Biarg if matters still went so.

Grettir abode but few nights with Grim, for he was fain that no news
should go before him north over the Heaths. Grim bade him come thither
if he should have any need of safeguard.

"Yet shall I shun being made guilty in law for the harbouring of
thee."

Grettir said he did well. "But it is more like that later on I may
need thy good deed more."

Now Grettir rode north over Twodaysway, and so to Biarg, and came
there in the dead of night, when all folk were asleep save his mother.
He went in by the back of the house and through a door that was there,
for the ways of the house were well known to him, and came to the
hall, and got to his mother's bed, and groped about before him.

She asked who was there, and Grettir told her; then she sat up and
kissed him, and sighed withal, heavily, and spake, "Be welcome; son,"
she said, "but my joyance in my sons is slipping from me; for he is
slain who was of most avail, and thou art made an outlaw and a guilty
man, and the third is so young; that he may do nought for me."

"An old saw it is," said Grettir, "Even so shall bale be bettered,
by biding greater bale; but there are more things to be thought of
by men than money atonements alone, and most like it is that Atli will
be avenged; but as to things that may fall to me, many must even take
their lot at my hand in dealing with me, and like it as they may."