The Norsemen in the West by R. M. Ballantyne (easy books to read TXT) 📖

reef; and the head of the ship was brought up to the wind so as to empty the sail while this was being done.

Before it was quite accomplished some of the women had assembled on the poop.

“This is not pleasant weather,” observed Gudrid, as she stood holding on to her husband.

“We must not expect to have it all plain sailing in these seas,” replied Karlsefin; “but the dark days will make the bright ones seem all the brighter.”

Gudrid smiled languidly at this, but made no reply.

Freydissa, who scorned to receive help from man, had vigorously laid hold of the bulwarks and gradually worked her way aft. She appeared to be very much out of sorts—as indeed all the women were. There was a greenish colour about the parts of their cheeks that ought to have been rosy, and a whitey blue or frosted appearance at the points of their noses, which damaged the beauty of the prettiest among them. Freydissa became positively plain—and she knew it, which did not improve her temper. Astrid, though fair and exceedingly pretty by nature, had become alarmingly white; and Thora, who was dark, had become painfully yellow. Poor Bertha, too, had a washed-out appearance, though nothing in the way of lost colour or otherwise could in the least detract from the innocent sweetness of her countenance. She did not absolutely weep, but, being cold, sick, and in a state of utter wretchedness, she had fallen into a condition of chronic whimpering, which exceedingly exasperated Freydissa. Bertha was one of those girls who are regarded by some of their own sex with a species of mild contempt, but who are nevertheless looked upon with much tenderness by men, which perhaps makes up to them for this to some extent. Gudrid was the least affected among them all by that dire malady, which appears to have been as virulent in the tenth as it is in the nineteenth century, and must have come in with the Flood, if not before it.

“Why don’t you go below,” said Freydissa testily, “instead of shivering up here?”

“I get so sick below,” answered Bertha, endeavouring to brighten up, “that I thought it better to try what fresh air would do for me.”

“H’m! it doesn’t appear to do much for you,” retorted Freydissa.

As she spoke a little spray broke over the side of the ship and fell on the deck near them. Karlsefin had great difficulty in preventing this, for a short cross-sea was running, and it was only by dint of extremely good and careful steering that he kept the poop-deck dry. In a few minutes a little more spray flew inboard, and some of it striking Bertha on the head ran down her shoulders. Karlsefin was much grieved at this, but Freydissa laughed heartily.

Instead of making Bertha worse, however, the shock had the effect of doing her a little good, and she laughed in a half-pitiful way as she ran down below to dry herself.

“It serves you right,” cried Freydissa as she passed; “I wish you had got more of it.”

Now Karlsefin was a man whose temper was not easily affected, and he seldom or never took offence at anything done or said to himself; but the unkindness of Freydissa’s speech to poor Bertha nettled him greatly.

“Get behind me, Gudrid,” he said quickly.

Gudrid obeyed, wondering at the stern order, and Karlsefin gave a push to the tiller with his leg. Next moment a heavy sea struck the side of the ship, burst over the bulwarks, completely overwhelmed Freydissa, and swept the deck fore and aft—wetting every one more or less except Gudrid, who had been almost completely sheltered behind her husband. A sail which had been spread over the waist of the ship prevented much damage being done to the men, and of course all the water that fell on the forecastle and poop ran out at the scupper-holes.

This unexpected shower-bath at once cleared the poop of the women. Fortunately Thora and Astrid had been standing to leeward of Biarne and Thorward, and had received comparatively little of the shower, but Freydissa went below with streaming hair and garments,—as Biarne remarked,—like an elderly mermaid!

“You must have been asleep when that happened,” said Thorward to Karlsefin in surprise.

“He must have been sleeping, then, with his eyes open,” said Biarne, with an amused look.

Karlsefin gazed sternly towards the ship’s head, and appeared to be attending with great care to the helm, but there was a slight twinkle in his eye as he said— “Well, it was my intention to wash the decks a little, but more spray came inboard than I counted on. ’Tis as dangerous to play with water, sometimes, as with fire.”

“There is truth in that,” said Biarne, laughing; “and I fear that this time water will be found to have kindled fire, for when Freydissa went below she looked like the smoking mountain of Iceland—as if there was something hot inside and about to boil up.”

Karlsefin smiled, but made no reply, for the gale was increasing every moment, and the management of the ship soon required the earnest attention of all the seamen on board.

Fortunately it was a short-lived gale. When it had passed away and the sea had returned to something like its former quiescent state, and the sun had burst through and dissipated the grey clouds, our female voyagers returned to the deck and to their wonted condition of health.

Soon after that they came in sight of land.

“Now, Biarne,” said Karlsefin, after the look-out on the forecastle had shouted “Land ho!” “come, give me your opinion of this new land that we have made.—Do you mind the helm, Thorward, while we go to the ship’s head.”

The two went forward, and on the forecastle they found Olaf; flushed with excitement, and looking as if something had annoyed him.

“Ho, Olaf! you’re not sorry to see land, are you?” said Biarne.

“Sorry! no, not I; but I’m sorry to be cheated of my due.”

“How so, boy?”

“Why, I discovered the land first, and that fellow there,” pointing to the man on look-out, “shouted before me.”

“But why did you not shout before him?” asked Karlsefin, as he and Biarne surveyed the distant land with keen interest.

“Just because he took me unawares,” replied the boy indignantly. “When I saw it I did not wish to be hasty. It might have turned out to be a cloud, or a fog-bank, and I might have given a false alarm; so I pointed it out to him, and asked what he thought; but instead of answering me he gaped with his ugly mouth and shouted ‘Land ho!’ I could have kicked him.”

“Nay, Olaf; that is not well said,” observed Karlsefin, very gravely; “if you could have kicked him you would have kicked him. Why did you not do it?”

“Because he is too big for me,” answered the boy promptly.

“So, then, thy courage is only sufficient to make thee kick those who are small enough,” returned Karlsefin, with a frown. “Perhaps if you were as big as he you would be afraid to kick him.”

“That would not I,” retorted Olaf.

“It is easy for you to say that, boy, when you know that he would not strike you now, and that there is small chance of your meeting again after you have grown up to prove the truth of what you say. It is mere boasting, Olaf; and, mark me, you will never be a brave man if you begin by being a boastful boy. A truly brave and modest man—for modesty and bravery are wont to consort together—never says he will strike until he sees it to be right to do so. Sometimes he does not even go the length of speaking at all, but, in any case, having made up his mind to strike, he strikes at once, without more ado, let the consequences be what they will. But in my opinion it is best not to strike at all. Do you know, Olaf; my boy, some of the bravest men I ever knew have never struck a blow since they came to manhood, excepting, of course, when compelled to do so in battle; and then they struck such blows as made shields and helmets fly, and strewed the plain with their foes.”

“Did these men never boast when they were boys?” asked Olaf; with a troubled air.

Karlsefin relaxed into a smile as he said, “Only when they were very little boys, and very foolish; but they soon came to see how contemptible it is to threaten and not perform; so they gave up threatening, and when performance came to be necessary they found that threats were needless. Now, Olaf, I want you to be a bold, brave man, and I must lull you through the foolish boasting period as quickly as possible, therefore I tell you these things. Think on them, my boy.”

Olaf was evidently much relieved by the concluding remarks. While Karlsefin was speaking he had felt ashamed of himself; because he was filled with admiration of the magnificent skipper, and wanted to stand well in his opinion. It was therefore no small comfort to find that his boasting had been set down to his foolishness, and that there was good reason to hope he might ultimately grow out of it.

But Olaf had much more of the true metal in him than he himself was aware of. Without saying a word about it, he resolved not to wait for the result of this slow process of growth, but to jump, vault, or fly out of the boastful period of life, by hook or by crook, and that without delay. And he succeeded! Not all at once, of course. He had many a slip; but he persevered, and finally got out of it much sooner than would have been the case if he had not taken any trouble to think about the matter, or to try.

Meanwhile, however, he looked somewhat crestfallen. This being observed by the look-out, that worthy was prompted to say— “I’m sure, Olaf; you are welcome to kick me if that will comfort you, but there is no occasion to do so, because I claim not the honour of first seeing the land—and if I had known the state of your mind I would willingly have let you give the hail.”

“You may have been first to discover it at this time, Olaf;” said Biarne, turning round after he had made up his mind about it, “and no doubt you were, since the look-out admits it; nevertheless this is the land that I discovered twenty years ago. But we shall make it out more certainly in an hour or two if this breeze holds.”

The breeze did hold, and soon they were close under the land.

“Now am I quite certain of it,” said Biarne, as he stood on the poop, surrounded by all his friends, who gazed eagerly at the shore, to which they had approached so close that the rocks and bushes were distinctly visible; “that is the very same land which I saw before.”

“What, Vinland?” asked Freydissa.

“Nay, not Vinland. Are you so eager to get at the grapes that ye think the first land we meet is Vinland?”

“A truce to your jesting, Biarne; what land is it?”

“It is the land I saw last when leaving this coast in search of Greenland, so that it seems not unnatural to find it first on coming back to it. Leif; on his voyage, went on shore here. He named it Helloland, which, methinks, was a fitting name, for it is, as you see, a naked land of rocks.”

“Now, then,” said Karlsefin, “lower the sail, heave out the anchor, and let two men cast loose the little boat. Some of us will land and see what we shall see; for it must not be said of us, Biarne, as it was unfairly said of you, that we took no interest in these new regions.”

The little boat was got ready. The Scottish brothers, Hake and Heika, were appointed to