoured the family in his father, and did not wear the family bracelet in vain on his young arm. Ingolf looked after his property; Leif neglected his. For the first two years Leif had managed remarkably well alone. But when it no longer amused him to rule and give orders to the house-servants, he began to become somewhat careless. It was to his advantage that his people were reliable and fond of him—remarkably so, in fact. He might scold them thoroughly, using the whole of his copious vocabulary until his voice failed him. He might beat them and abuse them, and bid them ten thousand times to go the straight way north or down to hell. They admired his readiness of speech and energetic irritability. It was always enlivening to see him in a rage. And it was characteristic of him that his wrath was forgotten as soon as it had blazed up. It flashed up like a fire of pine-needles and burnt out at once. Besides, he was not small-minded, and let every one manage his own affairs, so long as he minded his work. He was a kind and cheerful master to serve under. Many plants grew in his track, but never the plant of dullness.
Ingolf had another way with his people. He immediately became a father and providence for them. He was considerate towards the old, and let them have an easy time. They were never weary of blessing him. He visited them often, and his visit was always like a gift. He showed an equable temper with his people, demanded a certain amount of work from them, and expressed in encouraging words his satisfaction with work well done. On the other hand, no one had ever heard a threat from his mouth. He had his own way of showing displeasure by a certain indifferent silence which did not fail of its effect. No one liked to feel himself the object of that quiet taciturnity. His peaceful manner diffused a peculiar sense of security around him. He was careful in his choice when he engaged new people, which rarely happened. Those whom he had once engaged remained with him.
Leif could not alter his nature; he was just Leif, once and for all. When he had managed his property with diligence and watchfulness for three years it amused him no longer. He began to slacken, and let things go at haphazard. And since they did not seem to go altogether badly that way, he gradually preferred not to look after them at all. So Ingolf found him going idle for whole months at a time. Ingolf wondered at him. How could he choose to go on and undertake nothing? No, that was going too far. Ingolf secretly kept an eye on Leif’s property, and saw that it was managed in some way without him, although not thoroughly. So there was all the less reason for him to interfere in Leif’s way of living. There resulted a good deal of restraint between the two sworn brothers which was unavoidable. Ingolf tried his best not to let himself be irritated by Leif’s idle ways. He exerted himself to meet him as unconstrainedly as before. But his openness was not natural as it used to be, and seemed forced. Leif noticed it without thinking about it, and the feeling of restraint between them continued.
Only seldom did Leif follow Ingolf to the fields or to other business. Their unconscious inner tension robbed their intercourse of all outer comfort or heartiness. The sense of brotherhood and family feeling between them decreased greatly, and threatened to vanish.
Ingolf be-took himself to work as a defence. He wrapped himself in business as in a coat of mail, and work shielded him to a certain extent. But the unavoidable vacant hours were like rents in his armour. And the weapons Ingolf had to fight against immediately found every exposed place.
Leif was not the man to notice that something had happened when nothing had really done so. He only felt boredom and emptiness, and the difficulty there is in making time pass when like a refractory horse it begins rearing on its hind-legs. Either he sat alone with Helga and let the hours fly, or he simply lay and lazed somewhere, staring into space and wondering what purpose there can be in a useless day. His mind became every day more unbalanced, and his temper was like a sportive squirrel. Sometimes his restlessness and impatience impelled him to tease and vex those who surrounded him. Not even Helga escaped; on the contrary, just because she was the most helpless before him, it was she who suffered most. Not rarely his words made her cry. Afterwards he sat silent and helpless, unable to repair what he had done, and feeling intolerable pain.
Leif’s only excuse was that he was Leif and had lost his balance. The hopeless melancholy of youth was upon him.
Years passed and nothing happened. Hitherto each year had had one event. They visited Gaulum, or Atle’s sons visited them. One winter Leif and Ingolf were invited to the feast at Gaulum; the next winter they were the hosts. Hitherto in Leif’s mind there had been a halo about these feasts; he had awaited them with eagerness and taken part in them with a happy fervour of abandonment. Now he hardly cared to think of them any more, and had quite ceased to take pleasure in them.
For there had gradually risen in Leif’s mind, although he carefully concealed it, a strong ill-will against Atle’s sons, especially Holmsten. Holmsten had always been a thorn in his side. Holmsten’s voice and vocabulary, his smile, his way of being silent, and his whole character had an irritating effect on Leif. At times, when he was not especially sensitive, he could, as it were, lock such feelings out. But there were other times when he stood and actually shivered with irritation merely at seeing and hearing Holmsten. But, faithful to his oath of brotherhood and promise to Ingolf, he suppressed all feelings of that kind as best he could. In any case, they never broke out. Thus it happened that Holmsten once in a humourous mood made merry over Leif’s appearance. He meant nothing serious by it, but an innocent remark about Leif’s large nose slipped thoughtlessly out of his mouth. When he saw what effect it had upon Leif, who became quite red in the face, he was immediately sorry, and said nothing. When Leif had thus come to know what he looked like, his eyes were suddenly opened to see how handsome Atle’s sons were. From that day it was that he began to hate them in his heart, especially the youngest. He now noticed also how they looked at Helga, when they were on a visit. He did not like those looks. Of course he could well understand that they could scarcely keep their eyes from Helga. But Helga was his, and that made a difference. And although Atle’s sons could not know that, yet at any rate they ought not to look at Helga so. It was especially Holmsten with whom Leif found himself angry—Holmsten, whose existence from the time that Leif was a boy had rankled like a thorn in his mind. Holmsten was undeniably the handsomest of the brothers, perhaps because he, as the youngest, was now at the handsomest age. Moreover, it was Holmsten whose look fastened on Helga with the greatest pertinacity.
Leif was pained, and suffered. The most intolerable part about it almost was that it was impossible for him to let Helga notice his jealousy. She did not give the slightest occasion for it, but that did not comfort Leif at all—on the contrary. This made Leif’s behaviour towards her rough and unintelligible. She was almost obliged to believe that he was no longer as fond of her as he had been, since he at times could do without her. It was only the pain in his look, even when he behaved in the most capricious way, which quieted her doubts. Yet she went about sometimes with such pensive eyes. There sat Leif, with a feeling of emptiness like a man who must see the most precious thing he possesses slip out of his hand, and cannot move a finger. Leif could at times become so anxious about Helga that all gladness and pleasure in life forsook him. Often she looked at him with a questioning and troubled look, and shut herself within herself.
The summer after Leif had completed seventeen and Ingolf nineteen winters, Atle’s sons for the first time went on a Viking expedition. That summer was the worst Leif had ever experienced. The want of occupation, and the complete absence of all events, became doubly intolerable now that he knew that other young men, who were not much more than his own equals in age, were sailing out on the wide ways of the sea, making the acquaintance of foreign people and lands, trafficking or fighting with those whom they encountered wherever they went, and, in any case, having new experiences every day and every hour of the day. These thoughts were so painful that Leif at times became quite poorly and depressed when they attacked him.
That summer there arose besides in his distracted and uneasy mind a besetting idea, which, when it had once taken root, was not to be shaken off. Suppose Holmsten should be killed that summer, how would Helga receive the news when she heard it? He could sit silent and watch her for hours at a time in order to discover an answer to this question. Sometimes he introduced the Viking expedition of Atle’s sons as a topic of conversation before her. She did not seem specially interested in it, but talked willingly, though without great interest, about it. These conversations gave Leif a strong impression of woman’s falsity!
At last there came a day when he could hold out no longer, threw away all shame, and went to Helga and told her that news had come from Atle’s sons that Holmsten had fallen. Helga sat for a while pensive and serious. “So we shall never see him more,” she said, with a slight tremor in her voice. “I cannot really imagine Atle’s sons without thinking of them all three together—so I remember them the first time I saw them, so one always saw them. His brothers will be very grieved at losing him.”
Leif listened breathlessly, but her words and tone made him no wiser. “Was it Haersten—or Haasten?” he thought. “I should have told her that all three had fallen.”
Utterly discomfited by this frustration of his attempt at surprise, he gave it up altogether. Now he was reckless. “That is not true,” he confessed wearily. “There has come no news from Atle’s sons.”
Helga became quite silent from surprise. Her astonished look rested almost anxiously upon him. “How can you take it into your head to say such things?”
Leif looked maliciously and despairingly at her. “It is still too early to weep for Holmsten,” he said coldly and scornfully. Then he rose suddenly and went. As he stepped out of the door, a burst of cheerful, rippling laughter broke out behind him. “Why does she laugh?” he thought, anxious and angry at the same time, but did not turn round to examine her face. The rest of the day he kept puzzling about her laugh. Did she laugh because it was not true that Holmsten had fallen, or did she only laugh at him, because she had discovered that he was jealous of Holmsten? For the rest it seemed to Leif that neither was a laughing matter. So morbid had he gradually become that all laughter seemed to him suspicious and unbecoming. It took Helga several days to eradicate the effects of her laughter from Leif’s mind. Even kisses and embraces seemed ineffectual. He suffered from his peculiar obstinate temper, insisting that he had been insulted, but unable to overcome it. It required a severe effort before he could bring himself to repay Helga’s gentleness with the same.
But then he seemed all at once to have become quite different. It seemed as though the exposure he had made of himself had cured him. He felt an immense relief. Now he had, at any rate, proof that Helga would neither become white as snow, nor fall dead, even if she should hear that Holmsten had fallen. He began gradually to surmise that his jealousy was only a cob-web of the brain.
Besides this, a thought had taken possession of him which drove all spiteful spectres out of his mind. As early as the next summer he would go on a Viking expedition himself. He would not remain here and become prematurely old and peevish. It was true that at summer-time he would still be two years short of the regular Viking age. But Ingolf would at that time be of the right age and could get his going legalized—for Ingolf would go too, as a matter of course. They could not go about at home for ever and become moss-grown without and mouldy within.
“Look at the old men!” he broke out, when in words that stumbled over each other he made Helga privy to his plan. “Must one not be sorry for them? Yet they have been young once. This is what age makes of people. It is better, when one is good for nothing else but boasting, to have something to boast of, than for want of experiences to become a wretched liar.”
“Do you think that you will some day become like—like your father?” asked Helga, smiling. She thought Rodmar was worse than Orn.
“Without doubt,” answered Leif decidedly. “I can certainly not realize it. But why should I become otherwise? Must they not have once been young and full of life? Now they drivel!”
Helga sat for a little while and thought. And while she thought, her expression changed and became pensive and serious.
“You are so imprudent, Leif,” she said, with anxious eyes, “I fear you will be killed in your first battle.”
Leif laughed arrogantly. “Have you not noticed that I am invulnerable,” he outbroke, with a beaming smile, “that nothing can injure me? There is something or other which protects me. I have thought about it. It can only be your love, Helga. What else should it be?”
Helga kissed him. She had tears in her eyes. “If my love can protect you, Leif, you are invulnerable. My own friend, do whatever you will, only do not quite forget me.”
Leif hurried from the place to meet Ingolf. And when he found him he was so completely the old Leif, with body and soul intent upon a definite object, that, with the stream of his talk and the irresistible absoluteness of his manner, he swept all ill-humour out of Ingolf’s mind. Now that Leif had become quite himself again, Ingolf needed no more to be on the watch regarding his own attitude towards him. Ingolf stood quite quietly, listened to him, and allowed him to talk freely, without the slightest attempt at interruption. He merely stood and looked at him, and enjoyed feeling how his eagerness infected his own mind like a happy excitement. Ingolf felt at that moment a gladness which he had forgotten. He could have embraced his brother.
While Leif spoke further and developed his plans, Ingolf pondered. He only followed Leif’s stream of talk with one ear, only to ensure that nothing important escaped him. Meanwhile, he subjected the project to independent consideration. Perhaps it was, at any rate, over early to join in a Viking expedition just now. Perhaps they ought rather to wait a couple of years; Leif was so young, and was still not of the warrior’s age. But, on the other hand, Leif needed a change just now. And he was quite self-reliant, though not of the proper age. They could also train themselves in the use of weapons in the winter. If they waited, Leif would again become strange and not to be understood or put up with. For Leif’s sake they must go. How completely he was again the old Leif, even in his thoughts!
Ingolf concluded his considerations by saying: “I will talk with my father about the matter,” in the middle of Leif’s stream of words. Then Leif became uncontrollable for a while. He seized hold of Ingolf and whirled him round. He knew that with this sentence the matter was decided. But it seemed to him when, out of breath he let his laughing brother go, that he absolutely must say something about Orn.
“The old blusterer!” he snorted contemptuously. “To think that we should guide ourselves by his opinion. Well, do as you like. Only forget not to say that we shall bring wine home for him—much wine. Then you will see how tractable he will become. I will promise my father the same, in order to make him willing to give up the keys of the weapon-chest.”
Ingolf went to his father, put the matter in a few words before him, asked him for ships and merchandize, and first and foremost for his consent to their making an expedition the next summer.
While Ingolf talked, Orn sat with a dull look and an unwilling expression in his face, as if it was with difficulty that he heard him to the end. “Ships and merchandize are your own,” he answered peevishly, when Ingolf was silent. “You can do with both what you will, and it would not surprise me if you returned home empty-handed. Leif will still prove a costly brother to you. He will be captured, and you will have to pay the ransom. Keep a good watch on the ships, and don’t let yourself be cheated in trafficking. When they offer you one cask of wine for a bear’s skin, you should ask three, then you will get two. For the rest, you can go anywhere in the world as far as I am concerned, if only you do not disgrace your father. Go! No, wait a little. If Atle’s sons go again on an expedition in the summer, show that you have a little intelligence, and go with them. Then you will be five together, and can better hold your own where you go. But if you return home without a good stock of red wine from the land of the Franks, I will never see you before my eyes, or hear so much as the sound of your voice. Go!”
Leif also talked with his father. He was extravagant in his description of the matter, and lavish in promises. He simply told his father that now in Ireland and the British Isles grape-wine from all the lands of the earth could be bought. When the old Rodmar, made young again by the thought of earth’s flowing glories, began to talk of travelling with them, Leif changed his tone, and pictured the dangers and fatigues of the journey in vivid colours. Then Rodmar shrivelled into himself again and gave up the thought of travelling.
But Leif got the keys of the weapon-chest, and for the first time obtained his father’s blessing.
Ingolf told Leif that his father had proposed that they should join with Atle’s sons in the expedition. At first Leif was a little annoyed, but his joy was so great that everything else became of secondary importance in comparison with the prospect that he was going out—out on long journeys in the wide world. He saw at once the reasonableness of the proposed arrangement. They gained in strength by joining with Atle’s sons, and would be invincible. Besides, there would be more ships, and the expedition would be a grander thing all round. And there was, moreover, something enticing in the idea of being with Atle’s sons and witnessing what good and evil befell them.
Perhaps he would have the experience of seeing one or more of them fall by the enemy’s hand. That would be an experience worth bringing home. When he had got so far in his considerations, he gave Ingolf’s proposal his unconditional approval.
There was much joy in Orn’s house. The old men were enlivened, their stories became more cheerful, and they were not quite so peevish as before. They already anticipated beforehand in their thoughts how the barrels of red wine from the land of the Franks would be trundled up to the house from the landing-place. They knew how a barrel of wine should be handled from the moment the bung was drawn out till it stood empty. They already became fastidious and difficult to please with their thoughts of the red wine.
From that time they drank only mead. All other beer tasted sour, they said, and wrinkled their noses. One day Orn summoned Ingolf and reminded him in an imperious tone of honey: “From henceforth only mead will be brewed here in the house. Go!”
Ingolf smiled to himself when he came out from his father. When no one saw it, he permitted himself now and then a smile. Ingolf and Leif had their ships examined, and made other preparations.
Leif spent most days down below at the boat-houses. He was indefatigable, and showed a reflectiveness and care in his preparations which both surprised and rejoiced Ingolf.
They were to equip three ships, so there was much to do in taking goods on board and arranging them, especially as the ships had not been used for many years, and had therefore to be made taut, tarred and thoroughly overhauled.
Ingolf and Leif divided the work: Leif looked after the ships and their equipment, while Ingolf managed the properties of both, and arranged for obtaining by exchange goods for the expedition.
Leif was indefatigable. Neither the autumn’s clammy rain nor the winter’s keen frost and furious snow-storms overcame his energy. The whole day long, and sometimes far into the night, he was at the water-side. Helga had to seek him there so that he should not be quite apart from her. She was glad to see him so happy and absorbed. She was very warm-hearted, and when he could spare her some time, it was as though he gave her a treasure. When he thus for a time had forgotten his work, Helga’s exuberant feeling, mingled with the desire to see Leif at work, made her occasionally remind him that he forgot the time. The energy with which he set to work again could be a song of secret gladness in Helga’s heart for the rest of the day.
That winter it was Ingolf and Leif’s turn to visit Atle’s sons. Already during their first day at Gaulum, Ingolf brought up the subject which was to him at the moment of greatest importance. Turning to Haasten, he told the brothers that he and Leif had resolved to go on an expedition in the summer, and proposed to join them under Haasten’s leadership, provided the brothers also had determined on a cruise.
Atle’s sons had had a prosperous summer and were going out again. Haasten considered it self-evident that they should go in company. He asked his brothers’ opinion. Haersten agreed with him. “Leif is two winters short of the regular Viking-age,” answered Holmsten, with so little reflection that he hardly knew he had said it, before the words were out of his mouth.
Leif coloured. And as was always the case when he became angry, he involuntarily straightened himself. “Let us see if I stand back in any matter, when occasion arises,” he answered, keeping calm successfully. “If not, is there any reason for setting me aside on account of my youth?” Ingolf stood pale and resolute. “Leif and I go together,” he said slowly. “I did not think this objection possible, or I would not have brought forward any proposal for fellowship. Yet we all know how common it is that the elder lawfully take the younger. Now, let us talk no more about it. We brothers are men enough to make our way for ourselves.”
“I for my part am willing to go in fellowship with you both,” answered Holmsten quietly and undisturbed, “and willing to take Leif. I only meant by what I said to draw attention to the fact that he is not of the legal age.”
“Then your words were incautious and liable to be misunderstood,” said Haasten reprovingly, in a severe tone which he seldom used towards his brothers. Then turning to Ingolf he continued: “We brothers offer you our fellowship, and beg you earnestly not to decline our offer. We have been friends since we were boys. We belong together on sea and on land. I will answer for it that we brothers keep our agreement to the last drop of our blood and the last farthing in our possession.”
Thus they agreed to sail together on a Viking expedition under the leadership of Haasten as the eldest. The place and time of their meeting would be further discussed with Ingolf at the time of the spring sacrifice.