The Son Avenger Read Online Free PDF Page B

accept help where they can find it, when they are hard pressed. I met his brother, that time I was in the Upplands, a haughty and ungracious fellow he was—”
    “Then Aslak is not like him,” said one of the house-carls warmly; “we were all fond of him.” At this Olav interrupted the man, sent him out for something, and began to talk to Tore about a horse that had some boils under its mane.
    Olav had gone down to the waterside before going to rest. As he came back he saw Cecilia standing on the lookout rock. Her father went up to her.
    “You must come in now, Cecilia—’tis late.”
    The girl turned round to him. In the pale gleam of the summer night her father saw that her face was discomposed—the stubborn features were slackened in irresolution. But she said nothing and followed him obediently down to the houses.
    Next morning, when Cecilia brought in the food, Olav said to his daughter: “You know, if you have a mind to go with them for once and listen to the dancing, I will not deny you—now that you can have your brother’s company.”
    Cecilia looked at him rather doubtfully.
    “But perhaps you have no mind to go—?”
    “Oh, yes. Gladly would I be there for once,” said Cecilia.
    The thin new moon floated in summer whiteness in the rosy grey of the sky above Hudrheimsland as Olav rowed round the foot of the Bull. A reflection of daylight still rested on the rocky wall of the promontory. Olav rowed with cautious strokes in the evening stillness. He put in at a little cove where there was a strip of sand, drew up the boat, and made his way up through the wooded cleft in the rock.
    He had bow and arrows with him, and he stole along quietly. On reaching the height, where the trees thinned out and the moss-grown rocks sloped down to the Otter Stone, he paused for a moment, but then resumed his way northward into the forest. After a while the sound of singing came up to him and the smell of smoke.
    As he came out on a little knoll, he saw the fire blazing far below; beneath him he had the bay with the clear curve of its sandy beach, and higher up between the flat rocks lay the dancing-green, burned yellow by the summer sun. Around the great bonfire the chain moved in a ring, black against the flames; the dancers’ feet drummed on the dry ground, and their song rang sweetly in the still evening air. Olav could not catch the words, for he did not know this ballad by heart, but he recognized the tune and knew that it was the lay of Charlemagne and Roland. The one who sang for them had a deep, warm voice; Olav wondered if it might be Eirik—he had always been singing when he was a boy. They were too far off for Olav to recognize any of the dancers in the twilight. Some were sitting down to rest outside the circle.
    Olav stretched himself on the crisp bog-moss, which still feltwarm from the heat of the sun. The ballads were wafted up to him, and the sound of the tramping in time to the song:
    It was dum-dum dumdelideia dum-dum dumdelidei—
    Now and again he heard the crackling sound of the fire, and, far below, the fiord murmured and lapped against the rocks. The moon had gone down long ago; above him the summer night grew dark. Nor were there many stars out tonight—it was already a little past midsummer.
    At last the man rose, picked up his bow and arrows, and walked quietly back, down through the forest.
    He lay in his bed within the dark closet, dozing and losing himself in a web of vague dreams, but every time he was on the point of falling asleep, he woke up with a start. Each time it was nothing, only a feeling that he had been waked by something from without. But there was no one in the hearth-room, and it was growing lighter and lighter—they had forgotten to close the smoke-vent.
    At last he heard them in the yard—they were taking leave of the other young people who were going farther inland. Then his own folk came in. From the closet Olav could hear them talking and yawning as the men took off