The Son Avenger Read Online Free PDF

instead, kept his own horse—and then he should have stayed indoors, in the company of older men of good report, sat still and modestly listened to their talk. Then he might also have been received in the ladies’ hall, where high-born damsels sat; he might have borne them company to the dance and to mass.
    He had kept himself a stranger to all such women, dreaming of them, in pale, harmless dreams. But he was too shy in their presence, and far too lazy and irresolute to compel himself to break with his evil habits.
    Yet in a way he did not
believe
they were so pure and grand as he liked to
think
they were. Jörund told a different tale, and he was just as welcome in their bower as in other places. And Jörund used to say that he dallied with them freely and boldly. There was only one thing they were afraid of, he sneered—short of that they liked a man to handle them somewhat rudely.
    This was one of the things Eirik disliked in his friend—that he could speak thus of the damsels of his own estate. It took away Eirik’s desire to try his fortune there—he did not realize that he was unwilling to hazard his own good opinion of good women. There were plenty of the other sort for other uses.
    But the truth was that every maid would gladly have married Jörund—he never let people forget who he was: one of the sons of Gunnarsby, and that he had only taken service in a lord’s retinue in order to see something of the world before settling down at home on his own estate. His morals were no better than Eirik Olavsson’s, he was no more squeamish in the choice of those he drank with, and at the sight of dice and gaming-tables he went clean mad—but luck was with him more often than not. Nevertheless no one ever forgot that Jörund was no less a man than any of the King’s body-guard, for all that he had chosen to serve a lord whose followers enjoyed a freer life.—But then it was true that Jörund had not left home at enmity with his kinsfolk.
    At the bottom of Eirik’s mind lay the thought that one day he would break with this retainer’s life. One day he would return to his ancestral home, be reconciled to his father, recover his position as the heir of Hestviken. And then no doubt it would be time to marry—it would be for his father to find a suitable bride for him.

    Eirik had been on a ride round the parish, had visited his kinswoman Una Arnesdatter and met others of his acquaintance. In the evening Eirik mentioned at home that on the next day there would be dancing on the green by the shore to the northward, where young people from north and south were sometimes wont to assemble.
    “Cecilia may go with us to the games, may she not?”
    Olav answered: “They are unused to taking part in such gatherings, the children here. Nor can we stay up so late at home on a Saturday evening—we have a long way to church.”
    Eirik protested: there were many other houses that lay just as far from the church, and they could rest when they came home from mass. Olav muttered something—a refusal—and made as though he did not notice that Cecilia was looking at him.
    Jörund guessed it was of no use to pursue this subject with the master of the house and took up another. But a little later Eirik asked suddenly:
    “What was that, Father, that I heard from Una? She said you had that Aslak Gunnarsson from Yttre Dal here last winter—he called himself by another name, and you kept him hid, so that the Sheriff never knew you were harbouring an outlaw.”
    “Did he not?” said Olav with a faint smile.
    “One cannot say your father hid him so well as that,” said old Tore laughing. “Reidulf is not fond of trouble. And since the winter of the Swedish broil I trow he is more afraid of Olav disturbing him than minded to disturb Olav.”
    “Nevertheless it was unmanly to fling himself upon strangers in such a case,” said Eirik. “But those red-polls of Yttre Dal are like that—proud in spite of their poverty, but ready to