And Matilda answered, “Well, then, Liot, come to the fire.” And as they went toward the fire she stopped before a lovely girl and said, “Look, now, this is my niece Karen; she has just come from Yell, and she can tell a story also; so it will be, which can better the other.”
Then Liot looked at Karen, and the girl looked up at him; in that instant their souls remembered each other. They put their hands together like old lovers, and if Liot had drawn her to his heart and kissed her Karen would not have been much astonished. This sweet reciprocity was, however, so personal that onlookers did not see it, and so swift that Liot appeared to answer promptly enough:
“It would be a good thing for us all if we should hear a new story. As for me, the game is up. I can think of nothing to-night but my poor kinsman Gisli, and he was not a lucky man, nor is it lucky to speak of him.”
“Is it Gisli you are talking about?” asked Wolf Skegg. “Let us bring the man among us; I like him best of all.”
“He had much sorrow,” said Andrew Grimm.
“He had a good wife,” answered Gust Havard; “and not many men are so lucky.”
“’Twas his fate,” stammered a very old man, crouching over the fire, “and in everything fate rules.”
“Well, then, Snorro, fate is justice,” said Matilda; “and as well begin, Liot, for it will be the tale of Gisli and no other–I see that.”
Then Liot stood up, and Karen, busy with her knitting, watched him. She saw that he had brown hair and gray eyes and the fearless carriage of one who is at home on the North Sea. His voice at first was frank and full of brave inflections, as he told of the noble, faithful, helpful Gisli, pursued by evil fortune even in his dreams. Gradually its tones became sad as the complaining of the sea, and a brooding melancholy touched every heart as Gisli, doing all he might do to ward off misfortune, found it of no avail. “For what must be must be; there is no help for it,” sighed Liot. “So, then, love of wife and friends, and all that good-will dared, could not help Gisli, for the man was doomed even before his birth.”
Then he paused, and there was a dead silence and an unmistakable sense of expectation; and Liot’s face changed, and he looked as Gisli might have looked when he knew that he had come to his last fight for life. Also for a moment his eyes rested on old Snorro, who was no longer crouching over the hearth, but straight up and full of fire and interest; and Snorro answered the look with a nod, that meant something which all approved and understood; after which Liot continued in a voice full of a somber passion: