In the Wilderness Read Free

died. And nevertheless she was the only woman of whom he cared to recall the possession. He could not think of the others without feeling a chilly aversion to the memories creep over him.
    Now he had lost Ingunn, and when he thought of the last night before she died, he knew it was his own fault that he had lost her entirely. He was well aware of what had befallen him. When he was plunged in the most helpless distress and sorrow, about to lose his only trusty companion in life, God, his Saviour Himself, had met him with outstretched hands to help. And had he but had the courage to grasp those open, pierced hands, he and his wife would not now have been parted. Had he but had the courage to stand by the resolve he had taken at that meeting with his God—whatever might have been his lot in this world, whether pilgrimage or the headsman’s sword—in a mysterious way he would have been united with the dead woman, more intimately and closely than friend can be united with friend while both are alive on earth.
    But once again his courage had failed him. He had stood looking on when God came and took Ingunn, carried her away alone.
    And he was left behind as a man is left sitting on the beach when his ship has sailed away from him.
    And to bide here at home in Hestviken after that—it was the same as waiting for the days and nights to pass by in an endless train, one like another.
    No, he would not turn away the Richardsons’ offer, that was sure.
    From out of the darkness came the boy’s wide-awake voice: “The Danes, Father—they lie out in the English Sea and seize our ships, I have heard.”
    “The English Sea is wide, Eirik, and our vessel is small.—Best that you stay at home this year, for all that.”
    “I meant it not so—” Olav could hear that the lad sat up in hisbed. “I meant—I had such a mind to prove my manhood,” he whispered in bashful supplication.
    “Lie down and go to sleep now, Eirik,” said Olav.
    “For I am no longer a little boy—”
    “Then you should have wit enough to let folk sleep in peace. Be quiet now.”
    His father’s voice sounded weary, only weary but not angry, thought Eirik. He curled himself up and lay still. But sleep was impossible.
    He would be allowed to go, he believed that firmly—so firmly that when he had lain for a while thinking of the voyage, he felt quite sure of it. He was certain that they would fall in with Danish ships. They have a much higher freeboard than ours usually have, so at the first onset it might look bad enough. But then he calls out that all hands are to run to the lee side and hold their shields over their heads, and then, when all their enemies have leaped on board, they come forward and attack them. His father singles out the enemy captain—he looks like that friend of Father’s they met in Tunsberg once: a stout, broad man with red hair and a full red face, little blue eyes, and a big mouth crammed with long yellow horse’s teeth.—Then Eirik flings his shield at the stranger’s feet, so that he slips on the wet floor-boards and the blow does not reach his father—yes, it does, but his father takes no heed of the wound. The Dane stumbles and his hauberk slips aside so as to expose his throat for an instant; at the same moment Eirik plies his short sword as though it were a dagger. Now the Danes try to escape on board their own ship. The ships’ sides creak and give as they crash against one another in the seaway, and while the men hang sprawling, with axes and boathooks fixed in the high, overhanging side of the Danish vessel, the Norwegians lay on them with sword and spear. “Methinks ’tis no more than fair,” says his father, “that Eirik, my son, should take the captain’s arms—but if ye will have it otherwise, I offer to redeem your shares from this booty.” But all the men agree: “Nay, ’tis Eirik that laid low this champion single-handed, and we have saved the ship through his readiness.”
    “Are you the young