“And who are you that are in the silence?”
“I am the Washer of the Ford.”
And with that each red soul was seized and thrown into the water of the ford; and when white as a sheep-bone on the hill, was taken in one hand by the Washer of the Ford and flung into the air, where no wind was and where sound was dead, and was then severed this way and that, in four whirling blows of the sword from the four quarters of the world. Then it was that the Washer of the Ford trampled upon what fell to the ground, till under the feet of her was only a white sand, white as powder, light as the dust of the yellow flowers that grow in the grass.
It was at that Torcall Dall smiled in his sleep. He did not hear the washing of the sea; no, nor any idle plashing of the unoared boat. Then he dreamed, and it was of the woman he had left, seven summer-sailings ago, in Lochlin. He thought her hand was in his, and that her heart was against his.
“Ah, dear, beautiful heart of woman,” he said, “and what is the pain that has put a shadow upon you?”
It was a sweet voice that he heard coming out of sleep.
“Torcall, it is the weary love I have.”
“Ah, heart o’ me, dear! sure ’tis a bitter pain I have had, too, and I away from you all these years.”
“There’s a man’s pain, and there’s a woman’s pain.”
“By the blood of Balder, Hildyr, I would have both upon me to take it off the dear heart that is here.”