It had reminded him of her body—her shoulder so slight and soft and cold, when the coverlet had slipped off while she slept and he drew it up and spread it over her again.

Of course he would go—he was firmly resolved on that in his inmost heart, and he would suffer nothing to come in the way and hinder him. Only for appearance’ sake he still let it seem uncertain whether he would accept; it would not do to acknowledge that he had let himself be persuaded so easily by two perfect strangers—nay, that he had seized their offer with both hands.

But he would not stay here at Hestviken the whole summer, now that he espied a means of escape. No matter that this little old hoy that the Richardsons’ grandfather owned was a wretched craft—and that he himself was no more of a seaman than that they might easily have found many a better one. Once before he had been in England, some fifteen years ago with the Earl—so it was but little he knew of that country; a great lord’s subalterns cannot stir far abroad. But as the Richardsons had not questioned him of it— He knew nothing of these two, but he could see that they were untried men and not over-wise. And by degrees he had been forced to admit that he himself would never be a good tradesman. It made him angry when he saw he had been cheated. But he had accustomed himself to say nothing and put a good face on it; ’twas bootless for him to wrangle with folk who were sharper than himself in such matters. He had not even thought of dissolving his partnership with Claus Wiephart—he might fall into the hands of others who would shear him yet closer.

These Richardsons looked as if they themselves might stand to be shorn. In that case there would be even less profit in throwing in his lot with them. Howbeit—

He missed her who was gone so sorely that he could not guess what it would be like to live here without her in all the years that were to come. He went about as one benumbed with wondering.

He could remember the thoughts he had sometimes had in her last years: that it would be a sin to wish her to lie on here and suffer torment to no purpose. But now that she was gone—ay, now he remembered that shred of saga that Brother Vegard had once repeated to them while they were children, of King Harald Luva, who sat brooding three years over the corpse of his Lapp wife. He was bewitched, the monk had said. Maybe—ah yes, but maybe ’twas not all madness either.

As far back as he could remember, he had been used to think of her as much as of himself, whatever he were doing or thinking. When two trees have sprung up together from their roots, their leaves will make one crown. And if one falls, the other, left standing alone, will seem overgrown. Olav felt thus, exposed and grown aslant, now that she was gone.

He knew full well they had been joyless years, most of them, but his memories of the happiness they had shared were far clearer and more enduring. It was as with the lime trees here on the hills about the inlet: they made no great show to the eye, but in summer when they blossomed, the whole of Hestviken seemed laden with the scent of them, so that one almost felt its sweetness clinging to the skin like honey-dew. In all the years he had been away from here, as boy and as man, fostered among strangers or an outlaw in other realms, this scent of lime blossoms had been the only thing to remind him that he owned lands that were his—all else about them he had forgotten.

And even in the saddest days of their life together she had been his—the same as that little Ingunn who had been so sweet and fair when she was young, so slight and supple to take in his arms, with the scent of hay breathing from her golden-brown hair when he spread it over him in the darkness. He had often loved her with the same gentle goodness as one loves a favourite faithful, innocent animal—a handsome heifer or a dog. And at other times he had loved her so that his body trembled and quailed in anguish when he recalled it now and remembered that it was done, had been done for many a day before she died. And nevertheless she was the only woman of whom he cared to recall the possession. He could not think of the others without feeling a chilly aversion to the memories creep over him.

Now he had lost Ingunn, and when he thought of the last night before she died, he knew it was his own fault that he had lost her entirely. He was well aware of what had befallen him. When he was plunged in the most helpless distress and sorrow, about to lose his only trusty companion in life, God, his Saviour Himself, had met him with outstretched hands to help. And had he but had the courage to grasp those open, pierced hands, he and his wife would not now have been parted. Had he but had the courage to stand by the resolve he had taken at that meeting with his God—whatever might have been his lot in this world, whether pilgrimage or the headsman’s sword—in a mysterious way he would have been united with the dead woman, more intimately and closely than friend can be united with friend while both are alive on earth.

But once again his courage had failed him. He had stood looking on when God came and took Ingunn, carried her away alone.

And he was left behind as a man is left sitting on the beach when his ship has sailed away from him.

And to bide here at home in Hestviken after that—it was the same as waiting for the days and nights to pass by in an endless train, one like another.

No, he would not turn away the Richardsons’ offer, that was sure.

From out of the darkness came the boy’s wide-awake voice: “The Danes, Father—they lie out in the English Sea and seize our ships, I have heard.”

“The English Sea is wide, Eirik, and our vessel is small.—Best that you stay at home this year, for all that.”

“I meant it not so—” Olav could hear that the lad sat up in his bed. “I meant—I had such a mind to prove my manhood,” he whispered in bashful supplication.

“Lie down and go to sleep now, Eirik,” said Olav.

“For I am no longer a little boy—”

“Then you should have wit enough to let folk sleep in peace.