Chapter XX: Toothgnasher

Now in the Spring Thorkel Toothgnasher, who was Stangerd’s brother, came up to Sowerby and asked for Berse. He had a man called Wale with him, a red-haired, broken-nosed man with a very shiny face. Stanvor saw them, and said that Berse was from home. They said that they would wait, and sat down in the hall. Stanvor served them with drink, and Toothgnasher, before his draught, looked at her over the rim of the horn.

“You had something to do with my sister’s flitting, little mistress, I think.”

“Nothing that I know of,” said Stanvor. “She told Berse why she was going. I heard her.”

“Did she not tell you another reason?”

“No,” said Stanvor.

“What! Was she not jealous of you for ever about her husband?”

Stanvor said, “She could have tended him herself if she had cared. Then I should have kept away. I never did anything that she offered to do. She will never tell you that she was jealous of me.”

Toothgnasher said, “Well, it’s strange if a man don’t know his sister’s mind.”

“It is strange,” Stanvor agreed; “but it seems to be your case.”

Toothgnasher had no more to say. Then Wale, having drained his horn, said slyly: “Old Berse likes pretty girls about him.”

“Ah,” said Toothgnasher, taking him up, “a man must pay for his pleasures.”

Haldor was listening to all this, sitting by the fire, nursing his foot. He frowned. “Do you think he would pay such as you two are?” he said.

Wale started. “How now, you little egg?”

“You will see,” said Haldor. “My foster-father will make short work with you.”

“Oh, be done!” said Toothgnasher, and turned again to Stanvor. “You, mistress,” he said, “were an inmate of Thorarin’s house once upon a time?”

“Yes,” said Stanvor, “very much against my will.”

“Thorarin paid Berse for that,” said Wale. “He did so.”

Stanvor answered quietly, “Yes, he paid with his life, and the life of his sons.”

“And now it is Berse’s turn to pay,” said Toothgnasher, very red.

Just then Berse came in and greeted the strangers civilly.

Toothgnasher at once opened his affair. He desired the bride-price and the dowry of Stangerd, who had declared that she would not be the wife of a maimed man. Berse sat and twiddled his thumbs, while Stanvor, kneeling, took his boots off.

“I don’t pay,” said Berse. “I’m as well as ever I was in my life, and could marry a dozen like Stangerd if I had a mind. But I have not. I’m as pleased as daylight that she has taken herself off; but I won’t pay, and that’s flat.”

“It is much too flat for us,” said Toothgnasher. “You shall fight me for that, Berse.”

“So I will,” says Berse.

Toothgnasher got up. “Wager-of-battle at the holm by Tiltness it shall be.”

“So it shall, then,” Berse said. “You’ll be making little of me, I daresay, such a stout man as you be grown; but I shall be there for you.”

Then Wale had something to say. His eyes were bright, but he was rather short of breath. “If I were to come to you, Berse, with money in my hand, and ask for that young girl in marriage, what would you say to me?”

Berse, twinkling, looked about for Stanvor. She stood in the shadow, but he saw her steady eyes, very watchful. He smiled and nodded to her.

“I should say that you were too late in the day,” he told Wale. Everybody was tense and quiet. Everybody spoke shortly, and those who did not speak held themselves in waiting for something.

“I don’t care much for that answer,” Wale said.

“It’s all you will get from me,” says Berse; “but you may ask her, if you please.”

Wale said that he should ask her. “And I’ll ask Ord, her injured parent,” he said, growing angry. “You reckoned to do him a service when you took her out of Gutdale and gave Thorarin his death-blow--but what have you done? You have turned a pretty girl into a byword with your snug vices.”

Stanvor said, “You lie. He has been more than good to me.”

Berse said, “Get you gone, the pair of you, and do your worst.”

“By my head,” Toothgnasher said, “I’ll get me gone, as you say, but I’ll do my worst beforehand.”

With that he reached back for his bill and hewed at Berse. Haldor slipped into the fray with Whiting, and saved Berse’s life. He cut in like a flash of lightning, and knocked the bill sideways. Then he handed Berse the sword, and Berse in his stocking feet engaged with Toothgnasher. Haldor took down a spear from the wall, and stood leaning on it to watch the fight. It was long and arduous. Toothgnasher had a great reach and was very active. Berse could not get in at him at all.

Stanvor stood where she was, in the shadow of the great hearth, and was so intent upon the battle that she did not see what Wale was about. He had got behind her to the door which led to the Bower, and suddenly threw his cloak over her head and drew it across her mouth so that she could not cry out. Holding that fast in one hand, he put the other about her body, lifted her and turned to take her out by the back door.

Haldor saw him and went after him. He caught him just by the door and drove his spear into the middle of his back. That was his death-blow; he fell forward on to the top of Stanvor, and there he lay. She lay quiet, too, until Haldor got the cloak off her head. Then the two of them went back to see what was being done. They found Berse wiping the blade of Whiting.

“Hot and dirty work,” said Berse; “but there lies Toothgnasher.”

Haldor said, “Foster-father, I have killed a man. I have killed Wale.”

“Have you so?” said Berse. “What did you do that for?”

Haldor told him. Then said Berse, “You have done well, my lad. Now get we these two without the house; and then we’ll have supper, and then we’ll go to bed.” So they dragged out of doors Toothgnasher and Wale and covered them decently with a cloth.

When they came back they found that Stanvor and the women had set the table. They had supper, and Stanvor waited upon Berse as she had always done.

But towards the end, Berse, who had said nothing, told Stanvor to fetch another jug of mead. When she brought it and had filled his horn, he held it up and said to her, “Drink of it, sweetheart.”

“Why should I drink?” she asked him, smiling shyly.

“Drink to the night,” said Berse. So she put her lips to the horn, and gave it back to him. Berse drained it.

He said no more, but sent Haldor to bed, and sat by the fire, knitting and clearing his brows. Stanvor was at work upon embroidery on the other side of the hearth. When the time came, she put the work away in its place, and came to Berse to say good-night. He put his arm round her, and kept her there.

Presently he said, “Two wives have I had, and intend for a third. What do you say to that, sweetheart?”

“I say what you say,” she replied, looking down at him; for he sat in his chair while she stood over him.

“My first wife was very well. They called her a paragon, but I don’t know. We fell out now and then about trifles. She had a quick temper, and was very particular. Myself, I’m a careless sort of man, always in scrapes. She could not bear that. She liked the same things to take place at the same hour every day. Now, they never did with me, and never will. However, we made a shift to get on. Then there was Stangerd. I don’t know what had warped her; but I was a fool to be talked over. Ah, and a fool to be taken by her good looks when I had a better beside me. But when I told you I was going to take her, what did you say? You said: ‘Well and good, master.’ Now why did you say that?”

She still smiled, tolerantly and wisely, and still looked down kindly at him. “Because you must always do as you like,” she said.

“And so I will,” he said, “and you shall marry me, sweetheart, when you will.”

“I will marry you now,” she said. He got up and took her in his arms. She stood on tiptoe and raised him her face. He kissed her long, and feeling her fierce young body against his, he laughed for joy, and said: “All’s well that ends well. Come, sweetheart, I’m not too old to teach you the way of marriage.”

She said, “You’ll teach me little, Berse.”

Berse said, “We’ll see.”

In the morning Haldor asked her where she had been all night. She smiled with her eyes, and kissed him. “I was at a wedding,” she said.

“Whose wedding was that?” asked Haldor.

She kissed him again; and then he understood, and kissed her.

The tale has no more to say of Battle-Berse.