yment, however little hope there might be of
getting a debt paid in any other way: "therefore I will not take this
money upon the king's account." A man who had been lying on the bench
now cast the skin coverlet off which he had drawn over his head, and
said, "True is the old word,--he grows worse who grows older: so it is
with thee, Thrand, who allowest Karl Morske to handle thy money all
the day." This was Gaut the Red. Thrand sprang up at Gaut's words, and
reprimanded his relation with many angry words. At last he said that
Leif should leave this silver, and take a bag which his own peasants had
brought him in spring. "And although I am weak-sighted, yet my own
hand is the truest test." Another man who was lying on the bench raised
himself now upon his elbow; and this was Thord the Low. He said, "These
are no ordinary reproaches we suffer from Karl Morske, and therefore he
well deserves a reward for them." Leif in the meantime took the bag,
and carried it to Karl; and when they cast their eyes on the money, Leif
said, "We need not look long at this silver, for here the one piece of
money is better than the other; and this is the money we will have. Let
a man come to be present at the counting it out." Thrand says that he
thought Leif was the fittest man to do it upon his account. Leif and
Karl thereupon went a short way from the tent, sat down, and counted and
weighed the silver. Karl took the helmet off his head, and received in
it the weighed silver. They saw a man coming to them who had a stick
with an axe-head on it in his hand, a hat low upon his head, and a short
green cloak. He was bare-legged, and had linen breeches on tied at the
knee. He laid his stick down in the field, and went to Karl and said,
"Take care, Karl Morske, that thou does not hurt thyself against my
axe-stick." Immediately a man came running and calls with great haste
to Leif Ossurson, telling him to come as quickly as possible to Lagman
Gille's tent; "for," says he, "Sirurd Thorlakson ran in just now into
the mouth of the tent, and gave one of Gille's men a desperate wound."
Leif rose up instantly, and went off to Gille's tent along with his
men. Karl remained sitting, and the Norway people stood around in all
corners. Gaut immediately sprang up, and struck with a hand-axe over the
heads of the people, and the stroke came on Karl's head; but the wound
was slight. Thord the Low seized the stick-axe, which lay in the field
at his side, and struc