Frey and His Wife

by Maurice Hewlett

But in the spring, when Ogmund was about again and seemingly as well as ever he had been, except for the dint in his skull, Wigfus waited for him, to see what he would do. Ogmund went about his affairs, and had everybody in the haven laughing at him, and cracking their jokes at his dunted head. Some said that a sea-bird had made a nest for herself there, some brought eggs from the rocks to put under her. A man wished Ogmund to keep it filled with water, and promised him goldfish from his next voyage to the South. Every one called him Ogmund Dint, even the boys who played about on the quayside. But Ogmund managed to be very busy, and pretended that they were not talking of him. Whenever he met Halward in the course of business he looked sternly at him, but without greeting. He considered that the dignified way to deal with him, for the present. To his intimates he said that Halward had taken him unawares and dealt a foul blow. "But there's a time for all things," he would conclude; "and so he will learn for himself one fine day." Men looked at each other at such talk.

Wigfus was now at him, insisting upon his taking vengeance. He said he would help him in every way, risking outlawry in the act, for certainly the Earl would resent it. But Ogmund looked very thoughtful, and one day said fairly that he did not see his way. "What do you mean by that?" said Wigfus, taken aback.

"We may easily do wrong, I believe," Ogmund said, "and add wrong to wrong until you have a regular mixen of wrong at your house-door. But is that good sense? I don't think so. Now, to my thinking, I was as much in the wrong as Halward was. I am a proud man, and as quick to fire as touchwood. Everybody knows it who knows me. If I met Halward haughtily I am sure there's no wonder. We can't help our natures. We didn't make ourselves. Now that being so, what else could come of it? I ask you. The man being what he was, a common fellow, took it amiss, and struck me a foul blow in the half dusk." He rubbed his hands together, then folded his arms over his chest. "That's the way of the vile. They do vilely, and the wise man lets them be, and the proud man scorns them. But there is another thing, which settles me in my opinion, and I will tell you what it is. This man Halward is befriended by the Earl; and here are you, my friend, my kinsman, my foster-brother, in the power of the same great man. Your father is my foster-father, to whom I owe duty, gratitude, faith and service. It would be a strange way of paying Glum my scot and lot if I embroiled his son with an Earl, and got him robbed of life or member in my quarrel. No, no. My fingers itch to be at him; I lay hands on myself; I tell you I have to run sometimes lest I should fly at the dog's throat. He knows it too. You can see that by the way he looks at me—all ways at once. But I will not suffer harm to come to my fosterer's son—and there's end of it."

At this speech Wigfus grew very red, and clenched his two fists. "It is a strange way you have of doing service to Battle-Glum. And you will get no thanks from me for being more careful of my body than I am myself, If you are not mad, you are something which I don't care to name. Whatever I may think of your head with a hole in it I have little doubt about your heart. You have a hare's heart, my man—and there's no driving a hare to meet a hound. And I will trouble you to talk less about our kinship than you please to do at present. You had a father as well as a mother, and he was not of our blood. Now you may do as you please; but I should not advise you to hold these speeches with my father; and you shall hold no more of them with me."

With that he walked off, leaving Ogmund to explain to Gerda that it was no use reasoning with an angry man. "That's the way of it," he said. "You try to do a man a service, and he reviles you for it."

Gerda bit her lip; and at last she said, "You make me ashamed that I am a woman. God knows what sons you may have given me." Ogmund boxed her ears; but she said that he should give her no more sons, and she meant it.

But Ogmund, whatever else may be said about him, was a good chapman. He bustled along with his affairs, made a great deal of money, and sailed away towards midsummer, for Iceland. He came prosperously into Eyefirth, and when he had settled his business with the ship he rode by the dales into Thwartwaterdale, to stay with his foster-father Glum. Now Glum had had news of the coming of the ship, and was told something about the affray with Halward. He said very little, but thought very much. Ogmund had a short welcome, but took no notice of it. He was so prosperous, he had such a store of good clothes that he felt that all was well, when it was by no means so. He began to take a great part in the affairs of the country-side, gave it out that Glum was getting old and wanted to be quiet, that he had no one to look to but Ogmund, in short that all matters hitherto referred to Glum's arbitrament were now for his handling—and so on, and so on. He had much to say about the management of the household; in fact he strutted, and clapped his wings, and puffed out his wattles very finely.

For a long while Glum, who certainly was old, would not speak to him; but at last he did.

He then said, "You had better know what I think of you, and maybe I had better have told you sooner. I think that all this strutting and crowing becomes you sadly. You have had my name in the dust, and proved yourself a poltroon, if not worse. A man may be a craven, but if he holds himself bravely when there is nobody in the way, then he is a fool as well. Now for the disgrace you have brought upon me I desire never to see you again."

Ogmund began at once with his excuse. "But look at this," he said. "How could I bring your own son into danger on my account? What is my revenge compared to such a life as his?"