There was no sobbing in Helga's breast. It was soempty within. A clammy pressure held her heart imprisoned in apathy. There were no tears in her eyes. She was far past the narrow limits of weeping. Only a great and threatening stillness and emptiness in her soul, and round her a waste wilderness that would swallow her as soon as she stood still.
At last she was so exhausted that she had to drag herself forward with the help of her brother's arm. Ingolf helped her, supported her, and held her up. He was in great distress. She walked there quivering on his arm, and he had no comfort to give her. Such heavy hours Ingolf had never experienced. He forgot his own sorrow: it was as nothing beside his sister's mute despair. His whole soul was engrossed in her. His powerlessness, his complete perplexity, his lack of any word to comfort her, drove all other feelings out of his mind.
At last Helga had to give up. Her strength was spent. Exhausted, she sank in his arms. He laid her carefully down, and she remained lying with half-closed eyes, breathing heavily and slowly; then she fell asleep. Ingolf remained sitting by her side and gazing intently on her pale, tired face. She continued sighing in her sleep. Ingolf could not take his eyes from her. "This was what Leif feared," was the thought that echoed within him. There were not very many thoughts in his brain, stunned as it was by his own and his sister's grief.
When he had been sitting thus for some time, Hallveig came out to him from the house with her boy on her arm. She could no longer endure the loneliness.She sat down silently by Ingolf's side. Her eyes were circled with red rims, and there was a peculiar wry smile on her face, called forth by the struggle to keep her tears down. When she had sat a little and looked at the sleeping Helga, she could do no more; she leant her head against her husband, hid her face, and wept.
Little Thorsten prattled cheerfully, and struggled to get down to Helga. Ingolf had to begin to play with him in order to make him sit still. The child's untroubled chatter cut him to the heart.
Helga slept but a short time. Suddenly she opened her eyes, rose abruptly, and looked about her in bewilderment.
"What is this? Why am I lying here?" she asked in an astonished voice. As soon as she spoke, she felt a choking in her throat, and remembered all of a sudden what had happened, and why she lay there. Then she collapsed with a groan, and remained sitting for a while with her face hidden in her hands. Then she straightened herself abruptly.
"How did it happen?" she asked in a hoarse, uncontrolled voice, and looked straight in front of her with a hard expression on her young face. And when Ingolf did not answer at once, she added in a still more unrestrained tone: "Tell me at once!"
Ingolf told her, hesitatingly and in disconnected words, that his serfs had found Hjor-Leif and his men dead. It looked as if Hjor-Leif's Irish serfs had killed them.
"But the women?" Helga asked in the same tone as before.
Ingolf gave it as his opinion that the serfs must have taken the women with them to whatever hiding they had sought. He added a few cautious words to the effect that he had grounds for supposing that Hjor-Leif already a year ago had been afraid of what had now happened, and that therefore he had let her remain with him and Hallveig.
Then Helga laughed, if the sound which issued from her throat could be called laughter.
"It is all the same now," she said in a hard voice.
Then she collected herself and stretched out her hand toward the child. For a while she sat stroking his hair and trying to smile at him. Then suddenly she gave Hallveig the boy and looked up at her brother with a look that revealed all her hopeless despair without disguise, and said: "I want to see him. Can we not go there?"
Her voice was hoarse and passionate as before. There was nothing to recall her former soft and gentle tone, but the hardness was gone.
"We will go as soon as we can," answered Ingolf quietly.
Helga rose impatiently. She was a little unsteady on her legs, but declined all support both from her brother and her sister-in-law.
"Let us not waste time," she said irritably, and stumbled towards the houses.
Ingolf and Hallveig followed her in silence. Hallveig took the boy on her arm again.
That same day the ship was launched. Day and night they worked with feverish haste to load it. Thenext day it lay ready for sea, and in the evening the weather was fair for sailing.
Ingolf wondered a little at Helga. She did not weep. She did not seek solitude. She went about among them much as usual—did her accustomed work, took charge of the boy, and helped Hallveig. Only the change in her voice and her strange, fixed look betrayed her grief—a grief which made Ingolf fear, and troubled him more than any weeping and open despair.
XI
The next day at sunrise they were there. Helga was supported by her brother to shore on the slender landing-plank. When she stood on the shore before Hjor-Leif's point and looked over towards the houses, her strength failed her for the second time. She could do no more. She leant against her brother to save herself from falling. He put his arm round her and led her to a stone where she could sit and recover her strength. There she sat down, and remained sitting, staring out over the sea, that lay resplendent in the glow of sunrise, but her eyes saw nothing. A light morning breeze played with her hair and gently caressed her pale face.
Ingolf stood by her side, waiting. Since she so much wished to see Hjor-Leif he would not oppose it, but he wished to follow her and be near her.
Helga had forgotten him, and why she sat there. For the moment she remembered nothing except that she was alone and had Hjor-Leif no more. There weretimes when this fact seemed incomprehensible. If Hjor-Leif was dead, why was she alive? She did not understand that. But so it was—she was alive. And die she could not. Death would not come to her, though she prayed for it to all imaginable Powers.
When Ingolf had stood for a while motionless by her side, he bent down over her and said quietly that he must go for a little to give his men orders. Helga started when he spoke to her, and looked hastily up at him with a terrified look in her eyes. Then she came to herself, remembered why she sat here, why Ingolf stood waiting for her, and she seized his hand. She sat for a while holding it convulsively in hers and moaning softly. Then she said in that strange, distant voice which quite seemed to have displaced her own: "Ingolf—I cannot, after all—let me just sit. I cannot rise. Ah, I can do nothing," she said, half-wailing, and hid her face in her hands.
Ingolf stood a little irresolute; then he bent over her and said softly: "I will come again and fetch you."
She nodded impatiently with her bowed head, as if begging him only to go—to go!
As soon as she no longer heard his steps she began a low, heart-rending wail. Ah, she had no hope now. Her heart was dead. But she lived, and could not die.
Ingolf went back to the ship, helped Hallveig and her boy on shore, and asked Hallveig to look to Helga while he went and buried Hjor-Leif. Then he told Vifel and several of his men to take spades and a bier and follow him. The others he set to work unloading the ship.
Ingolf was quite composed now. The stamp of the resolute firmness, which was the real expression of his character, was more distinct than ever before. He had reconciled himself to his brother's death as a healthy man reconciles himself to the inevitable. He had sought comfort in his faith, and had eradicated all despair from his mind, so that only a healthy, hardening, beneficial pain remained behind. He remembered the death-rune among the omens at the sacrificial feast; it had then pointed at Hjor-Leif. Yes, Fate shields a man till she strikes him—nothing can alter that. Against Fate even the bravest fight in vain. Not even Odin can shake the sentence of the Norns.
Such were Ingolf's thoughts as, with a composed mind, he went to carry out his last duty to his brother.
There had been an old agreement between him and Hjor-Leif that, if Ingolf died first, Hjor-Leif should inter him in a funeral barrow with exact observation of all the ritual of the Ase-religion. In return, Ingolf had pledged himself, if he were the survivor, to bury Hjor-Leif in the ground without any kind of solemnity. All that Hjor-Leif wished, when he no longer lived, was to be buried in a dry spot, at the depth of a man's stature, and to lie there with clean earth round him. It was no more than reasonable that he should have his will, though Ingolf in his inmost heart felt a strong impulse to inter him in a barrow and to do him all the honour which became a chieftain.
The birds were singing in the dewy morning when the sailcloth with which Vifel had covered Hjor-Leif was lifted. Their song sounded all at once piercingly inIngolf's ears. He stood for a while and looked at his brother's decomposed remains. He had seen many dead men, without being specially moved thereby. But now his self-control deserted him a moment. He wept. When he had grown calm again he made the sign of the Hammer over the body, and said softly, as though to himself: "A mean fate here befell a good man, that a serf should cause his death, and so it will happen to each one who will not sacrifice to the gods."
Hjor-Leif's corpse was laid on the bier, and Ingolf covered it with his cloak. Then he went on ahead up to the point to seek for a burying-place. Step by step the men carried his brother's body after him.
Ingolf quickly found a place towards the south and the sun. The grave was dug, and Hjor-Leif was lowered into it, wrapped in his brother's cloak. Then they cast clean earth over him, and trampled it well down.
Ingolf remained standing by the grave till his men had gone. Then he spoke for the last time to his sworn brother. "Hjor-Leif," he said with emotion and in a natural tone, as though he were quite sure of being heard, "if no duty had bound me to life, I would have followed you in death. The days are poor without you, brother. But I comfort myself with the thought that we shall meet again in Valhalla, and that you by that time will have made your peace with the gods."
When Ingolf had spoken, he took a thunder-stone which hung on a chain round his neck, a gift from his mother, of whom he had an indistinct memory, pressed it deep down in the earth, and covered it up. Nothingin his eye was so sacred as this lucky stone. Therefore he gave it to his brother to take with him on the way.
Ingolf found his sister where he had left her. She sat in the same attitude; not once had she moved since he left her. Her wailing had died away. She sat silent. And when he laid his hand on her shoulder she did not start, only turned her head quietly, and looked up wearily at him. She tried to rise, but had become stiff from sitting in the same position. It was some time before she could stand and walk. Ingolf led her gently over the shore, up the point, to Hjor-Leif's grave. At the grave she remained standing motionless, clinging to his arm, and gazing down at the brown scar in the earth. For the first time since she had heard of Hjor-Leif's death her eyes filled with tears. She loosed her hold of Ingolf's arm and asked him impatiently to leave her.
When Ingolf had gone, she threw herself on the grave, pressed her face down in the loose earth, and lay there weeping, silently and ceaselessly. Now she could weep....
Long after Helga had wept all power of weeping out of her soul she remained lying there, with her arms thrown out as though clinging to the earth. Then at last she fell asleep, worn out with sorrow and fatigue.
When she woke again it was evening. She rose and looked around her in alarm, suddenly afraid lest any one should see her lying thus. As she stood there and looked around her, she perceived a black round patch on the greensward a little distance off. There had burnt the fire, which about a year ago she had satgazing at from Ingolf's point.... Ah, that red fire....
And now it was quenched ... quenched for ever.
Helga sat down, looking alternately at the grave and the burnt patch. Now and then her eyes filled with tears. But she could weep no more.
Later in the evening Hallveig came silently and sat down by her side. They did not speak. Hallveig wept now and then. Helga sat motionless, gazing before her with eyes that scorched and burned, but seeing nothing.
The two women remained sitting there the whole night. When sunrise streaked the horizon next day they rose quietly and went silently homeward to the houses.
XII
Ingolf sent his men to search for the Irish serfs.
As the boats were gone, there was reason to suppose that they had sought flight by sea. And as they knew Ingolf was in the east, it was likely they had rowed farther westward along the coast.
Ingolf's men searched the coast westward for many days' journey. They saw nothing of the serfs anywhere—not even a sign that they had landed. And even if they had been drowned, their bodies must have been cast ashore. Neither did they find the pillars of Ingolf's high-seat, which they were also looking for.
When they returned home and told Ingolf that theyhad neither found the serfs nor the pillars, he said in his quiet way: "The pillars shall be found and the serfs too, if I have to search the whole country." Ingolf sent Vifel with fifteen men in a boat out to the islands, which from the mountains near the point were visible in the south-west.
There Vifel found the Irish serfs. They were living in caves scattered about on the largest of the islands. When they found that they were discovered, panic seized them, and they did not even try to offer resistance. When they saw Ingolf's men coming over the island they scattered in wild confusion. Some of them were cut down while flying; others, among whom was Duftak, flung themselves down from the cliffs and promontories and perished.
The women, whom the serfs had taken with them out to the islands, and the most obstinate of whom were still kept bound, were able to tell how Hjor-Leif and their husbands had been murdered. They spoke coolly and calmly of the matter. They had forgotten how to weep and how to rejoice.
Vifel buried the serfs on the edge of the shore, where the ground is dry at ebb and covered at full tide, as criminals should be buried.
Then he searched each creek and promontory in vain. The pillars had not drifted to shore there. Afterwards he distributed his men in three boats with the women and the valuables which the serfs had stolen and taken with them to the islands, among them Hjor-Leif's costly sword. Ever since then the islands have been called the Westman Islands after the Irish serfs.
Ingolf met the boats down on the shore. Vifel told him of the death of the serfs, recounted the women's narrative of Hjor-Leif's murder, and handed him the sword.
Ingolf took it cautiously. He remembered the story about Hjor-Leif's fight with the dead man, who was reported to have said that a charm attached to the sword whereby everyone who killed with it should himself die by it. Ingolf had comforted himself with the thought that so long as Hjor-Leif had not killed anyone with the sword there was no danger for him from it. Now, however, Hjor-Leif had been slain by it. Perhaps the saying meant that whoever possessed that sword should perish by it. At any rate he would not have it. Sorcery was not to be trifled with. Ingolf went straight to Hjor-Leif's grave with the sword and stuck it in the earth so that the golden handle projected from the black mould. It was the only thing left by his brother which he was unwilling to receive.
There was no danger of anyone taking it there. His men kept at a distance from Hjor-Leif's grave. They asserted that he walked again, and believed that Helga met the dead man when she went up there at night, as she often did.
Ingolf did not share their superstition in that respect. But, on the other hand, he well understood how Helga's appearance might give rise to such thoughts in his men. She looked more like a dead man's bride than a young living woman. Her fair hair had become white, and hung dishevelled about her head. The light of her glance was quenched, and the skin that stretched overher wan, emaciated face was grey and without brightness or colour. The only signs of life she gave were eating and breathing. She carefully took charge of Thorsten, with a peculiar absent tenderness, since Hallveig had now a little girl to watch over. She did nothing else.
That summer and the following winter Ingolf remained by Hjor-Leif's point. The next spring he departed and went farther westward. He stopped at a river whose mouth formed a comparatively safe harbour. Good landing-places were generally scarce on these shores. Thither he had his ships brought. Some way inland, west of the river, he built winter dwellings under a hill, which was named Ingolf's Hill. In the summer, as always, he had his men out to search for the pillars. When they came back they were able to inform him that they had reached a great promontory. North of the mountains there was a broad fjord.
In the winter, Ingolf sent Vifel and Karle to search the coast-line north of the hills. Out on a barren promontory in a creek, which because of some warm, densely smoking springs in the neighbourhood received the name "Rogvig" ("smoke-creek"), Vifel and Karle at last found the pillars. They had drifted ashore just below a little rounded height. On the height there sat an eagle. It did not move when Vifel and Karle approached. It sat there still when they went away, after having secured the pillars. Vifel and Karle were much afraid of the eagle. Only once before had they been equally afraid—that was when the brazen voice from the monks' house had cast them to the ground. Vifeland Karle went back and informed Ingolf of their find. Then Ingolf was glad. Now he knew where he should dwell. Now he caught a glimpse of meaning again in his life. He immediately arranged a great sacrificial feast, and made sacrifices to Odin and Thor and gave them thank-offerings.
When he heard about the eagle he became thoughtful. Neither he nor anyone else believed that the eagle's having sat there was accidental. There was in Ingolf's mind not the least doubt that the eagle had really been his old father, who, in a shape corresponding to his name, had been sent by Odin to guide and keep watch over the pillars.
Never again was an eagle seen on that height, which received the name "Orn's Height."
As soon as spring came, and the roads were passable, Ingolf left Ingolf's Hill and went over to Rogvig. The place where Ingolf's pillars had drifted ashore was a large, bare promontory. The district was stony, and there was not much pasture-land. By far the greatest number of the parts he had traversed had been better and more suitable for settling. But here it washislot to dwell. And, besides, he could take possession of as large a territory as he chose, and build houses for his people and cattle-sheds where he found fertile soil.
Already that summer Ingolf began to mark out his lands. For himself and his posterity he took possession of the whole of the great promontory, from the river-mouth where his ships lay up along its curving course and across the hills to a fjord on the north side of the promontory, which was named Hvalfjord, between tworivers, which received the names of Brynjedal River and Okse River.
Many of Ingolf's men were dissatisfied at having to settle in this unfertile region. The serf Karle, in great vexation, ran away with a serf-woman. Ingolf found them long afterwards settled inland.
Ingolf gave land to his freed serf, Vifel. He settled on Vifestofte, and Vifel's Hill bears his name. He became a well-to-do man. The next summer Ingolf went to Norway to fetch timber for his houses. He built a residence at Rogvig, which was not at all inferior to the chief seat of the family at Dalsfjord in Norway. To the residence was attached a temple which in its size and splendid equipment did not fall far short of that at Gaulum. Ingolf was faithful to his gods and showed them great honour. Since they had given him a new place of abode he felt confidently assured that he had regained their favour.
Ingolf, who daily had his sister Helga before his eyes, was often reminded of his sworn brother, Hjor-Leif. Now he understood much which he had not understood before, and caught a sight of the connection between events, which taken separately seemed accidental. He remembered the beggar's words: "Point and blade!" Now he understood what the beggar had meant. It was owing to Hjor-Leif's prompting that they had journeyed to Iceland. Hjor-Leif was really the first occupant, even though he had not come to settle there permanently. Fate, the blind and immovable, had been out after him prematurely. Ingolf's heart was moved when he remembered how Hjor-Leifhad grown fond of this land from the first. It was accordingly Hjor-Leif whom Iceland had first taken in its embrace. Hjor-Leif was the first who had consecrated the soil of the new land with flesh and blood. Had the gods, or perhaps the guardian spirits of the country, claimed him as a sacrifice? It was at any rate a great sacrifice. But Ingolf did not dare to find fault with the gods. Already the year after Ingolf had settled in Rogvig people began to flock to the country. They were for the most part Norwegian chieftains who could not come to terms with King Harald. Ingolf gave several of the settlers land in his territory.
Among the first settlers was Hallveig's brother, Lopt, who was called Lopt the Old, and many of his family, which was a good and noble one.
Haasten, Atle Jarl's son, was also among the first occupants. He had at last been obliged to leave his own lands and property and flee the country to save his life. He took some land, guided by his high-seat pillars, due east of the river which bordered Ingolf's territory. Haasten lost his ship when landing, but his property and men were saved.
The very next winter he visited Ingolf in Rogvig. On the evening of Haasten's coming, Ingolf sat as usual in the high-seat with his men at the table round him, a step lower. The fire burned cheerfully on the hearthstones and spread a genial and penetrating glow. The coarsely carved images of the gods on the strongly illumined age-browned pillars of the high-seat laughed broadly in the glaring light. The talk was livelyaround the tables, and the beer-jugs were diligently emptied and filled. Ingolf was not grudging of beer to his men. He sat with a contented look in his peaceful blue eyes and listened to their talk. He himself spoke but seldom, except when questioned.
Then suddenly there came three knocks at the door. All the talking round the tables ceased. Ingolf turned his head and gave a signal to the man at the door. The bolt was pushed to one side, and in stepped a tall, erect, fair-bearded man in a red silk cloak with a golden helmet on his head, followed by three other men.
Ingolf immediately recognized Haasten, in spite of his beard and the ageing and weary expression of his thin face. He sprang up and went to meet him. He was too much moved to speak. For a while the two former friends stood silent, pressing each other's hands and looking each other straight in the eyes. Then they fell into each other's arms. When, shortly after, they sat side by side in the high-seat and had drunk to each other, Ingolf said: "I did not know, Haasten, that you were on this road."
Haasten smiled his weary, steady smile, and answered: "Yes, King Harald has driven me from the country, as I in my time drove you two brothers. Have you forgiven me that, Ingolf?"
"I have never been angered with you for it," Ingolf answered.
They spoke together of many things, and their talk was light and untroubled. There was in Haasten's attitude towards Ingolf the same deference that all other chieftains who came there showed the quiet, confident, simple, taciturn man, who by his example had drawn all the others to this new land. Ingolf was indeed his friend, and as such he showed him confidence, but he was also the first settler in the land, and as such he evinced for him a great and undisguised deference.
They talked of Hjor-Leif. "It happened as I fore-told," said Haasten, and smiled sadly. "The mistletoe branch at last struck the invulnerable."
"We all owe Odin a death," said Ingolf quietly, and drew a deep sigh. "It is most often the survivors whose lot is the hardest."
His look involuntarily sought the women's dais. There sat Helga, gazing before her without expression in her eyes, with his son, Thorsten, in her lap.
Ingolf pointed out the boy to Haasten. "His name is built of Thor's name and yours," he said in a gentler voice. While Ingolf talked, he noticed how attentively his son's quiet blue eyes dwelt on the high-seat pillars. Thus he had himself sat as a boy, he remembered suddenly. And now he met his son's look. Were Thorsten's thoughts something like his had been when he was a child?
Haasten had been sitting in silence, watching the boy. Then he said suddenly: "He must have been born soon afterthatwinter."
"The winter after," Ingolf answered, a little curtly.
"He bears Thor's name and mine," Haasten continued thoughtfully. "May that bring him good luck!"
He was silent a short time. Then he asked: "But who is the woman?"
"My sister, Helga," answered Ingolf quietly. The two friends sat silent a long time.
Then Haasten beckoned to the boy, and when he came he took him between his knees, and looked closely at him. "You have honest, intelligent eyes; you will be a brave man," he said at last, and stroked his fair hair. Then he took a heavy gold ring off his arm and gave it to Thorsten.
"That is because you are in some part my name-sake," he explained, smiling at the boy, who stood with the ring in his hand, staring alternately at gift and giver. Thorsten tried the ring on his slender arm. "It is too large," he declared, a little offended. Then he suddenly brightened up. "But it will fit me well enough by the time father is dead, and I sit in the high-seat."
Both Ingolf and Haasten laughed. Thorsten went to show Helga and his mother the ring. Then silence came over the two friends. Shortly after, Ingolf proposed that they should drink to their dead brother. The friends' glances met over the rim of the drinking-horns. There were tears in their eyes.
They sat late that night and drank and talked together. They were very happy to sit side by side again. The solitude which had threatened to imprison each severally was suddenly banished. Now they had each other again, and felt the joy of friendship.
The fire burned yellow and brightly on the hearthstones. In its genial warm light the images of the gods on the carved pillars looked down as if following all that passed with slow content, and waiting, calmly wise, for what should come.
THE END
THE BORZOI-GYLDENDAL BOOKS
The firm of Gyldendal [Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk Forlag] is the oldest and greatest publishing house in Scandinavia, and has been responsible, since its inception in 1770, for giving to the world some of the greatest Danish and Norwegian writers of three centuries. Among them are such names as Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Pontoppidan, Brandes, Gjellerup, Hans Christian Andersen, and Knut Hamsun, the Nobel Prize Winner for 1920, whose works I am publishing in America.
It is therefore with particular satisfaction that I announce the completion of arrangements whereby I shall bring out in this country certain of the publications of this famous house. The books listed below are the first of theBorzoi-Gyldendalbooks.
Jenny
A novel translated from the Norwegian of Sigrid Undset by W. Emmé.
A novel translated from the Norwegian of Sigrid Undset by W. Emmé.
Grim: the Story of a Pike
Translated from the Danish of Svend Fleuron by Jessie Muir and W. Emmé.Illustrated in black and white by Dorothy P. Lathrop.
Translated from the Danish of Svend Fleuron by Jessie Muir and W. Emmé.
Illustrated in black and white by Dorothy P. Lathrop.
The Sworn Brothers
ALFRED A. KNOPF,Publisher, NEW YORK