behaviour.

"You like better," they said, "to pat the belly of Bard the mate's wife
than to bear a hand in the ship. But we don't mean to stand it."

The weather grew steadily worse; they had to bale night and day, and
they threatened Grettir. Haflidi when he heard them went up to Grettir
and said: "I don't think your relations with the crew are very good. You
are mutinous and make lampoons about them, and they threaten to pitch
you overboard. This is most improper."

"Why cannot they mind their own business?" Grettir rejoined. "But I
should like one or two to remain behind with me before I go overboard."

"That is impossible," said Haflidi. "We shall never get on upon those
terms. But I will make you a proposal about it."

"What is that?"

"The thing which annoys them is that you make lampoons about them. Now
I suggest that you make a lampoon about me. Then, perhaps, they will
become better disposed towards you."

"About you I will never utter anything but good," said he. "I am not
going to compare you with the sailors."

"But you might compose a verse which should at first appear foul, but on
closer view prove to be fair."

"That," he answered, "I am quite equal to."

Haflidi then went to the sailors and said: "You have much toil; and it
seems that you don't get on with Grettir."

"His lampoons," they answered, "annoy us more than anything else."

Then Haflidi, speaking loud, said: "It will be the worse for him some
day."

Grettir, when he heard himself being denounced, spoke a verse:

"Other the words that Haflidi spake
when he dined on curds at Reydarfell.
But now two meals a day he takes
in the steed of the bays mid foreland shores."

The sailors were very angry and said he should not lampoon Haflidi for
nothing. Haflidi said: "Grettir certainly deserves that you should take
him down a little, but I am not going to risk my good name because of
his ill-temper and caprice. This is not the time to pay him out, when we
are all in such danger. When you get on shore you can remember it if you
like."

"Shall we not endure what you can endure?" they said. "Why should a
lampoon hurt us more than it does you?"

Haflidi said so it should be, and after that they cared less about
Grettir's lampoons.

The voyage was long and fatiguing. The ship sprung a leak, and the
men began to be worn out. The mate's young wife was in the habit of
stitching Grettir's sleeves for him, and the men us