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Eric said it should be as he wished. The last feast that fine old man was ever to see was that which he made for Gudrid's wedding with Karlsefne. Directly he was married Karlsefne began to talk about the Wineland voyage, first to Gudrid, and then to the company at Brattalithe, where he still lived. Gudrid was eager to go.
The spring and summer of that year passed quietly enough at Brattalithe, but after harvest a fine ship from Norway came into the haven and the owner came ashore. Eric Red, Lief and Gudrid rode down to town to meet him and hear the news. He soon explained himself, for he had a copious flow of speech.
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.
Not altogether so, for he had lost his lightness of heart, and with that his decision and blunt common sense. Gudrid, who had fought, as it seemed to her, against fate, and prevailed, was unhappy that he should care so little to be with her. She did not know that he avoided her. But it was so. He spent most of his time at Brattalithe, where he had taken a great fancy for Thorstan.
Come home now, and leave me no more." So said old Eric Red, a man not easily downed by fate. He made Thorstan Black free of Brattalithe for as long as he would, and promised him the best land that he had. So they all went ashore, and Freydis hailed Gudrid and made much of her. Freydis was not changed at all.
There were many things about her marriage with Thorstan which she did not understand at the time Thorstan's urgency for it was one, a kind of feverish haste about getting through with preliminaries; and another was his opposition to living anywhere but at Brattalithe. He would not go to her father's house, nor to that which had been Thore's, and which was now hers for life.
He put a reeve in each of them and took her to Brattalithe. Afterwards she understood everything, and was confounded by her former blindness; but it is the truth that Thorstan's love for her was of a sort to forbid thinking. She was carried off her feet and out of her common sense by his passion. He, so dumb and still a man, was by the touch of passion set on fire. And fire caught fire.
Gudrid said, "To be good is the least I can do. It seems very easy. But to be happy is difficult." "I never found it so," said old Heriolf. And so they parted, she whither Fate beckoned her, and he to go fishing. Eric Red, who lived at Brattalithe in Ericsfrith, had been a notable man all his life, and a man of mettle.
Nevertheless he prevailed upon Thore to bring her to Brattalithe very often; and when she was there he would take himself off cheerfully to work about the estate. Eric Red always made much of her, and even Freydis liked her well enough. She was the only woman for whom Freydis had a civil word. Freydis used to frown upon her, with her arms folded under her bosom.
He said it as if in joke, but yet he meant it. He was greatly taken with her beauty. Eric offered him winter quarters at Brattalithe and he accepted it gladly. His goods were landed, and stood in Eric's warehouse, his ship was laid up for the winter, his men boarded in Ericshaven. As for himself, he was very soon at home in Brattalithe, and everybody liked him well.
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