With the suspension of the amusement, the crowd on the shore broke up and came strolling back; sound dwindled to the buzz of the gossips, the occasional shouts of the dice-throwers. Out of the lull there came again to the Songsmith the feeling that he was wakening from a dream, and this time the sensation remained with him.
Slowly, amid the chaos of his mind, thought took shape like this: “When a man is asleep, a hundred strange tokens are of no account; but too many of them in waking life should be taken heed of. I cannot see wherein I have done aught to deserve anger.... Once before has he been wroth without enough cause,—the night he came to the Tower.... Surely I must have been dreaming these five weeks to have so seldom thought of the strange things which took place that night!... Now I begin to understand why he harped upon his temper when he offered me to join his following. Offered? Commanded! Here is a riddle that is not solved yet! Why should he force the skaldship on me as though it were the penalty for some crime against him, instead of an honor for which every mouth is watering? Unless, indeed, he feels that his fretfulness makes it more a peril than a pleasure.... Certainly to follow a chief who for no cause whatever shifts from a friendly mood to a murderous one—Now that is not possible! I have ever found him the highest-minded man. Some hidden reason must lie under this. It must be that I have stumbled into some misdeed without knowing it. But what?... What?”
Slowly his thoughts lost shape, resolved into chaos again. He stood staring down abstractedly at the billowing leaves.
VIII
“Courage is better than sword-strength”
—Northern saying.
Once, as time dragged by, the song-maker had a vague impression that Olaf was looking at him over a bush; but he was too absorbed to care whether it was so or not. He did not come out of his meditations until the dark hemlock tapestry before him was put aside by a white hand and between the gloomy branches there appeared the bright figure of the Jarl’s sister, the trailing riches of her gown up-gathered on her arm as she strolled forth to explore the recesses of the new guest-house.
At sight of him bound to a pine and staked in by three stark old chiefs looking like three shell-barked hickories in their sombre robes, she came to a stand-still, stood with shining head aloft as one who has caught the note of a distant battle-horn. At sight of her, the blood rose in a hot wave to the roots of his hair, and he muttered a prayer to the nearest of his keepers.
“Be kind enough to tell her that I have no man’s blame for anything,—that I put on these bonds of my own free will.”