"Oh ye Icelanders!" cried Grani. "Why is it ye always burn to return--whether ye love your foggy isle and plain men more, or our realm less?" "In your realm," answered Frodi, "there are three pests which no Icelander can bear. The first is your baresarks, which in Iceland are held in restraint, but here they go at large. The second is your vikings, which dare not come to us, but here they harry the coasts. And the third is the habit of burning a man in his house, which by us has been done some few times in great matters, yet is always punished; but here it is done in any little quarrel, and little shame is felt for it. And if I leave this land without being burned, then I am lucky." Grani laughed, and then Rolf spoke. Quoth he: "And as for our land of simple men against thy realm of kings and earls, all I know is that with us there is law to restrain all men. But if thy earls fall out, then the Orkneys are rent with war. And at all times your lives lie in the power of the Scots, who any summer day may come and sweep the land. Nay, the winter is open: why may they not fall upon us now?" "It is possible," said Frodi, but Grani had nothing to reply. "And consider this," Rolf said. "Thou art Grani, fosterling of Ar the thane; thou hast honor, and a part of all spoils are thine. But Ar is coming to his end, and some day another thane will rule here. When thy honors fall away, and thou must take thy place like other men: how then wilt thou think of the doings of kings and earls?" "I fear no misfortune," answered Grani. "Then," quoth Rolf, "thou art fitted to be an Icelander. And now I will say what I have many times thought: that thy speech is more of Iceland than of this place. Whence did Ar take thee?" Grani grew red, but answered: "Thou hidest thy parentage." "True," replied Rolf. "Now I crave thy pardon for questioning thee." That was the end of that talk, for Rolf drew within himself, and Grani felt shame that he could not ask pardon so easily as the Icelander; and the more he looked on Rolf's countenance the more it seemed that they should be friends. He ceased speaking, and sat with his back half turned, trying to say the words; but for a long time they would not come. At length he said: "Rolf." "Aye?" Rolf answered. Grani said nothing for a while more; at length again he said, "Rolf." "What is it?" Rolf asked. But for a second time Grani could not bring himself to speak. Yet at last he made ready to speak without fail and ask forgiveness, and the words were on his tongue. Then suddenly Rolf rose, and pointed out upon the water, where a ship had come into view; and he cried, "At last cometh he for whom I have waited!" No need to ask whose ship that was, for Grani saw that it was Kiartan's. And weakly he put aside the chance to set himself right with Rolf, and inquired instead why Rolf waited there for Kiartan so long.