. Yet must we needs breathe such an air as is blown
about us, Gudruda, clasping at this happiness which is given, though we
may not hold it. At the worst, the game will soon be played, and others
will stand where we have stood, and strive as we have striven, and fail
as we have failed, and so on, till man has worked out his doom, and the
Gods cease from their wrath, or Ragnarroek come upon them, and they too
are lost in the jaws of grey wolf Fenrir."

"Men may win one good thing, and that is fame, Eric."

"Nay, Gudruda, what is it to win fame? Is it not to raise up foes, as it
were, from the very soil, who, made with secret hate, seek to stab us
in the back? Is it not to lose peace, and toil on from height to height
only to be hurled down at last? Happy, then, is the man whom fame flies
from, for hers is a deadly gift."

"Yet there is one thing left that thou hast not numbered, Eric, and
it is love--for love is to our life what the sun is to the world, and,
though it seems to set in death, yet it may rise again. We are happy,
then, in our love, for there are many who live their lives and do not
find it."

So these two, Eric Brighteyes and Gudruda the Fair, talked sadly, for
their hearts were heavy, and on them lay the shadow of sorrows that were
to come.

"Say, sweet," said Eric at length, "wilt thou that I go not into
banishment? Then I must fall into outlawry, and my life will be in the
hands of him who may take it; yet I think that my foes will find it hard
to come by while my strength remains, and at the worst I do but turn to
meet the fate that dogs me."

"Nay, that I will not suffer, Brighteyes. Now we will go to my father,
and he shall give thee his dragon of war--she is a good vessel--and thou
shalt man her with the briskest men of our quarter: for there are many
who will be glad to fare abroad with thee, Eric. Soon she shall be bound
and thou shalt sail at once, Eric: for the sooner thou art gone the
sooner the three years will be sped, and thou shalt come back to me.
But, oh! that I might go with thee."

Now Gudruda and Eric went to Asmund and spoke of this matter.

"I desired," he answered, "that thou, Eric, shouldst bide here in
Iceland till after harvest, for it is then that I would take Unna,
Thorod's daughter, to wife, and it was meet that thou shouldst sit at
the wedding-feast and give her to me."

"Nay, father, let Eric go," said Gudruda, "for well begun is, surely,
half done. He must remain