"Yea," answered Grani. "Wilt thou come?"
"Gladly will I come," answered Kolbein, "and will bring friends with me, if so be we shall be welcome."
"Welcome will ye all be," said Grani, and rode home cheered.
Now when they were come to Cragness, Helga met them at the door and welcomed them in. They asked if aught had happened in their absence. Said she, "Nothing save that the carline Thurid was here yestreen, and I am the first that has heard her speak since she left here in the spring."
They asked what were her words.
"I was here alone in the hall," Helga said, "for all the women were making cheeses in the out-bower. And Thurid came in and shuffled about the place, looking at things. I bade her be seated, for I would bring her milk and oat-cake; but when I brought them she had the great bow in her hands, and looked at it but would not eat. So I set the food away again; and when I returned she had the bow and the quiver, and was near the door as if to take them away. She said nothing when I asked what she did with those; so I stood in her way, thinking I was stronger than she. With one hand she set me aside, and I might resist her no more than if she were a man. So she bore the bow and arrows from the house, and I thought they were gone; but on a sudden she was back again, and laid them on the bench. And she said in a deep voice not like her own:
"'Not with women do I strive.'
"Then with great steps she went out of the hall, and came not again."
Those three, Einar and Ondott and Grani, looked at each other with alarm. For if that bow, left in the ward of women, had thus been taken, men could know neither the day nor the hour when Rolf might come, and make the shot at the oak-tree before witnesses, when all would be over with the house of Einar. And ere aught was said Einar took the bow and bestowed it under a settle, where it was well hid. Then they praised their fortune that they had it still.
So all sat down to meat, and ate gladly, for they had journeyed days long from the Thing-field. Then night fell, and they spoke of many things; at last Einar asked his son: "What said to thee Kolbein son of Flosi, there ere our roads parted?"