The Son Avenger Read Free

myself, Olav, that I would go home ere long. If I shall not be leaving you in the lurch—will you then let me go before the haymaking?”
    “You may be sure I will. ’Tis not my wish that you stay here as my serving-man, now that you no longer need my harbouring.”
    “No, no,” said Aslak; “I am not that sort of man either. You know well that I will stay as long as you have use for me.”
    Olav shook his head. Aslak removed some scythe-blades he had been sharpening; he seemed somewhat agitated. Then he turned and faced Olav. He had a serious look: the fellow w
as
handsome, his bold-featured, ruddy face was frank and honest; it was remarkable how little it was spoiled by the prominent eyes.
    “If I were to come back, Olav, so soon as my father or my eldest brother can make ready to accompany me south—you can guess what it is I would have my kinsmen ask of you?”
    Olav made no reply.
    Aslak went on: “You can guess what our business would be with you? How would you receive us, and what answer might my father expect of you?”
    “If your meaning is what I believe it to be,” said Olav very low and indistinctly, “then I will tell you that you shall not trouble your kinsmen to make the long journey for naught.”
    Aslak gave a little start.
    “Can you say that so surely, Olav—before you have heard what conditions we could offer you? ’Tis true, you might find a richer son-in-law, but you might also find a poorer. And the richest men are seldom those of best birth or repute—as times are now—unless you should look for them among those knights and nobles with whom you yourself have not cared to associate in all the time you have dwelt here at Hestviken. I come of such good kin, so old in all its branches, that I may claim on that score to be a match for your daughter, and there are not many men in Heidmark who enjoy such honour as my father.”
    Olav shrugged his shoulders slightly. He could not find an answer to this, offhand; it was not quite clear to his mind w
hy
hewould not at any price marry Cecilia to a man from the Upplands.
    “There is this too,” said Aslak again; “it may be a good enough thing to marry one’s child to wealth, but this avails little if the son-in-law be such a one as knows not how to husband his estate and improve his position. I think I may promise you this: in my hands it shall not decrease, if God do grant me health and save us from great misfortunes. Ay, now I have been with you more than half a year, and you know me.”
    “I say naught else but that I like you, Aslak—but that is not reason enough for giving away one’s only daughter to the first man who asks for her. I know little more of you than that you have many brothers and sisters, and you yourself have said that Gunnar’s lot is not an easy one—though indeed I have never heard aught but good of your house, the little I have heard of it. But ’tis another matter that, young as you are, you have already been the death of a man—and it was as an outlaw you came hither to me”—Olav felt a strange relief in every reason he found for refusing the lad. “Moreover it seems to me you are far too young to think of marriage without having asked the advice of your kinsfolk.”
    “I have repented and atoned for my sin,” said Aslak; “and as to my having slain a man so early in life—that surely is the more reason for thinking I have learned to command myself better, so that I shall not fall into the like another time, unless I be strongly provoked. But you should be the last man to blame me for that, Olav Audunsson; nor can
you
rightly deem me too young to seek a bride. For I am full nineteen winters old—you were fifteen or sixteen, I have heard, when you took a wife by force and cut down her cousin who sought to deny her to you.”
    “The one case is not like the other, Aslak.” Olav succeeded in speaking quite coolly. “The maid whom I took to myself was affianced to me and I to her; there was a legally