“I don’t care to do that,” Thormod said; “and I do not think you will get any good from him.”

“I mean to go,” Thorgeir said.

He went down to the bank, carrying his axe aloft.  Grettir was just coming out of the water, and when they met Thorgeir said:  “Is it true, Grettir, that you once said you would not run away from any single person.”

“I don’t know whether I did,” Grettir said; “but I have scarcely run away from you.”

Thorgeir raised his axe.  In a moment Grettir ran at him and brought him over with a heavy fall.  Thorgeir said to Thormod:  “Are you going to stand there while this devil knocks me down?”

Thormod then got Grettir by the leg and tried to drag him off Thorgeir but could not.  He was wearing a short sword, and was just about to draw it when Thorgils came up and told them to behave themselves and not to fight with Grettir.  They did as he bade and made out that it was all play.  They had no more strife, so far as has been told, and men thought Thorgils blessed by fortune in having been able to pacify men of such violent tempers.

When the spring set in they all departed.  Grettir went on to Thorskafjord.  When some one asked him how he liked his entertainment at Reykjaholar he answered:  “Our fare was such that I enjoyed my food very much—­when I could get it.”  Then he went West over the heath.

CHAPTER LI

GRETTIR’S CASE OVERBORNE AT THE ALL-THING

Thorgils, the son of Ari, rode to the Thing with a large following.  All the magnates were there from all parts of the country, and he soon met with Skapti the Lawman and had some talk with him.  Skapti said: 

“Is it true, Thorgils, that you have been giving winter entertainment to three of the most unruly men in the country, all three of them outlaws, and that you kept order so well that none of them did any harm to the other?”

Thorgils said it was true.

Skapti said:  “Well, I think it shows what authority you possess.  But how did their characters appear to you?  Who is the most valorous among them?”

“They are all entirely valiant,” he answered, “but of two of them I will not say that they never fear; only there is a difference.  Thormod fears God, and is a man of great piety; and Grettir fears the dark.  He will not, if he may follow his own inclination, venture anywhere after nightfall.  But Thorgeir, my kinsman, he I think cannot fear.”

“They must be each of them as you say,” said Skapti, and there their conversation ended.

At the Thing Thorodd Drapustuf laid his complaint in the matter of the slaying of Thorbjorn Oxmain, for he had failed in the Hunavatn Thing through the influence of Atli’s kinsmen.  Here he thought that there was less likelihood of his case being overborne.  Atli’s party sought counsel of Skapti the Lawman; he said that their defence appeared to him a good one, and that full blood-money would have to be paid for Atli.  Then the case was brought before the judges, and the opinion of the majority was that the slaying of Atli was set off by that of Thorbjorn.  Skapti when he heard of it went to the judges and asked them on what grounds their decision rested; they said that the two slain bondis were of equal rank.