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Updated: June 3, 2025
He had asked if there were no headman in Lucefrith, and was told of one Thorstan Black; but he, it seemed, lived far off over the hills, they said and no way of getting at him through the snow. Then he went back to the ship and told his men to get ready to go ashore. He took them off by companies in the boat, and saw them all indoors before he left them.
She called that year afterwards the Little Summer, as well because of the glory and promise of it as for the few days it held. By the end of June she knew herself with child. Thorstan gave a sort of sobbing gasp when she told him and pressed her to his heart. She felt the wet from his eyes upon her cheek, looked at him and saw tears. "You weep at my news?" "It is because I am happy, my love."
The fever seemed to eat Thorstan up; he became so thin that his cheeks sank away into hollows, and his bones stuck out so sharply that the skin cracked. Gudrid began to have horror of him. She thought that her lover was dead, and that this was some terrible mock-image of him sent there to haunt her. She seemed to become younger as he grew more like an old man.
"If Thore goes, I shall go myself," Thorstan said after a pause. Gudrid looked up, but said nothing. "He is not a lucky man that is to be seen," Thorstan said then. "And he has no great knowledge of the sea, and is moreover infirm. It would come to this, that he would hurt himself, and you would have the care of him as you did upon the rock out beyond the head." She answered him gravely.
He told Gudrid that Thorstan thought a great deal about her; but she knew that already. She used to sing in the evenings when the hall was full, and everybody praised her except Thorstan; yet she knew that he was more affected than any one. She felt his heavy eyes on her, and used to think of songs which would please him. But Thorstan was dumb, and others were not.
"Gudrid has been faithful and loving to you; and it is no fault of hers that she knew how it would turn out." "No, no," said Thore. "She has been good to me." "Now I will tell you," said Thorstan, "that I have the second sight myself, and know what my fate is, and that she must take a third husband.
She remembered how she had kissed him in the very article of death, and shuddered as she thought of kissing this living corpse. Her eyes besought Thorstan Black not to leave her, and he rarely did for by this time her husband's weakness was such that, whatever he may have said in his fever, he could hardly be heard.
Then in the silence she heard her husband's voice, calling "Gudrid, Gudrid, Gudrid." She fell trembling, and knew not what she said. Thorstan Black put his cloak over her, and helped her out of bed. Her knees shook. "Is he dead? Is he dead? Oh, don't leave me. I'm frightened he looks so strange don't leave me, Thorstan."
Thorstan was a very honest man; he was a good poet and a great man for dreams, but slow and heavy minded. "A man must not be driven in such a matter," he said. "A man should not need it," Thorwald replied. "As you have spoken to me, so do you speak to Gudrid's old iron father. Hammer him smartly; knock sparks out of him.
And now she could see that his eyes were shut. She slipped off Thorstan Black's knee and knelt beside the bed. She looked at her dead lover, and without remembering her fear or thinking what she did, she put his hair off his forehead and tidied it. Then she leaned over him, looking tenderly down at him, and stooped and put her lips to his forehead.
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