Gunnar said, "When we two next meet thou shalt see the bill." After that they part thus, and Skamkell shouted out and said, "Ye ride hard, lads!"
Gunnar went home, and said never a word to any one about what had happened, and no one thought that this wound could have come by man's doing.
It happened, though, one day that he told it to his brother Kolskegg, and Kolskegg said—
"This thou shalt tell to more men, so that it may not be said that thou layest blame on dead men; for it will be gainsaid if witnesses do not know beforehand what has passed between you."
Then Gunnar told it to his neighbours, and there was little talk about it at first.
Otkell comes east to the Dale, and they get a hearty welcome there, and sit there a week.
Skamkell told Runolf all about their meeting with Gunnar, and how it had gone off; and one man had happened to ask how Gunnar behaved.
"Why," said Skamkell, "if it were a low-born man it would have been said that he had wept."
"Such things are ill spoken," says Runolf, "and when ye two next meet, thou wilt have to own that there is no voice of weeping in his frame of mind; and it will be well if better men have not to pay for thy spite. Now it seems to me best when ye wish to go home that I should go with you, for Gunnar will do me no harm."
"I will not have that," says Otkell; "but I will ride across the Fleet lower down."