At last she said shrilly, “Oh, laugh!  If you see a jest in it—­laugh!  Because I am going to lose my freedom—­my rides over the green country,—­never to stand in the bow and feel the deck bounding under me,—­is it such sport to you, you stupid clods?  Would you think it a jest if the Franks should carry me off, and shut me up in one of their towers, and load me with fetters, and force me to toil day and night for them?  You would take that ill enough.  How much better is it that I am to be shut in a smothering women’s-house and wound around with cloth till I trip when I walk, and made to waste the daylight, baking to fill your swinish stomachs, and sewing tapestries that your dull eyes may have something to look at while you swallow your ale?  Clods!  I had rather the Franks took me.  At least they would not call themselves my friends while they ill-used me.  Heavy-witted churls, laugh if you want to!  Laugh till you burst!”

She whirled away from them into her booth, and the door-curtain fell behind her.

All day long she sat there, neither eating nor speaking, Editha crouching in a corner, afraid to approach her.

CHAPTER IX

BEFORE THE CHIEFTAIN

At home let a man be cheerful,
And toward a guest liberal;
Of wise conduct he should be,
Of good memory and ready speech. 

          Ha’vama’l

In the river, on the city-side, the “Sea-Deer” lay at anchor, stripped to her hulk, as the custom was.  Her oars and her rowing-benches, her scarlet-and-white sail, her gilded vanes and carven dragon-head, were all carefully stored in the booths at the camp.  With the eagerness of lovers, her crew rushed down to summon her from her loneliness and once more hang her finery about her.  All day long their brushes lapped her sides caressingly, and their hammers rang upon her decking.  All day long the ship’s boat plied to and fro, bringing her equipments across the river.  All day long Alwin was hurried back and forth with messages, and tools, and coils of rope.

The last trip he made, Sigurd Haraldsson walked with him across the bridge and along the city-bank of the river.  The young Viking had spent the day riding around the country with Tyrker, getting prices on a ship-load of corn.  Corn, it seemed, was worth its weight in gold in Greenland.

“Leif shows a keen wit in taking Eric a present of corn,” Sigurd explained, as they dodged the loaded thralls running up and down the gangways.  “He will like it better than greater valuables.  His pleasure will come near to converting him.”

Alwin shook his head doubtfully,—­not at this last observation, but at the prospect in general.  “The more I think of going to Greenland,” he said, “the more excellent a place I find Norway.”