The Waif Woman | Page 7

her.
"Is it to be the goodwife's pleasure?" she asked.
"Aud, you shall have your way," says he; "God grant there come no ill
of it!"
So she made much of him, and his heart was comforted.

When they came to the house, Aud had the two chests to her own
bed-place, and gloated all night on what she found. Finnward looked on,
and trouble darkened his mind.
"Wife," says he at last, "you will not forget these things belong to
Asdis?"
At that she barked upon him like a dog.
"Am I a thief?" she cried. "The brat shall have them in her turn when
she grows up. Would you have me give her them now to turn her
minx's head with?"
So the weak man went his way out of the house in sorrow and fell to
his affairs. Those that wrought with him that day observed that now he
would labour and toil like a man furious, and now would sit and stare
like one stupid; for in truth he judged the business would end ill.
For a while there was no more done and no more said. Aud cherished
her treasures by herself, and none was the wiser except Finnward. Only
the cloak she sometimes wore, for that was hers by the will of the dead
wife; but the others she let lie, because she knew she had them foully,
and she feared Finnward somewhat and Thorgunna much.
At last husband and wife were bound to bed one night, and he was the
first stripped and got in. "What sheets are these?" he screamed, as his
legs touched them, for these were smooth as water, but the sheets of
Iceland were like sacking.
"Clean sheets, I suppose," says Aud, but her hand quavered as she
wound her hair.
"Woman!" cried Finnward, "these are the bed-sheets of
Thorgunna--these are the sheets she died in! do not lie to me!"
At that Aud turned and looked at him. "Well?" says she, "they have
been washed."

Finnward lay down again in the bed between Thorgunna's sheets, and
groaned; never a word more he said, for now he knew he was a coward
and a man dishonoured. Presently his wife came beside him, and they
lay still, but neither slept.
It might be twelve in the night when Aud felt Finnward shudder so
strong that the bed shook.
"What ails you?" said she.
"I know not," he said. "It is a chill like the chill of death. My soul is
sick with it." His voice fell low. "It was so Thorgunna sickened," said
he. And he arose and walked in the hall in the dark till it came morning.
Early in the morning he went forth to the sea-fishing with four lads.
Aud was troubled at heart and watched him from the door, and even as
he went down the beach she saw him shaken with Thorgunna's shudder.
It was a rough day, the sea was wild, the boat laboured exceedingly,
and it may be that Finnward's mind was troubled with his sickness.
Certain it is that they struck, and their boat was burst, upon a skerry
under Snowfellness. The four lads were spilled into the sea, and the sea
broke and buried them, but Finnward was cast upon the skerry, and
clambered up, and sat there all day long: God knows his thoughts. The
sun was half-way down, when a shepherd went by on the cliffs about
his business, and spied a man in the midst of the breach of the loud seas,
upon a pinnacle of reef. He hailed him, and the man turned and hailed
again. There was in that cove so great a clashing of the seas and so
shrill a cry of sea-fowl that the herd might hear the voice and nor the
words. But the name Thorgunna came to him, and he saw the face of
Finnward Keelfarer like the face of an old man. Lively ran the herd to
Finnward's house; and when his tale was told there, Eyolf the boy was
lively to out a boat and hasten to his father's aid. By the strength of
hands they drove the keel against the seas, and with skill and courage
Eyolf won upon the skerry and climbed up, There sat his father dead;
and this was the first vengeance of Thorgunna against broken faith.
It was a sore job to get the corpse on board, and a sorer yet to bring it
home before the rolling seas. But the lad Eyolf was a lad of promise,

and the lads that pulled for him were sturdy men. So the break-faith's
body was got home, and waked, and buried on the hill. Aud was a good
widow and wept much, for she liked Finnward well enough. Yet a