"No Odin, no Thor, no Freya of the fair seasons, no Valhalla for the souls of the brave? Nay, Osla, leave me my gods, and I will leave you yours. Mine is the religion of my kinsmen, of my father, of my ancestors. And," he continued, "would you say that Christian men are better than worshippers of Odin? Are they braver, are their swords keener, are they more faithful to their friends?"
"We want not keen swords. Warfare is your only thought. You live but to pillage and to fight. Have you known what it is to lose home and brothers all in one battle? Have you fled from a smoking roof-tree? Have you had mercy refused you? Have you had wife or child borne away to slavery? That is your creed—tell me, is it not?"
"I have thought of these things, Osla," said Estein gravely. "I have thought of them at night when the stars shone and the wind sighed in the trees. When I look upon my home and see the reapers in the fields, and hear the maidens singing at their work, I would sometimes be willing to turn hermit like your father, and sit in the sun for ever.
"But," he went on, and his voice rose to a clear, stirring note, "I could not rest long so. The sea calls us Northmen, and we cannot bide at home. Unrest seizes us like a giant and hurls us forth. We must be men; we must seek adventure on sea or on shore; there are foemen to be met, and we long to meet them; and if we bear us bravely, never striking sail though the wind blow high, and never flinching from the greatest odds, we know that the gods will smile, and, if they will, we die happy. We are not all bairn-slayers. I have been taught to spare where there was nothing worthy of my steel, and no maid or mother has yet suffered wrong at my hands. Yet must I sail the seas, Osla, and fight where I find a foe; for I feel that the gods bid me, and a man cannot struggle with his fate."
While he spoke Osla's gaze was fixed on the turning tide, but her eyes, had he seen them, were lit by the fire of his words. She sprang to her feet as he finished, and said,—
"I, too, have the Norse blood in me; the sea calls me as it calls you; and if I were a man, I fear I should make a bad hermit. Yet"—and she held up a warning finger to stay the impetuous words on Estein's tongue—"yet I know I should be wrong. What is this feeling but the hunger of wolves, and what are your gods but names for it? Wolves, too, go out to slay; and if they had speech, doubtless they would say that Thor called them."
"Is a Viking not different from a wolf, then, in your eyes?"
"By too little," she answered, "if they hold the same creed."
"A wolf, then, I am," he replied; "and I can but try to keep my lips drawn over my fangs and bit on my hind legs, and practise manliness as best I may."
"A very hungry manliness," she retorted. But despite herself she smiled, and then lightly turned the talk to other things.