Chapter XXI: Thorwald the Tinsmith

Now back we go to Tongue on Midfirth to see what was going on there.

Stangerd’s father was not overjoyed to have her back again at home, but he said that she had been very right to leave Sowerby and a husband who put her to ridicule. He was sanguine, too, that she would get her property back either by a pleading at the Thing or by Berse’s sense of justice; but his son Toothgnasher thought differently, and as the season wore away, it seemed that Toothgnasher was right. Then came the battle in Berse’s house, and the end of Toothgnasher and Wale. Thorkel took that hardly, and showed Stangerd by his dealing that he put some of the blame upon her. He now talked of ransom and the need of a champion to take up his quarrel. He talked more than once of Cormac as of the right man in the right place, as the natural champion of his family, and all the rest of it. Stangerd said nothing, but remained handsome, silent, and self-possessed as she had always been. Yet there’s no doubt but she expected Cormac to come, and looked for him every day.

But he did not come, though he was known to be at home and at work about his house and fields. Narve had seen him, and had even hailed him from afar off; but as Cormac made no sign of access, the timid man had not cared to pass the time of day with him, or to slip in the news which was so much in Thorkel’s mouth just now.

But it must needs be that Cormac knew of her return: in fact, he did know it, for his brother had told him. He took the news quietly; he was fallen very glum of late, and made no more poetry. He went on with his work as if there was no such person as Stangerd in the world--and then he began to get restless again, and irritable. He lost his temper with things (not with persons), and could not stay long at one job. Then, in the late summer, suddenly, he told his brother that he thought of going to sea. He said that there was a ship in the firth to be had at a moderate figure. He would get some stuff together, and a crew, and go off trading to Norway. Maybe they could do some raiding: he wouldn’t say, but they might go to Ireland.

Thorgils said that he would go too, and as soon as the gear could be got on board and the men found; but nothing much was done until the early winter. Not a word, so far, of Stangerd--not a word!

* * * * *

But by this time news had come to Midfirth that Berse had married Stanvor Slimlegs, and had made himself very comfortable, being perfectly recovered of his slit buttock. He had fortified his house with a great wall of stone and turf, and it was thought that Stanvor was going to give him a son. Thorkel was in a fine way over these tales, and went about saying that he had fallen on evil days and that Iceland was no longer the home for free men or honest men. If a man could turn his wife out of the house at a moment’s notice, kill her brother and take a new wife, and no call to be made upon him--what were we coming to? Narve’s teeth chattered, and he said it was very dreadful.

The upshot was that Thorold Tinsmith came into the story: a well-to-do man of large presence and a comely, fair beard, which lay upon his chest like a force of water. He was always fondling it, and had a trick of squeezing it up in his hand so that he could make a brush of the end of it, and brush his nose with it. He had flat, light blue eyes, and spoke slowly and gravely. A rich man, one of the Skiddings of Fleet, a widower without children, an excellent tinsmith. After a great deal of debating with his brother Thorvard and his neighbours, he took boat and sailed into Midfirth.

He stayed the night on board, and rode up next day, with his brother and a couple more witnesses and tokeners, to see Thorkel. The day was spent in talking. He saw nothing of Stangerd till the evening meal, when she came out in white--just as she had been when Cormac first set eyes upon her--and served the table. She was, maybe, more matronly than she had been then. Experience had made her more sedate. There was no spying through Hagbard’s eyes, no tip-toe work behind the hangings: but then there was no seer to view her feet and no singer to cry upon her starry beauty. The grave, portly tinsmith hardly looked at her; and when she had gone to bed, and the men drew closer together to bicker the thing to an end, and Thorkel began to vaunt her as a wonder of the world, Thorwald roundly said that one wife was as good as another to him, so far as her looks went. A wife, he said, should be well found in money and other movables, a good breeder, and handy in the house. She must have a pleasant nature and not be always asking the reason of things. It might easily happen, he said, that a man did not know, or have at call, the reason for something said or done, or required to be done. He did not care--nor was it convenient--that he should have to own up to ignorance. It made him look foolish; moreover, it might lead to debate, and bring endless confusion in the household. For everything he said he appealed to his brother Thorvard for confirmation. Thorvard confirmed him every time; and the end of it was that they were too many for Thorkel, who found himself asking them to take Stangerd off his hands, offering to make good the gear which she had left behind her at Sowerby, and to add more to it. With these terms the tinsmith was content, and said that he would talk to Stangerd next day.

When her father told her what was forward, she gloomed and said nothing for a time, neither assenting nor refusing. Presently she began to breathe quickly, as if thought troubled her breast. And then she said: “It is a strange thing to me that I am so unhappy in my dealings with men. See that little pale slip of a thing, Stanvor: she has been made happy with what I despised. See Cormac, who loved me first--what have I done--what did I do--that he should treat me so? It seems to me that a girl’s good looks are her bad fortune. I wish I had never been born.”

Thorkel had little comfort for her. “Thorwald,” he told her, “thinks nothing of your looks. He is a peaceful man who wants to be quiet. If you let him alone, he will let you alone. What more do you want?”

“I don’t want to be let alone by the man I marry,” she said. “I don’t marry to be let alone.”

“Then you ought to have married Cormac,” Thorkel told her. There was more; but in the end she dried her eyes and consented to see the tinsmith.

* * * * *

Thorwald stroked his fine beard as he looked at her the next day. She stood up before him, but he did not at first think it necessary to rise from the bench.

“So, Stangerd, it seems you are inclined to try again,” he said. “Well, I am not one who says that a woman is the worse for experience. Far from it. Now, let me speak to you of myself, for I would not have you say afterwards that I had deceived you, or hear you tell me that you separate yourself from me on that account. I am a well-to-do man of quiet and ruminating temper. I do not jump at a thing. I like to turn it over and about. You must not expect me to be always fondling and kissing. I have many irons in the fire, and when my mind is occupied, I expect to be let alone. All in good time, and a time for everything is my favourite saying. I have turned off many a trouble by the use of that lore. I have a good house, and many people about it, one way and another. You will have half a dozen women to oversee, and there are house-carles and labourers and shepherds. It is well stored, and I choose to have a generous table; yet I love thrift and detest wastefulness. My brother Thorvard lives with us. He will please you: he can be very merry at times, and sings a good song. So do I, for that matter, but I don’t profess to be a skald. I hope we shall be very happy together, and don’t doubt of it if you remember that I am a serious man who has no time for trifling or outbreaks of temper.”

Then he got up and, putting one hand upon her shoulder, put the other under her chin. Lifting her face, he looked kindly into her beautiful stormy eyes, and then kissed her.

Stangerd had never been wooed after this sort, and her heart was like lead within her. She had, indeed, no heart wherewith to fling away from such a suitor; but she was very near to tears. She was as lovely as ever she had been, and yet the light seemed to have left her, so that she was anybody’s for the picking up. But she had lost her spirit. Cormac, perhaps, had got that: she didn’t know, and didn’t care. She allowed her lips to the tinsmith; she faltered that she would do her best; and then she went away.

Within a short time she was married to him, and knew the best and worst of him. He, for his part, might as well have married a block of wood; but he neither knew nor cared what she was made of.

They were married at Thorkel’s house, and there they stayed for the mid-winter season. Then, suddenly, one day, Cormac came to the house and saw her again.