Grettir said:  “We must be prepared for it.  This illness of mine is not for nothing; there is witchcraft in it.  The old woman has meant to punish me for the stone which I threw at her.”  Illugi said:  “I told you that no good would come of that old woman.”

“It will be all the same in the end,” said Grettir, and spoke a verse: 

“Often when men have threatened my life I have known to defend it against the foe:  but now ’tis a woman has done me to death.  Truly the spells of the wicked are mighty.”

“Now we must be on the watch; Thorbjorn Angle will not leave it to end here.  You, Glaum, must in future guard the ladder every day and pull it up in the evening.  Do this trustily, for much depends thereon.  If you betray us your end will be a short one.”

Glaum promised most faithfully.  The weather now became severe.  A north-easterly wind set in and it was very cold.  Every evening Grettir asked if the ladder was drawn in.

“Are we now to look for men?” said Glaum.  “Is any man so anxious to take your life that he will lose his own for it?  This weather is much worse than impossible.  Your warlike mood seems to have left you utterly if you think that everything is coming to kill you.”

“You will always bear yourself worse than either of us,” said Grettir, “whatever happens.  But now you must mind the ladder however unwilling you may be.”

They drove him out every morning, much to his disgust.  The pain of the wound increased, and the whole leg was swollen; the thigh began to fester both above and below the wound, which spread all round, and Grettir thought he was likely to die.  Illugi sat with him night and day, paying no heed to anything else.  They were now in the second week of his illness.

CHAPTER LXXXI

THORBJORN AGAIN VISITS DRANGEY

Thorbjorn Angle was now at home in Vidvik, much put out at not having been able to overcome Grettir.  When about a week had passed from the day when the old woman had bewitched the log, she came to speak with Thorbjorn and asked whether he did not mean to visit Grettir.  He said there was nothing about which he was more determined.

“But do you wish to meet him, foster-mother?” he asked.

“I have no intention of meeting him,” she said; “I have sent him my greeting, which I expect he has received.  But I advise you to set off at once and go quickly to see him, otherwise it will not be your fate to overcome him.”

He replied:  “I have made so many inglorious journeys there that I am not going again.  This weather is reason enough; it would not be possible, however pressing it were.”

“You are indeed without counsel if you see not through these wiles.  Now, I will advise you.  First go and collect men; ride to your brother-in-law Halldor in Hof and get help from him.  Is it too wild a thing to suppose that I may have to do with this breeze that is now playing?”