"He asked me," answered Grani, "whether we hold the harvest feast as last year, and if he and his company would be welcome."
Says Einar, rubbing his hands: "Now the great folk come to alliance with us; and when a few chiefs have visited here, then thou mayest count thyself their equal in all things, even as thou art in wealth. Of course thou badst him come?"
"That I did," says Grani.
So Ondott praised him. "Men have marked thee, there at the Thing, and seek to ally themselves with thee."
But Helga, who had listened, burst into tears.
"What is it," asks Grani, "that makes thee weep?"
Helga dashed the tears from her eyes, and stood before those two, her father and her brother. "Much had I hoped," says she, "that wicked doings would cease in this house—for to mock the dead and the unfortunate is wicked. And if ye hold the feast as last year, and shoot at the boundary as then, laughing at Hiarandi's fortune, then ye tempt your own fate, for such deeds go not unpunished long."
"Now," asked Grani of his father, "hast thou so mocked that luckless man's fate?" Einar said he had, and it was seen that Grani thought that act far too strong.
"Yet see," said Ondott, "what friends that brings you now, for from the house of Flosi comes this offer of friendship."
Now as they spoke someone knocked at the door, and there was a housecarle of Snorri the Priest.