After they were out, the words struck him as being a trifle unceremonious; he did not wonder much that Starkad’s son should sit staring like one dumfounded. But that scorn should gradually grow up in his face!
“Behold, I believe you!” the young Jarl said with biting slowness. “I believe you have the Devil’s boldness to match against my Devil’s nature,—and at the back of that, the ambition of Lucifer! Now, it is told that the closeness of a court breeds rottenness; but what shall be said of such foulness as this, out in the forest’s untainted air? When such as I go before, a worse is not to be looked for behind; and this man knows it; and still is he willing to sell his manhood for my miserable gifts!”
It was not only his voice and his words that bit, but his look as well. Rolf’s son winced under the smart, and spoke between his teeth.
“Such wrong you do me, Helvin, Jarl’s son, that it will be hard work for you to atone for it. If I had been willing to sell my manhood for gifts, would I not have put on your father’s yoke? That I want to become your man is because I expect that you will make following you an honor. The evil I know of you I think no more your fault than I think it blame to an oak that a poison vine is thrown around its branches. Now, as things stand, I believe you will shake it off, and the oak strength in your breast will send your mind up oak-high and oak-broad to be a strong pillar to other men.”
He had got his temper back by the time he finished. From under his level brows, his eyes looked steadfast as sunlight into the face of his lord. As the sun draws a tree upward, so the young Jarl was drawn upright by the look.
“All my life,” he breathed, “have I believed that of myself, but never did I think to find another who would believe it—who could believe it! Does not some troll mock me?”
The Songsmith answered: “I think you know that I speak the truth.”
Looking into his eyes, it seemed that Helvin did know it. It seemed that he was opening his lips to say so, when into the stillness was dropped a sound like the distant clink of spur against stone. In the beat of a pulse, his face had become distorted by that hatred which springs from fear. He dropped back upon the bench, his words slipping out disjointedly.
“Let us see who has dared to follow me—who has dared! Mind this—that you make it appear as if I lingered to hear you sing. Go yonder to your harp, if that be a harp!”
Though of home-make and rude shape, it was a harp that hung on the pillar above the bed of fox-skins. Laying it on his breast, the Songsmith played as he was bidden,—random chords that fell absently from the ends of his fingers. Standing there in the shelter of the bearskin that had been drawn across the arch, he could not longer see the head of the path; but he knew when the pursuer emerged from the bushes by Helvin’s smothered cry: