“They have gone to the landing-place, to watch for a ship that Valbrand sighted this morning from the rocks.”

She cried out joyfully:  “A ship in Einar’s Fiord?  Then it belongs to some chief of the settlement, who is returning from a Viking voyage!  There will be a fine feast made to welcome him.”

Alwin followed her doubtfully up the lane between the white patches.  “Is it likely that that will do us any good?  It is possible that Leif will not be invited.”

The heat of her scorn was like to have dried the drops she was scattering.  “You are out of your senses.  Do you think men who trade among the Christians are so little-minded as Eric?  Leif is known to be a man of renown, and the friend of Olaf Trygvasson.  They will be proud to sit at table with him.”

“It may be that he will refuse to feast with heathens.”

“That is possible,” Helga admitted.  She emptied her pan with a little flirt of impatience, and sighed.  “How tiresome everything is!  To sit at a table where one is afraid to move lest there be a fight!  I speak the truth when I say that this is the merriest diversion I have,—­standing out here, watering linen, and watching who comes and goes.  And now that my pan is empty, I must betake myself indoors again.  Yonder is Valbrand beckoning you.”

It is probable that Alwin would not have hurried to obey the summons, but with a nod and a smile Helga turned away, and there was nothing for him but to go forward to meet the steersman.

The old warrior regarded the young favorite with his usual apathy.  “It is the wish of Leif that you attend upon him directly.”

“Is he in his sleeping-room?”

“Yes.”

It occurred to Alwin to wonder at this summons.  His usual hour for reading came after Leif had retired for the night.  If the chief had overheard the dispute with Thorhall!  He lingered, meditating a question; but a second glance at Valbrand’s battered face dissuaded him.  He turned sharply on his heel, and strode across to the storehouse that had become Leif’s headquarters.

A loft that could be reached only by a ladder-like outer stairway, and was without fireplace or stove or means of heating, does not appear inviting.  But one has a keener sense of appreciation when he considers that the other alternative was a bed in the great hall, where the air was as foul as it was warm, and the room was shared with drunken men and spilled beer and bones and scraps left from feasting.  Alwin had no inclination to hold his nose high in regard to his master’s new lodgings.  England itself offered nothing more comfortable.