"No, no," said Eric, "that's not the way of it at all. The present is bad enough."
"You are treating me nobly," said Karlsefne. "I should be a churl if I did not tell you so. What else do you need?"
Then Eric said that he was aware how his house was diminished by misfortune. "I had a wife, but she has cut herself adrift; I have a daughter, but she has turned sour to me. Two of my sons are dead, look you. Now the time was when with a great houseful I could give a feast with the best. A man is best judged by his children. If they are free and high-hearted, he is judged a good man. But now I must receive you with broken rites, and it hurts me to the heart that you shall sail away in the spring of the year, and say to your friends: 'Old Eric is down in the world. A sadder Yule than that have I never spent.' I do what I can, but that is heavy on my mind."
"Nay, nay, friend," said Karlsefne, "that will never be the way of it. I am better off than I hoped for—you are treating me like an earl. Now if we are to do better and all be kings together, remember that I have a well-found ship out yonder, with stores of corn and meal, and malt for brewing; mead also, and smoked salmon are on board—whereof you shall make as free as you will, and provide such a feast as Greenland knows nothing of yet. But what a man you are to be fretted by such a thing as that!"
Eric said that he had lived in a great way all his life, and had not been used to stint his friends of hospitality. He thanked Karlsefne heartily, shook hands with him, and said, "Ask of me what you will, friend, and it shall be agreed to."
Karlsefne laughed. "Maybe I shall ask a great thing of you before I go to sea." He had made up his mind that he would have Gudrid from him if he could get her, but did not wish to precipitate matters and risk a refusal. "That fair woman has a delicate mind," he thought, "and is very religious. It will be well to make myself her friend before I offer to be her sweetheart."
The talk at the feast turned again to Wineland, and Leif Ericsson was eloquent about the sweetness of the air, the fertility of the soil, and the open winter weather which he had found there. Then Karlsefne asked Gudrid whether she would not like to go thither.
She shook her head. "Not now. Thorstan and I were on our way when the fate turned against us, and he died. It has brought us no luck yet. Two of Eric's sons have died for the sake of Wineland. But you," she said, looking in his face, "you will go. I think you are a lucky man. You have luck in your face."
"Eh," said Karlsefne, "I have thought myself pretty lucky so far; but now I am not so sure. I have been building on my luck since I came here. But I may get a fall."
She laughed. "You are bold, I can see, but yet you are careful too.
You do not build except on good footings."