For a while there was no more done and no more said. Aud cherished her
treasures by herself, and none was the wiser except Finnward. Only the
cloak she sometimes wore, for that was hers by the will of the dead wife;
but the others she let lie, because she knew she had them foully, and she
feared Finnward somewhat and Thorgunna much.
At last husband and wife were bound to bed one night, and he was the
first stripped and got in. "What sheets are these?" he screamed, as his
legs touched them, for these were smooth as water, but the sheets of
Iceland were like sacking.
"Clean sheets, I suppose," says Aud, but her hand quavered as she wound
her hair.
"Woman!" cried Finnward, "these are the bed-sheets of Thorgunna--these
are the sheets she died in! do not lie to me!"
At that Aud turned and looked at him. "Well?" says she, "they have been
washed."
Finnward lay down again in the bed between Thorgunna's sheets, and
groaned; never a word more he said, for now he knew he was a coward and a
man dishonoured. Presently his wife came beside him, and they lay still,
but neither slept.
It might be twelve in the night when Aud felt Finnward shudder so strong
that the bed shook.
"What ails you?" said she.
"I know not," he said. "It is a chill like the chill of death. My soul
is sick with it." His voice fell low. "It was so Thorgunna sickened,"
said he. And he arose and walked in the hall in the dark till it came
morning.
Early in the morning he went forth to the sea-fishing with four lads. Aud
was troubled at heart and watched him from the door, and even as he went
down the beach she saw him shaken with Thorgunna's shudder. It was a
rough day, the sea was wild, the boat laboured exceedingly, and it may be
that Finnward's mind was troubled with his sickness. Certain it is that
they struck, and their boat was burst, upon a skerry under Snowfellness.
The four lads were spilled into the sea, and the sea broke and buried
them, but Finnward was cast upon the skerry, and clambered up, and sat
there all day long: God knows his thoughts. The sun was half-way down,
when a shepherd went by on the cliffs about his business, and spied a man
in the midst of the breach of the loud seas, upon a pinnacle of reef. He
hailed him, and the man turned and hailed again. There was in that cove
so great a clashing of the seas and so shrill a cry of sea-fowl that the
herd might hear the voice and nor the words. But the name Thorgunna came
to him, and he saw the face of Finnward Keelfarer like the face of an old
man. Lively ran the herd to Finnward's house; and when his tale was told
there, Eyolf the boy was lively to out a boat and hasten to his father's
aid. By the strength of hands they drove the keel against the seas, and
with skill and courage Eyolf won upon the skerry and climbed up, There
sat his father dead; and this was the first vengeance of Thorgunna
against broken faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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