Chapter III: Cormac Goes to Nupsdale

They rode out at sunrise, Cormac and Toste, with the dogs and house-carles, and worked all day fetching in the sheep. It was hard work; and the dusk came down early and found them still at it. Toste, who knew where they were, said that it would be well to put into Nupsdale-stead for the night. “They’ll feed us well, and we shall hear some good talk,” he said.

Cormac said it was all one to him where he stayed. He was ready to sleep out on the fell, or go home, as Toste pleased.

Toste was for Nupsdale-stead. He knew the master of the house, and was known of him. “They will make you welcome, too,” he told Cormac, “and you’ll see the finest girl in the country, I believe.”

“Who’s that, then?” says Cormac.

“Why, Stangerd, Thorkel’s daughter of Tongue. She’s been fostered there these four years, and was like a spoiled hawk when I saw her last, three years back, I daresay. She will be of a likeable age by now--sixteen years old or thereabouts. A handful, I’ll warrant her--a breaker of hearts.”

“We’ll go to Nupsdale-stead,” Cormac said. “I should like to see her.”

Toste went on with his meditations aloud. “A burning girl--a big girl. She’ll set you afire. There’ll be a pair of you.”

Cormac laughed, and threw his head up. Then they went on through the acres to the homestead, which was a spacious place well sheltered from the wind; and soon they heard the dogs give tongue from the roof, and soon it was their business to fight them off, and keep their own from dismemberment.

* * * * *

They were well received in the hall, where they found a company sitting at drink, a good fire, and a table where there would be supper by and by. Cormac looked about for the finest girl in the country; but there were no women in the hall: a son of the house served the newcomers with drink. At the further end was the high seat with two great pillars carved with the heads of Odin and Thor; and on each side of that curtains were hung so that there could be a passage all round.

Presently, as they sat listening to the talk, Toste gave Cormac a nudge, and when he got his attention, looked towards those curtains.

Cormac nodded. “I know,” he said. “There are two of them there.”

Behind the curtains were two pairs of bare feet shining in the light from the fire, and a hand stirred the folds, as if to keep them together.

Cormac watched them for a little, then began to sing softly, as if to himself:

“O eye-deceit or heart-deceit,
Lo, there, my blessing or my bane!
A lover at a lady’s feet
Holding his heart, and there a pain!

A lady’s feet, and there a lover:
A patch of snow left by the rain
Afield, or two tufts of white clover--
And near beside a young man slain.”

Then the white feet drew back; but presently Cormac saw another thing--or Toste did and showed it to Cormac. The heads upon the high seat pillars had had empty eyes; but now the eyes of Thor were agleam.

“She is looking at you,” said Toste.

Cormac nodded.

“She has bright eyes. The fire plays with them.”

Then he sang again:

“The fire plays with my lady’s eyes,
And they make music in my head.
The sea-blue bird that flashing flies
Like a sword down the river-bed,
Links the green earth and azure skies;
And so with me is Stangerd wed,
When light with light is handfasted.”

Whether she heard him or not, her eyes remained shining in the empty sockets of Thor, and Cormac watched them. By and by the sockets showed empty; and not long after that, Stangerd and a companion came into the hall at the lower end and sat down together on a bench and looked guardedly at the company. Stangerd was a tall and big girl, with corn-coloured hair, very fine and abundant, and, as Toste said, she was fire-hued and bold-looking, with blue eyes. She was bold-looking, and had bold, free movements. Cormac looked at her, and spoke to himself. He looked and muttered, looked and muttered. Then he broke out so that Toste could hear him, and others beside Toste. Stangerd herself could tell that he was talking verses, and be sure that they were about her. As for her friend, she revelled in it.

Cormac sang:

“O mood of mine--O fever song
Begot when I cast eyes upon her!
When eyes gave me this burning lass,
Daughter of Thorkel of the Tongue--
A goddess’ maid, a Maid of Honour,
Flusht in the face, with hair like brass,
Or corn that yellows to the sickle,
Full tall and free, and bold, and young;
Deep-bosom’d, too, with deep blue eyes
Like slumb’ring pools--a girl of size,
Whom seeing no man, you’d say, would stickle
To take to bed and make a woman--
Heart shows her me a spirit not human....”

There he stopped, not because all men were considering him and his muttering and his fixt eyes, but because words failed him. He still looked at Stangerd, but could not see her for the fiery mist which enwrapt her.

Toste said, “That’s a splendid girl, that girl of Thorkel’s. There won’t be such another in the country. Yet he would be a bold man who would wive her.”

“Why so?” Cormac asked him in a stare.

Toste said, “Look at the colour of her; look at her ease and boldness. She is the sort that will ask and have.”

Cormac said, “All that is as it may be. What she wants should be hers by right. She is good to look upon--and that is enough for me.”

“You seem to find her good,” said Toste, “and you may look your fill. You’ll never look her out of countenance. She’s a match for you.”

Cormac could see that the two girls were talking about him, for they looked sideways as they whispered together, but kept their faces turned away from him. He could not hear what they said.

Stangerd, it seemed, did not approve of him very much, but the other girl praised him.

“A fine young man,” she said, “with a fine way of looking at you, without offence. He looks at you as if you were a flowering tree.”

Stangerd said, “He’s like a magpie--all black and white. And I dislike a curly-headed man.”

“He has good eyes, sweetheart,” said the other girl. “He misses nothing.”

Stangerd shrugged one of her shoulders. “Black eyes, he has. They are treacherous. They see much and show little.”

“They see you, my dear,” said the other, “and so much, at least, they show. If I am not a goose they show you a deal more than that.”

Stangerd felt their scrutiny, and endured it for a good while; but presently she began to blush, and then must move, complaining of the fierceness of the fire.

The men brought in the food for supper; and then, as the custom was, the women of the house waited on the men, pouring them their drink. Cormac’s eyes followed Stangerd about from man to man. He said very little at table, but seemed as if he was bewitched. When she came to his side and stood above him to pour out the liquor, he did not look at her, but frowned at his platter. Nor did he watch her any more until she went out with her foster-mother and the other girls of the house.

He drank deeply from his horn, and then looked at Toste as he sang:

“Full in the hall, rob’d in her white
She sat at ease with her arms bare,
And gaz’d before her at the light,
Dreaming--and her blue eyes astare
Encompast me and gave me sight
Of their mystery and intent--
And when about the board she went,
Serving the men with mead, and came
And stood above me till I bent
Before her, as before the flame
The bushes in a forest bow
And show all white--I had her name
As if ’twas written on my brow:
A Valkyr, Chooser of the slain!
A storm-fraught spirit, fierce as pain,
With whom to clasp and kiss, or grapple
As man with woman, that were thought
To deaden a deed--as if you brought
The lovely Night to bed, or fared
To play below the gleaming thrapple
Of the keen daughter of the snow,
And froze when her white hills she bared.
Not possible! Nay, let her go,
Mistress of Destiny, unmov’d
Her way of the gods, her way of woe,
But ever lovely, ever lov’d,
Treading the necks of beaten men!”

Toste said: “You are badly hit, I see.”

Cormac made no answer, and fixed his eyes upon the girl until she left the hall with her companion. The master of the house, who was fostering Stangerd and had observed the effect she had had, came over the hall and sat by his two guests. He pledged them, and encouraged Cormac to talk.

That was not at all hard, as the young man was excited, and had drunk enough to loosen stiffer tongues than his own. He talked freely, but very well. Men gaped, then laughed at him, then laughed with him. Very often he broke naturally into verse; and soon his was the only voice you heard. His father, Ogmund the Viking, was his best theme; he had a way of picturing the scenes in which his life had been spent. Once, he said, Ogmund rowed up a broad English river in his long ship with a raven at the prow. His ship was called _Raven_. They rowed up between great banks of grass and mud until they came to a town lying on a sloping ground--a close-huddled town of red roofs, with a church overtopping all. They sacked the town, and had all the plunder to share--white women, children, cattle, flocks of sheep. They scorned the men and killed most of them. They drowned the headman by tying him to a stake in the channel at low tide. Cormac said that the sea came up at him solid, in a wall of brown water, curling at the edge. It brimmed about his chin, and then filled his mouth and his eyes. Then you saw it dimpling over the top of his head; and then, for a long time, the wave he made, swaying there, slanted over the flood from bank to bank. He made a song about the women whom the rovers shared among them, and held the company spell-bound.

Stangerd lay awake listening to Cormac’s singing.

“Now Stangerd lay abed within
The house’s inmost sanctuaries,
With both her hands between her knees,
And them drawn up towards her chin
Touching the fulness of her breast;
And her wide eyes could get no rest
That sought the dark and saw clouds float,
Clouds of crimson radiant mist
Which gather’d, mass’d and cours’d above her
More lovely than the wings of the West--
If such wild heart should turn to love her,
What love-words would not such a throat
Pour for the overwhelming of her!”