“I give you thanks,” he said.

The wrinkled, tremulous old hand touched his shoulder with a kindly pressure.  “Good is it that we understand each other. Nun!  Come.  First shall you go and Helga’s horse lead, since it may be that with her one hand she cannot manage him.  Why do you in your face so red grow?”

Alwin grew still redder; but he could not tell the good old man that he would rather follow a herd of unbroken steers all day, than walk one mile before a beautiful young Amazon who looked at him as if he were a dog.  He mumbled something indistinctly, and hastened out after the horses.

Helga rose stiffly from the pile of furs; it was evident that every new motion revealed a new bruise to her, but she set her white teeth and held her chin high in the air.  When she had taken leave of the trader, she walked out without a limp and vaulted into her saddle unaided.  The sunlight, glancing from her silver helm, fell upon her floating hair and turned it into a golden glory that hid rents and stains, and redeemed even the kirtle, which stopped at the knee.

As he helped the old man to mount, Alwin gazed at her with unwilling admiration.  Perhaps some day he would show her that he was not so utterly contemptible as...

She made him an imperious gesture; he stalked haughtily forward, he took his place at her bridle rein, and the three set forth.

CHAPTER III

A GALLANT OUTLAW

    Two are adversaries;
    The tongue is the bane of the head;
    Under every cloak
    I expect a hand. 
        Ha’vama’l

For a while the road of the little party ran beside the brawling Nid, whose shores were astir with activity and life.  Here was a school of splashing swimmers; there, a fleet of fishing-smacks; a provision-ship loading for a cruise as consort to one of the great war vessels.  They passed King Olaf’s ship-sheds, where fine new boats were building, and one brilliantly-painted cruiser stood on the rollers all ready for the launching.  Along the opposite bank lay the camps of visiting Vikings, with their long ships’-boats floating before them.

The road bent to the right, and wound along between the high fences that shut in the old farm-like manors.  Ail the houses had their gable-ends faced to the front, like soldiers at drill, and little more than their tarred roofs showed among the trees.  Most of the commons between the estates were enlivened by groups of gaily-ornamented booths.  Many of them were traders’ stalls; but in one, over the heads of the laughing crowd, Alwin caught a glimpse of an acrobat and a clumsy dancing bear; while in another, a minstrel sang plaintive love ballads to a throng that listened as breathlessly as leaves for a wind.  The wild sweet harp-music floated out and went with them far across the plain.

The road swerved still farther to the right, entering a wood of spicy evergreens and silver-stemmed birches.  In its green depths song-birds held high carnival, and an occasional rabbit went scudding from hillock to covert.  From the south a road ran up and crossed theirs, on its way to the fiord.