Alwin sank his voice to a whisper:  “The idea came to me as soon as he called Grettir to him.  But it was not your doing.  Now the saying is proved true that ‘things that are fated take place.’  Do you remember the prophecy,—­that when I stand on that ground I shall stand there by the side of Leif Ericsson?”

CHAPTER XX

ALWIN’S BANE

Much goes worse than is expected. 
     Ha’vama’l

The light of the short day had faded, but the wind had not gone down with the sun.  Powdery snow choked the air in a blinding storm.  One could not distinguish a house, though it were within a foot of his eyes.

“If I do not come to the gate before long,” Alwin observed to the shaggy little Norwegian pony along whose neck he was bending, “I shall believe that the fences have been snowed under.”

He had been sent out to find another of Biorn’s sailors who chanced to be visiting in the neighborhood, to invite him to come to Brattahlid and tell what else he might know concerning his chiefs voyage,—­a subject in which Leif had become strangely interested.  Alwin had accomplished his errand, and was returning half-frozen and with a ravenous appetite that made him doubly impatient over their slow progress.

“If we do not get there before long,” he repeated to the pony, with a dig into his flanks, “I shall get afraid that the drifts have covered the houses also, and that we are already riding over the roofs without knowing it.”

But as he said it, a tall gate-post rose on either side of him; and the pony turned to the left and began groping his way across the courtyard to his stable.

The windows of the great hall glowed with light, and warmth and jovial voices and fragrant smells burst out upon the storm with every swing of the broad door.  As soon as he had stabled his horse, Alwin hurried toward it eagerly, and, stamping and shaking off the snow, pushed his way in through the crowd of house-thralls, who were running to and from the pantry with bowls and trenchers and loads of food.  He hoped that Leif was there, so that he should not have to go back across the snowy courtyard to the sleeping-loft to make his report.  Stopping just inside the threshold, he looked about for him, blinking in the strong light and shaking back the wet fur of his collar.

It seemed as though every member of the house-hold except Leif were lounging along the benches, waiting for the evening meal.  Eric leaned against one arm of his high-seat, talking jovially with Thorhall the steward, who had returned that morning from seal-hunting.  Thorhild bent over the other arm, and gesticulated vigorously with her keys, as she gave her housekeeper some last directions regarding the food.  Further along, Sigurd and Helga sat at draughts.  Near at hand, a big fur ball, which was the outward and visible sign of Tyrker, was rolled up close to a chess-board.  Only Leif’s cushioned seat was empty.