Frey and His Wife

by Maurice Hewlett

"Such accounts," said Glum, "are not to be made in money."

"Well," said Ogmund. And that was all he did say.

Then Glum looked at him with earnest eyes; and this time he did not blink at all. "Many a man goes abroad," he said, "who is of no greater promise than you are, so far as can be seen. Now I have it close at heart that in the voyage you make you should rather get honour than store of money. But you may have both, I believe, if you go rightly to work."

"To be sure I can," said Ogmund; and soon after this—rather late in midsummer it was—he set out from Thwartwater.

They started in fair weather, with a westerly wind which blew steady and strong. It held them all through the voyage, and when they sighted the islands which lie close together in the channel of the Hardanger Firth, it was still blowing steadily.

But it was dusk when they saw the islands, and close upon nightfall when they were threading the course between them; and the pilot whom they had aboard was strong for bringing up for the night in good anchorage, such as they could have where they were, rather than to push on and try to make the haven in the dark.

Ogmund, who was in a hurry, said, there was a moon, and they had a fair wind. Who knew how long it would hold? And suppose that in the morning it should come off the land, and keep them beating about for a week or more? He was vehemently for going, and he was master of the ship; so they went on in the dark.

That which happened might have been foreseen, and very likely was so by the pilot. In one of the narrow sounds between the islands there were long ships moored in the fairway. Before they knew it they drove into one of them amidships, cut her in half and held on their course. Whether Ogmund knew it or not—and I suppose he did—that was the way of it. The crew of the rammed ship were all in the water and most of them were saved. But none of them were saved by Ogmund's vessel. She ran on her way before the wind, and made the haven and was drawn up on to the mainland. The pilot had something to say when he had his ship laid up; the crew had something to say. There were not two opinions among them. But Ogmund took a strong line of his own at the time. He said, "The ship lay in the fairway where no ship has business to be. Every man must take care of himself first, but no man has a right to risk his life if, in so doing, he risks the lives of other men. You may take my word for it, those were no seamen on board that vessel. Why, what are we to think of men who berth themselves in the fairway, regardless of traffickers who come and go out of Bergen, so great a town? What of good Icelanders faring on the sea? Are their lives, is their property, of no account at all? No, no. We were right and they were wrong; and that is all there is to say." He went ashore in the morning and made himself busy, disposing of his merchandise.