Chapter XI: Berse Comes in

Whether or no Cormac had got the better of his love-affair--and nobody knew but himself--it had made a great to-do at Tongue. But the people there did not see how to set about avenging the slight put upon them, since Stangerd would not hear of fighting, or have Cormac challenged for atonement. It was judged finally, after much talk, that they must get her married, lest the countryside should think that she had lost her only chance--which was nonsense, seeing what a splendid girl she was, and how much counted.

So they brought up the name of this man and that man, but could not decide upon any one man, until Narve, always ready with the tongue, lit upon Berse of Sowerby. “Now there’s a man,” he said, “of all men in the world the most proper. A powerful man, a very pleasant, affable, middle-aged man, a man of wealth, and a man of his hands. Bring him into your quarrel, and the thing is done. Your young fire-eater will have little to say to _him_, you may be sure.”

That was true. The man was a notable champion. They called him Battle-Berse, Holmgang Berse, and Wager-of-Battle Berse--which all mean the same thing; for the Holmgang is to go to the holm for the fight’s sake; and in the wager-of-battle you back your quarrel with another man’s blood. In that way Berse had backed his no less than thirty times, and had never lost it. Besides that, he had I don’t know how many homicides to his account. It has been said before that he had had about enough of it, and was for peace and plenty in these days. He was a widower, survivor of a fine woman called Finna the Fair; he was rich, and he was getting fat--not unwieldy, you understand, but comfortably fat. But still, not a doubt about it, he would give a good account of himself upon the field when he was called there.

He was the man, let me remind the reader, who had given harbourage to Thorveig the spae-wife after the killing of her sons. He gave her the ferry-house at Bersestead, where you cross over to go into Sowerby.

Well, they talked him over at Tongue, with other men, and none was found so suitable; so presently, without a word to Stangerd, Toothgnasher, Narve and one or two others went over to his country and found him at home. As well as himself there were his sister Hilda in the house, a personable, active woman, a pretty girl, very fond of Berse, called Stanvor Slimlegs, and his young son Osmund--a boy of ten years old or so. He was very glad to see them, and made them a good entertainment.

They talked in the evenings of this, that, and the other. To get Berse upon his fighting days was to get him at his best; and it appeared that he was still a roaring boy for all his grizzled beard and dewlap. There was the girl Stanvor, for example, as pretty a girl as ever you saw, with legs which certainly deserved to be famous--as they were. Now that girl was daughter to a man called Ord who lived, not at Tongue on Midfirth, but at Tongue in Bitra. He was a fisherman with many men in his employ, and in a quarrel which arose over the merits of men in those parts, this Ord maintained that Berse of Sowerby, Battle-Berse, was the bigger man as against one Thorarin of Gutdale. The story came to Thorarin’s ears--an ill-conditioned, strong man--who one fine day came down to Tongue in Bitra when no men were about, and picked up Stanvor out of the garth and carried her off with him. Ord in his trouble went to Battle-Berse, saying, “This blow was struck at me because I spoke well of you. I look to you now, Berse, to wipe out my shame.” Berse said that he wanted no man’s good word, but would do what he could. He armed himself with sword and three spears, and rode down the valley and over the ridge and down again into Gutdale. He got there late, when the men were come in from the fields and the women setting the tables. He saw Stanvor at the back door and beckoned to her. She ran up and told him her troubles. Berse got off his horse, and took her by the hand. “Hold the horse,” he said, “and these spears, and wait for me here.” “Oh, where are you for?” she said, and he told her. It was a pity to come so far for such a little thing as she was--and “I’m going to see who’s at home.” She said, “The men are all in there at the fires.” “I know that,” says Berse, and goes up and bangs at the door with his fist. A man came out. “Go and tell Thorarin that Berse wants to see him,” he was told. Presently out comes Thorarin with a bill in his hand and makes a slash at Berse with it. Berse had his famous sword Whiting ready for him, and gave him a cut through the neck into the shoulder, which was his death-blow. Then he went back to his horse, mounted, pulled up Stanvor, put her before him, and galloped down the road to a wood. Deep in the wood he left Stanvor with the horse, but he himself went back to the skirts of it to wait for the hue-and-cry. Thorarin had three sons, who came out after Berse, expecting to trap him further on as he entered the pass into the hills. It proved otherwise, for it was Berse who trapped the trappers. He had three spears to Thorarin’s three sons, and he threw each of them, and with each brought his man down. The rest of the outcry ran back to the house. Berse lay the three bodies out side by side, and his cloak across them to show who had done the business, and then went back to the horse and the girl. He took Stanvor home with him to his walled house in the hills; and she would not leave him, and never did. That was the kind of man Battle-Berse was; and always very good-tempered over it, a most agreeable man, as Narve had said.

He told this tale now to his guests, sitting in his elbow-chair with his arm round Stanvor herself, she leaning against the elbow with her head on one side, and eyes cast down. When it came to the point where Berse said that she would not leave him and never did, she looked at him gravely, with a little half-smile, very pretty to see. Berse gave her a squeeze and said: “Hey, sweetheart, is that true?”

Stanvor nodded her head, still smiling, and said, “I shan’t leave you till you tell me to go.”

You couldn’t help liking the man.

Many such stories Berse had to tell, but it was not for such things they had come out. The talk flew about from men’s courage to women’s looks; and presently Narve spoke of Stangerd as the fairest of women, and Berse did not deny it.

“There’s a pretty girl here,” he said, “and a dainty girl, very fond of me; but I know that Stangerd’s beauty is like a cornfield in bearing to a poor man’s patch of rye-grass compared to little Stanvor’s.”

“You heard, most likely,” Narve said, “of the way she was treated by Cormac Ogmundsson of Melstead? A great shame.”

Berse twinkled and set his thumbs twirling like the sails of a mill. “I heard something of it,” he said; “and a fine young man, too, by all accounts.”

“Too fine,” says Narve; and then Toothgnasher said, “Not fine enough.”

Berse nodded very comfortably. “These young men go about on the tips of their toes, asking you to stand out of their way lest by chance they should walk into you. Not but what the match was a good one. I’ve been told something of Cormac’s handiness with weapons.”

Narve snapped his fingers. “What are his hands or his weapons to you, Berse?”

Berse smiled. “Well, to me, maybe, they are less than to yourself, my friend.”

“And the match is clean off, mind you,” Narve went on. “They say, indeed, that he’s out of the country, and like enough gone Viking like his father before him.”

Berse said no more at the time, but he turned it over. He knew Thorkel was rich, he knew Stangerd was very handsome. He liked good-looking girls, and he liked riches. When Toothgnasher was getting ready to go home, Berse said he thought he would go down with him. And so he did.

Before he started Stanvor came to him. “Where are you going, master?” she asked him.

He twinkled all over his face, and looking quizzically at her, pinched her cheek. “I am going down to the frith,” he said, “to see a fine girl, and like enough that is what I shall do with her when I get on terms.”

She stood flushed and serious before him. “It is like enough, indeed,” she said, “and you may do what you will with her for me. But I know that she will not love you as I do.”

Berse put his heavy hand on her shoulder. “I think that’s true. But what if I bring her back to Sowerby? What will you say then, pretty one? By all accounts she’s big enough to eat you up and want more.”

She bore his glance. “There will still be room here for me,” she said. “I shall do no harm to anybody.”

“No, indeed,” said Berse. “But you’ll bring happiness wherever you are.” With that he kissed her.

She saw him away, and stood in the rain looking after him until he was swallowed up in it. Then she went back into the house and was busy. She was a slightly-made, graceful girl, with a pale, round face, and large, blue-grey eyes. She had brown hair which rippled like running water and curled at the ends. She looked delicate, but was extremely strong. She never had much to say, to anyone but Berse; but with him she would talk freely.