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'By all the gods, Estein, I shall laugh whenever I think of it! "But tell me your adventures." Estein told him shortly what had befallen him, excepting only his seeing the girl in the village. He had made up his mind that the resemblance must have been the work of fancy, yet as soon as they had reached the house of Atli, he took the old man aside, and asked him,
We could not escape them if we would, and I would not if I could. Have you seen aught of the other ships?" "We parted from Ketill yesterday, and I fear me he has gone to feed the fishes. I have seen nothing of Asgrim and the rest. I think with you, Estein, that the bottom here will make as soft a resting-place for us as elsewhere. Fill the beakers and serve the men!
Next day the old man was more silent and reserved than before, but every now and then Estein saw that his eyes followed him, and the few words he spoke were couched in a kindlier manner. "Sing to him again," whispered Osla in the evening, and night after night the young skald sang and the hermit and his daughter listened. Sometimes when he was finished the old Viking would talk on various themes.
For a moment they were too surprised to speak, and the old man went on with kindling enthusiasm, "Ay, Osla, I followed thee up from the ship, and awaited under the shadow of Hakonstad itself the issue ordained by the gods. King Estein, when thou wert with me I knew not who were the wizard and the witch of the Orkneys. My dreams revealed them not.
"Now," she said, when Estein had run the boat into the water, "you can rest while I row you across." "It has never been my custom to let a girl row me," he replied, taking the oars. "But your wounds?" "If I have any I have forgotten them." "Well, I will let you row, for the tide is at the turn, and you will not need to watch the currents. There is a great roost here when the tide is running."
"As most wives would," interposed Estein. Helgi laughed. "Fate had decided otherwise," he continued. "Even as I was eating my morning meal, the goodwife waiting on me most courteously, the door opened and the husband entered. I saw from the man's ugly look that all his wife's wiles were lost upon him; but the dog was a cowardly dog, and feared the game he thirsted to fix his treacherous teeth in.
"And now you seek me?" "You are his son, and my errand deals with you, for the feuds which were his are now yours," she answered. For a moment she paused, and seemed to Estein to look doubtfully at him, as if half afraid to go on. Then she drew a bag from under her cloak, held it out to him, and said simply, but not as one who craved a boon or sought a favour,
Brief glimpses of his earlier days, snatches of religious converse, his travels, and the strange peoples he had seen, he would touch upon before the evening prayer. And so the time passed away, till Estein had spent six weeks in the Holy Isle. All the while he had made no open love to Osla.
The door closed behind him, and then saying to himself, "Now or never, my friend," Helgi quietly slipped into his sheep-skin coat, and stepping softly so as not to disturb Estein or the seer, came boldly down the ladder. The girl's look, as he turned at the foot and faced her, stuck in his mind for long after.
There was a time when he who had just saved thy life would have had fairer thanks than this." With a strong effort Estein controlled his temper and answered more quietly, "You are right. It was another Estein whom you saw before. Bear with me, and go on." He sat down on a bench as he spoke and gazed into the fire.
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