She sat on the rock and slid down, crying out to her father and holding up a bunch of coltsfoot.

Olav turned and waved her off.

“Come not too close, Cecilia—you will be all besmeared.” He lifted her onto a stone. The little maid dabbed her posy into his face and looked to see how yellow she had made her father with the pollen. ’Twas not much, for Cecilia had already pulled the flowers to pieces, but she laughed none the less and tried again.

Olav caught the faint scent, fresh and acrid—the first of the year’s new growth. The winter that lay behind him had been as long as the Fimbul winter.1 But now he felt with a zest all through him that his boots were wet and heavy with earth. Even here in the shadow of the rock the ice shield covering the ground had shrunk away and exposed a strip of raw mould along its edge. The manure that lay spread over the field steamed with a rich smell, and from the waterside came a powerful springtime breath of sea and tar and fish and salt-drenched timber.

The little sailboat that he had sighted just now off the Bull was making this way. The craft was unfamiliar—no doubt some folk who were going upcountry.

He wiped the worst of the dirt from his fingers and led Cecilia back over the rocks.

“Go away to Liv now. You must not let the child run so far from you, Liv—she might fall over.”

The serving-maid turned toward him—“such fine weather”— with a great smile on her face. She sat sunning herself; the garment she should have been mending was flung aside into the heather.

Olav turned from her with distaste and went back to his work. The boat now lay alongside the quay; the strangers were walking up in company with Eirik. Olav made as though he had not seen them until they stopped by the fence and greeted him.

They were two men of middle age, tall, thin, with keen, hooknosed faces and merry, twinkling eyes. Olav knew them now, he had often seen them in Oslo, but never spoken with them; they were sons of that English armourer, Richard Platemaster, who had married a yeoman’s daughter from the country west of the fiord and had settled in the town. What business these men might have with him Olav could not guess. But he went with them up to the houses.

When the Richardsons had been given a meal and they were sitting over their ale, Torodd, the elder, set forth their errand: he had heard it hinted that Olav was minded to make an end of his trading partnership with Claus Wiephart. Olav answered that he knew nothing of it. But, said Torodd, he had heard in the town that this year Olav Audunsson had withheld his goods and not allowed Claus Wiephart to sell for him.

’Twas not so either, replied Olav. But he had made a funeral feast for his wife here during the winter, so that much had been consumed in the house, and with the death of his wife he had also been hindered in his work in many ways.—Olav thought he could now see whither they were tending. And perhaps it might be worth considering, to find another trader for his wares.

Then said the other brother, Galfrid: “The matter is thus, Olav, that my brother and I have business in England this summer. And we know you to be a skilful shipmaster, and you are acquainted with that country from your youth. We have never been there, though it is the home of our father’s kinsfolk. Now we have been surely told that you purpose to make a voyage this summer—”

While he was speaking Eirik had come in at the door, with a chaplet of blue anemones in his hand. Olav knew that the hazel thicket on the other side of the creek was now blue with these flowers. With such childishness as plucking flowers this long lad idled away his time on a bright and busy day of spring.

Eirik stayed by the door, listening intently and only waiting for his father to send him out of the room.

“Who told you that, Galfrid?” asked Olav.

It was Brother Stefan—that barefoot friar who had been hereabouts so much during the winter. The Richardsons were free of the Franciscan convent, as one of their brothers was a monk there. And there they had heard that Olav of Hestviken had thoughts of faring to foreign lands this summer, though doubtless he had not yet made any bargain about a ship.

Olav kept silence. But how the friar had got hold of this he could not guess—he did not recall having spoken of it to a soul. Go away—ay, God knew he had wished he could—but still he had not thought of doing it. He owned neither ship nor freight, and to seek out an opportunity of sailing with other folk had seemed somehow too troublesome a matter. Moreover there was enough to be done at home now, seeing how everything had been neglected during the long years of his wife’s sickness.

But when an opportunity was offered—! He felt his heart contract in his breast as a hand is clenched to strike the table, the moment he fully realized that he could get away from everything. Far away—for a long while—Yes, oh yes!

“I said no such thing to Brother Stefan—” Olav shook his head.