brought home scanty but well-earned spoil, and then, either by
himself, or more often with Osla in the stern, he would cross the
sound as the day faded, to a welcome supper and an evening spent
in the firelit cell, or to a peaceful night beside the swirl of
the tideway under a sky so pale and clear that only the brightest
stars were ever seen.

He knew that he was in love, hopelessly in love. Why else should
he stay in the Holy Isle after his wounds were healed, and when
nothing bade him remain? Far away and faint sounded the echoes of
war and the shouts of revelry. Like memories of another life,
thoughts of his father, of Helgi, of friends and kinsmen, came to
him, pricked him for a moment, and faded into a pair of dark-blue
eyes and a tall and slender figure. He still talked to Osla of
voyages and battles, and caught her sometimes taking more interest
than she would own in some old tale of derring-do, or a story of
his own adventures. Yet the actual memories of these things grew
fainter, and he talked like an old man telling of his youth.

"I am under a spell," he would say to himself, and stride more
quickly over the heather, and then catch himself smiling at the
thought of some word or look of Osla's.

The hermit's black mood passed away, and was followed by an
attitude of grave distance towards his guest. He spoke little, but
always courteously, and seemed to treat him at first merely as an
addition to the live stock of the island.

One night Estein, after the manner of the skalds, sang a poem of
his own as they sat round the fire. He called it the "King's War