Ørlygur à Borg attended service regularly; Sunday after Sunday he listened to the wild outpourings of his son. And sorrow and wonder grew in his heart.
Ketill strove to maintain his appearance of sincerity towards his father, but he knew that the old man saw through the mask.
Ørlygur, on his part, for all that he had declared that Ketill could no longer deceive him, found it hard to account for his son’s zeal. If he were not serious, then why ... what was he aiming at? But again and again he felt an instinctive certainty that his son’s preaching was not inspired by any divine influence.
And apart from the religious aspect, Ørlygur was sorely troubled to see the people thus easily led. He knew his folk, and was himself a leader of no common power; he could not but wonder now, whither they were being led. Also, he knew only too well the cold reaction that often follows undue excitement.
Many a long winter night the King of Borg tossed restlessly in bed, uttering many a prayer to God—the only Being whose superiority he acknowledged. He was weighed down by a sense of impending disaster—there was trouble coming, and coming swiftly nearer.
Ketill was the leading source of his uneasiness; again and again he asked himself if he could not somehow step in and avert the threatening catastrophe. But he racked his brains in vain to find any way in which he could act as things were. What was there for him to oppose? He could not take action against his son’s enthusiasm in the cause of religion and piety? Heaven forbid! Was he to endeavour to minimize the devotion of the people to their God? Even though Ketill’s heart were cold, and his zeal but a sham, who could say but that he might yet be an instrument in the hand of the Lord—a creature inspired as to his deeds, though not in spirit? Ørlygur à Borg could not raise his hand against Heaven.
For all this, his suspicions never abated, but rather increased, as he watched the growing hold of his son upon the parish. Was it not a masked attack upon the supremacy of Borg? His son was trying to usurp his place as chieftain. He called to mind the story of David and Absalom, and David’s bitter lament for the death of his son. And he could not free himself from the thought that Heaven must be working out some plan with Ketill, the prodigal; at times, also, it seemed that something evil were lying in wait. And, in such moments, the old man longed to take his son, his child, in his arms, and weep over him, despite all the wrong he had suffered at his hands. Ørlygur made no attempt to disguise from himself the baseness of Ketill’s conduct, but he fancied it might be the will of God moving in some mysterious way. His heart was torn by the meanness and hypocrisy of his son; he felt himself wounded to the death. And yet all the time his heart was bursting with a desire to forgive.
Nevertheless, the same disgust and aversion filled him every time they met. He felt he must step in and put a stop to all this underhand scheming and working; Ketill was a creeping, venomous thing, to be crushed underfoot ere it had wrought irreparable harm.
For the first time in his life Ørlygur felt uncertain of himself, wavering as to his proper course of action. He doubted his right to lead; doubted even if he had been right up to now in stewardship under God of all that was His.