"Chief, are you going to turn me out to lie with the swine in the kitchen?" he said boldly. "Remember that every time you have slept in this room before, I have lain across your threshold."
Leif's glance pierced him through and through. "Is it sense for a man to trust his slumbers to a dog that has bitten him once? Go lie in the kennel. If it were not for provoking Eric, you would not wait long to feel my blade." He turned and walked up the steps, with his hand on Alwin's shoulder.
CHAPTER XV
A WOLF-PACK IN LEASH
He utters too many
Futile words
Who is never silent;
A garrulous tongue,
If it be not checked,
Sings often to its own harm.
Ha'vama'l
Out in the courtyard the four juniors of Leif's train were resting in the shade of the great hall, after a vigorous ball-game. It was four weeks since the crew of the "Sea-Deer" had come into shore-quarters; and though the warmth of August was in the sunshine, the chill of dying summer was already in the shadow. Sigurd drew his cloak around him with a shiver.
"Br-r-r! The sweat drops are freezing on me. What a place this is!"
Rolf, leaning against the door-post, whittling, finished his snatch of song,
"'Hew'd we with the Hanger!
It happed that when I young was
East in Eyrya's channel
Outpoured we blood for grim wolves,'"—