“The binder of her wimpled brow Will shade these lovely eyes, I know, With white hands soft and tender. The rain-storm flood will have its way When she has heard how dead I lay, Though once I did offend her, When overboard the warriors cast Her scald, her love,—of all the past, The love she will remember.” Thus died in middle life one of the greatest of the Norse scalds. His had been a “troublous” life indeed. The duties of the scald were to improvise poetry on the instant, in praise of the King and in recounting the deeds of his favorite warriors in battle. He was the historian and the periodical at the same time; his utterances were respected and he was feared by prince and peasant. The scald had liberties at court and in the royal camp or on board the royal fighting ship not accorded to any other retainer. CHAPTER XVI REYKHOLT “I think that I would wander far to view Such scenes as these, for they would fill a heart That lothes the commerce of this wretched world, That sickens at its hollow gaieties.” —_Southey_. The present house at _Haukagill_ is finished inside with unpainted spruce from Norway, beautiful as old mahogany, having become soft reddish brown with age and frequent polishing with fine sand. Our bed chamber contained the pride of the family, a Connecticut clock adjusted to strike the hours and the quarters. Its gong was far from musical. The bells of Bruges had raised havoc with our sleep with their persistent struggle to be heard, but this clock, on a shelf at the head of the bed, reminded us every fifteen minutes that it also came from New England as well as we and was clamorous for recognition. After hours of sleeplessness we wished it had never left the Nutmeg State. At nine in the morning we turned our backs upon this charming valley, climbed the steep hill and looked down at the farm house, the last we were to see for two days. We were now fairly upon the great plain of _Grimstungaheiði_, Grim’s-Tongue-Heath, an extensive tract of desolation between the fertile valleys of the north and the glaciers of the great central plateau of Iceland. For a while there was a trace of a trail which soon disappeared. Hour after hour we plodded on, guided solely by the glimmer of the glaciers on the horizon and an occasional tumbled-down cairn of former days.