“Come thou out, housewife,” called Flosi to Bergthora; “for I would not for anything in the world have thee burn indoors.”
“Come thou out, housewife,” called Flosi to Bergthora.
“I was given away to Nial when I was young,” she answered, “and I pledged my word to him then that we twain should share the same fate together. But thou, child,” she said to Thord, Kari’s son, who had stayed yet beside her, for he had the undaunted heart of his father in him, “I would that thou shouldst go out while there is time; I cannot brook to see a lad like thee burned.”
“Thou hast promised me, grandmother, that so long as I desired to be with thee, thou never wouldst send me away; and I think it now much better to die with thee and Nial than to live without thee after thy death.”
So they turned back into the house. “What shall we do now?” Bergthora said to Nial.
“We will go to our bed,” said Nial, “and lay us down; I have long been eager for rest.”
Then they laid themselves down on their bed, and the boy lay between them, with his arm round the old woman’s neck.
“Put over us that hide,” said Nial to his steward, “and mark where we lie, for I mean not to stir an inch hence however the smoke or fire torment me. Here in this spot you will find our bones, if you come afterwards to look for them.”
The steward spread the hide over the bed, and then he went out with the others. Then Nial and Bergthora signed themselves and the boy with the cross, and confided their souls into God’s hand, and that was the last word that they were heard to utter.