Said Hallblithe, “Indeed I wot not.”
“How many of such hast thou seen?” said the Grandfather.
“Many,” said Hallblithe; “the daughters of my folk are fair, and there will be many other such amongst the aliens.”
Then laughed the elder, and said: “Yet, my son, he who had been thy fellow since thy sundering from thy beloved, would have said that in thy deeming there is but one woman in the world; or at least one fair woman: is it not so?”
Then Hallblithe reddened at first, as though he were angry; then he said: “Yea, it is so.”
Said the Grandfather in a musing way: “I wonder if before long I shall think of it as thou dost.”
Then Hallblithe gazed at him marvelling, and studied to see wherein lay the gibe against himself; and the Grandfather beheld him, and laughed as well as he might, and said: “Son, son; didst thou not wish me youth?”
“Yea,” said Hallblithe, “but what ails thee to laugh so? What is it I have said or done?”
“Nought, nought,” said the elder, laughing still more, “only thou lookest so mazed. And who knoweth what thy wish may bring forth?”
Thereat was Hallblithe sore puzzled; but while he set himself to consider what the old carle might mean, uprose the hale and how of the mariners; they cast off the hawsers from the shore, ran out the sweeps, and drave the ship through the haven-gates. It was a bright sunny day; within, the green water was oily-smooth, without the rippling waves danced merrily under a light breeze, and Hallblithe deemed the wind to be fair; for the mariners shouted joyously and made all sail on the ship; and she lay over and sped through the waves, casting off the seas from her black bows. Soon were they clear of those swart cliffs, and it was but a little afterwards that the Isle of Ransom was grown deep blue behind them and far away.