"You need have no fear concerning Leif's temper," Sigurd whispered in Helga's ear. "This discovery makes his mission as sure of success as though it were already accomplished. No man's nose rises at timber, but two such miracles as wheat and grapes, planted without hands and growing without care,—these can be nothing less than tokens of divine favor! The Lucky One would spare his deadliest foe tonight."
"That sounds possible," Helga admitted, studying the chief's face anxiously. As she looked, Leif's gaze suddenly met hers, and she had the discomfort of seeing a recollection of their last encounter waken in his eyes. Yet they did not darken to the blackness that had lowered from them at the cliff. They took on more of an expression of quiet sarcasm. Turning where the Norman stood, a silent witness of the scene, the chief beckoned to him.
"A while ago, Robert Sans-Peur, I had it in my mind to run a sword through you," he said, dryly. "But I have since bethought myself that you are a guest on my hands; and also that it is right to take your French breeding into account. Yet, though it may easily be a Norman habit to look upon every fair woman with eyes of love, it is equally contrary to Norse custom to permit it. Give yourself no further trouble concerning my kinswoman, Robert of Normandy. Attach yourself to my person and reserve your eloquence for my ear,—and my ear only."
CHAPTER XXVII
MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
Middling wise
Should every man be,
Never too wise;
Happiest live
Those men
Who know many things well.
Ha'vama'l
They must have missed a great deal of enjoyment, to whom a new world meant only a new source of gold and slaves. To these men from the frozen north, the new world was an earthly paradise. A long clear day under a warm sun was alone a gift to be thankful for. To plunge unstinted hands into the hoarded wealth of ages, to be the first to hunt in a game-stocked forest and the first to cast hook in a fish-teeming river,—to have the first skimming of nature's cream-pans, as it were,—was a delight so keen that, saving war and love, they could imagine nothing to equal it. Like children upon honey, they fell upon the gift that had tumbled latest out of nature's horn of plenty, and swept through the vineyard in a devastating army. Snuffing the sweet scent of the sun-heated grapes, they ate and sang and jested as they gathered, in the most innocent carousal of their lives. Shouting and singing, they brought in their burdens at night,—litters of purple slain that bent even their stout backs. The roofs were covered with the drying fruit, which was to be doctored into raisins, and cask after cask of sour tangy wine was rolled into the provision shed beside the garnered grain.
"The King of Norway does not live better than this," they congratulated each other. "We have found the way into the provision house of the world."
Their delight knew no bounds when they found that the arrival of winter would not interfere with sport. Winter at Brattahlid meant icebergs and blizzards, weeks of unbroken twilight and days of idling within doors. Winter in this new land,—why, it was not winter at all!