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So he smiled, if it were somewhat grimly, and sheathed his sword and went on toward the house. He entered the cool dusk through the porch, and, looking down the pillared hall, saw beyond the fountain a gleam of gold, and when he came past the said fountain he looked up to the high-seat, and lo! the Lady sitting there clad in her queenly raiment.
Then the King looked on him and knew him at once, and stood up at once with a glad cry, and came round unto him, and took his arms about him and kissed him, and led him into the high-seat, and set him betwixt him and Goldilind, and she also greeted him and took him by the hand and kissed him; and Jack of the Tofts, now a very old man, but yet hale and stark, who sat on the left hand of the King, leaned toward him and kissed him and blessed him; for lo! it was David of the Tofts.
Leif leaned back in his high-seat, neither speaking nor drinking, scowling down into the flames. "He is angry because Eric keeps up the heathen sacrifice," the women whispered in each other's ears. "He has all of Eric's temper when he is angered. It would be as much as one's life were worth to go near him now." Shivering with nervousness, they crouched on the bench beside their mistress's seat.
So I caught it and was going to let it fly away over my head, but that moment I saw it was written upon, and read it. It was a love-letter! A man wrote that he sent this as in old times the Norwegian emigrants let their high-seat pillars be carried by the sea, and where it came he would one time come, and bring his faith to his destined Geb." "'Geb'? What is that?" asked the cousin.
So he sprang from his bed with the wonder of sleep yet in him, and drew the curtains of the shut-bed and looked forth into the hall; and lo on the high-seat a man of thirty winters by seeming, tall, fair of fashion, with golden hair and eyes as grey as glass, proud and noble of aspect; and anigh him sat another man of like age to look on, a man strong and burly, with short curling brown hair and a red beard, and ruddy countenance, and the mien of a warrior.
To him, indeed, that name of honour still seemed as far beyond the horizon as ever it had been. Yet, for some reason, Edith thought differently. So did Jarl Sigurd when, now seated on the "high-seat" with other visiting captains, Ulf told of his search for timber lands and briefly gave an idea of what he had brought home. "Almost thou art man-grown, Ulf," he said, significantly.
As, gratified by this friendly smile from above, he went out to repair to the court-house, he met in the porch a postman, who delivered him a letter. With thoughts yet busy with new title and court, Counsellor Bagger broke the letter, but remained as if fixed to the ground. In it he read: "The high-seat pillars have come on shore.
At last he came to the man who was bound in his own high-seat close under the place of the wondrous Lamp, the Hall-Sun, and he was the only one left bound; that man was of the Wormings and was named Elfric; he loosed him and was long about it; and when he was done he smiled on him and kissed him, and said to him: "Arise, brother! go help the quenchers of the fire, and leave to me this my chair, for I am weary: and if thou wilt, thou mayst bring me of that water to drink, for this morning men have forgotten the mead of the reapers!"
The sudden gust of wind carried him quite back to the moment when he sent out his note as the Norwegian heroes their high-seat pillars: the spirit of his twenty-fourth year came wholly over him, queerly mixed with the half-regretful reflection of the thirtieth year, with fun, inclination to talk and to breathe; and he exclaimed, as he rose to acknowledge the toast: "I am engaged." "Ay! ay!
Then the chieftain in the high-seat arose and took a horn from his side, and blew a great blast on it that filled the hall; then he cried in a loud voice: "Be we merry! Let the champions come forth!"
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