Frey and His Wife

by Maurice Hewlett

Gunnar stopped her here. "They married you to that block of painted wood?"

She said, "They married me to Frey."

Gunnar said, "But——" and then he stopped short himself. "There is no more to be said."

"No," she said, "that is the end of it. We set out in the ox-wagon soon after that."

"How long ago was this?" he asked her.

She replied, "I was marriageable, my mother said. I don't know when it was." Then she thought aloud. "One, two, three—yes, it was three springs ago last spring."

"And you say you are sixteen years old."

"I don't say so," she replied; "the people here say so. My mother died two springs ago when I was away with Frey on his rounds."

Gunnar got up from the bench where they were sitting. "Wait here for me," he said, and went into the temple, folding the curtains behind him. There stood Frey, crowned and standing, with his shining scarlet nostrils. Gunnar went up to him and took him by the nose. "God or devil," he said, "I'll get this out of joint before I've done with you, or you with Gunnar." Frey rocked under the force of his passion, but said nothing.