He looked at her earnestly, and the wisdom of her heart seemed to enter into his; but she said: “It is of men we must talk, and of me and thee. Come with me, my friend.”
And she stepped lightly over the threshold and drew him in. The Hall was stern and grim and somewhat dusky, for its windows were but small: it was all of stone, both walls and roof. There was no timber-work therein save the benches and chairs, a little about the doors at the lower end that led to the buttery and out-bowers; and this seemed to have been wrought of late years; yea, the chairs against the gable on the dais were of stone built into the wall, adorned with carving somewhat sparingly, the image of the Wolf being done over the midmost of them. He looked up and down the Hall, and deemed it some seventy feet over all from end to end; and he could see in the dimness those same goodly hangings on the wall which he had seen in the woodland booth.
She led him up to the dais, and stood there leaning up against the arm of one of those stone seats silent for a while; then she turned and looked at him, and said:
“Yea, thou lookest a goodly warrior; yet am I glad that thou camest hither without battle. Tell me, Gold-mane,” she said, taking one of his spears from his hand, “art thou deft with the spear?”
“I have been called so,” said he.
She looked at him sweetly and said: “Canst thou show me the feat of spear-throwing in this Hall, or shall we wend outside presently that I may see thee throw?”
“The Hall sufficeth,” he said. “Shall I set this steel in the lintel of the buttery door yonder?”
“Yea, if thou canst,” she said.
He smiled and took the spear from her, and poised it and shook it till it quivered again, then suddenly drew back his arm and cast, and the shaft sped whistling down the dim hall, and smote the aforesaid door-lintel and stuck there quivering: then he sprang down from the dais, and ran down the hall, and put forth his hand and pulled it forth from the wood, and was on the dais again in a trice, and cast again, and the second time set the spear in the same place, and then took his other spear from the board and cast it, and there stood the two staves in the wood side by side; then he went soberly down the hall and drew them both out of the wood and came back to her, while she stood watching him, her cheek flushed, her lips a little parted.
She said: “Good spear-casting, forsooth! and far above what our folk can do, who be no great throwers of the spear.”
Gold-mane laughed: “Sooth is that,” said he, “or hardly were I here to teach thee spear-throwing.”
“Wilt thou never be paid for that simple onslaught?” she said.
“Have I been paid then?” said he.
She reddened, for she remembered her word to him on the mountain; and he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek, but timorously; nor did she withstand him or shrink aback, but said soberly:
“Good indeed is thy spear-throwing, and meseems my brother will love thee when he hath seen thee strike a stroke or two in wrath. But, fair warrior, there be no foemen here: so get thee to the lower end of the Hall, and in the bower beyond shalt thou find fresh water; there wash the waste from off thee, and do off thine helm and hauberk, and come back speedily and eat with me; for I hunger, and so dost thou.”
He did as she bade him, and came back presently bearing in his hand both helm and hauberk, and he looked light-limbed and trim and lissome, an exceeding goodly man.
XIX
The Fair Woman Telleth Face-of-God of Her Kindred
When he came back to the dais he saw that there was meat upon the board, and the Friend said to him:
“Now art thou Gold-mane indeed: but come now, sit by me and eat, though the Wood-woman giveth thee but a sorry banquet, O guest; but from the Dale it is, and we be too far now from the dwellings of men to have delicate meat on the board, though tonight when they come back thy cheer shall be better. Yet even then thou shalt have no such dainties as Stone-face hath imagined for thee at the hands of the Wood-wight.”
She laughed therewith, and he no less; and in sooth the meat was but simple, of curds and new cheese, meat of the herdsmen. But Face-of-god said gaily: “Sweet it shall be to me; good is all that the Friend giveth.”
Then she raised her hand and made the sign of the Hammer over the board, and looked up at him and said:
“Hath the Earth-god changed my face, Gold-mane, to what I verily am?”
He held his face close to hers and looked into it, and him-seemed it was as pure as the waters of a mountain lake, and as fine and well-wrought every deal of it as when his father had wrought in his stithy many days and fashioned a small piece of great mastery. He was ashamed to kiss her again, but he said to himself, “This is the fairest woman of the world, whom I have sworn to wed this year.” Then he spake aloud and said:
“I see the face of the Friend, and it will not change to
