The very next winter he visited Ingolf in Rogvig. On the evening of Haasten's coming, Ingolf sat as usual in the high-seat with his men at the table round him, a step lower. The fire burned cheerfully on the hearthstones and spread a genial and penetrating glow. The coarsely carved images of the gods on the strongly illumined age-browned pillars of the high-seat laughed broadly in the glaring light. The talk was lively around the tables, and the beer-jugs were diligently emptied and filled. Ingolf was not grudging of beer to his men. He sat with a contented look in his peaceful blue eyes and listened to their talk. He himself spoke but seldom, except when questioned.
Then suddenly there came three knocks at the door. All the talking round the tables ceased. Ingolf turned his head and gave a signal to the man at the door. The bolt was pushed to one side, and in stepped a tall, erect, fair-bearded man in a red silk cloak with a golden helmet on his head, followed by three other men.
Ingolf immediately recognized Haasten, in spite of his beard and the ageing and weary expression of his thin face. He sprang up and went to meet him. He was too much moved to speak. For a while the two former friends stood silent, pressing each other's hands and looking each other straight in the eyes. Then they fell into each other's arms. When, shortly after, they sat side by side in the high-seat and had drunk to each other, Ingolf said: "I did not know, Haasten, that you were on this road."
Haasten smiled his weary, steady smile, and answered: "Yes, King Harald has driven me from the country, as I in my time drove you two brothers. Have you forgiven me that, Ingolf?"
"I have never been angered with you for it," Ingolf answered.
They spoke together of many things, and their talk was light and untroubled. There was in Haasten's attitude towards Ingolf the same deference that all other chieftains who came there showed the quiet, confident, simple, taciturn man, who by his example had drawn all the others to this new land. Ingolf was indeed his friend, and as such he showed him confidence, but he was also the first settler in the land, and as such he evinced for him a great and undisguised deference.
They talked of Hjor-Leif. "It happened as I fore-told," said Haasten, and smiled sadly. "The mistletoe branch at last struck the invulnerable."
"We all owe Odin a death," said Ingolf quietly, and drew a deep sigh. "It is most often the survivors whose lot is the hardest."
His look involuntarily sought the women's dais. There sat Helga, gazing before her without expression in her eyes, with his son, Thorsten, in her lap.
Ingolf pointed out the boy to Haasten. "His name is built of Thor's name and yours," he said in a gentler voice. While Ingolf talked, he noticed how attentively his son's quiet blue eyes dwelt on the high-seat pillars. Thus he had himself sat as a boy, he remembered suddenly. And now he met his son's look. Were Thorsten's thoughts something like his had been when he was a child?