"Now have matters gone as I thought, that a journey of little glory thou shouldst make to the island; thou hast got maimed, and honour is no nigher to us than before, yea, we must have bootless shame on bootless shame."
She answered, "This will be the springing of ill-hap to them; and I deem that henceforth they are on the wane; neither do I fear if I live, but that I shall have revenge for this deed they have thus done me."
"Stiff is thine heart, meseems, foster-mother," said Thorbiorn. With that they came home, but the carline was laid[228] in her bed, and abode there nigh a month; by then was the hurt thigh-bone grown together again, and she began to be afoot once more.
Great laughter men made at that journey of Thorbiorn and the carline, and deemed he had been often enow out-played in his dealings with Grettir: first, at the Spring-Thing in the peace handselling; next, when Haering was lost, and now again, this third time, when the carline's thigh-bone was broken, and no stroke had been played against these from his part. But great shame and grief had Thorbiorn Angle from all these words.
CHAP. LXXXI.
Of the Carline's evil Gift to Grettir.
Now wore away the time of autumn till it wanted but three weeks of winter; then the carline bade bear her to the sea-shore. Thorbiorn asked what she would there.
"Little is my errand, yet maybe," she says, "it is a foreboding of greater tidings."