When Alwin pushed aside the leafy sprays, Helga stood awaiting him with outstretched hands. "You have been long in coming, comrade. I dare not hope that it is because Leif delayed you with some new friendliness?"
Her lover shook his head, as he bent to kiss her hands.
"Do not hope anything, sweetheart," he said, wearily. "That is the one way not to be disappointed." He threw himself down on the rock at her feet, unaware that her smooth brows had suddenly drawn themselves into a troubled frown.
She said with grave slowness, "I do not like to hear you speak like that. You are foremost among men in courage, yet to hear you now, one would almost imagine you to be faint-hearted."
Alwin's mouth bent into a bitter smile, as his eyes stared away at the river. "Courage?" he repeated, half to himself. "Yes, I have that. Once I thought it so precious a thing that I could stake honor and life upon it, and win on the turn of the wheel. But I know now what it is worth. Courage, the boldness of the devil himself, who of the North but has that? It is cheaper than the dirt of the road. If I have not been a coward, at least I have been a fool."
All at once, Helga shook out her flying locks like so many golden war banners, and turned to face him resolutely. "You shall not speak, nor think like that," she said; "for I see now that it is not good sense. Before, though my heart told me you were wrong, I did not understand why; but now I have turned it over in my mind until I see clearly. The failure of your first attempt to win Leif's favor is a thing by itself; at least it does not prove that you have not yet many good chances. I will not deny that we may have expected too many opportunities for valiant deeds, yet are there no other ways in which to serve? Was it by a feat of arms that you won your first honor with the chief? It was nothing more heroic than the ability to read runes which, in five days, got you more favor than Rolf Erlingsson's strength had gained him in five years. Are your accomplishments so limited to your weapons that when you cannot use your sword you must lie idle? Many little services will count as much as one big one, when the time of reckoning comes. Shake the sleep-thorn out of your ear, my comrade, and be your brave strong-minded self again. Without courage, never would Robert Sans-Peur have come to Greenland, nor Helga, Gilli's daughter, have followed him to Norway. Despise it not, but mate it with your good sense, and the two shall yet draw us to victory."
It was a long time before Alwin answered. The river splashed and murmured below; birds rustled in the bushes around them, or dived into the green depths with a soft whir of wings. A rabbit paused to look at them, and two squirrels quarrelled over a nut, within reach of their hands,—so still were they. But when at last Alwin raised his eyes to hers, their gaze reassured her.
"The sleep-thorn is out, sweetheart," he said, slowly. "Now is the whole of my folly clear to me for the first time. Never again shall you have cause to shame my manhood with such words."
"Shame! Shame you, who are the best and bravest in the world!" she cried, passionately, and threw herself on her knees by his side, entreating.
But he silenced her lips with kisses, and put her gently back upon the rock.