An Old Captivity (32 page)

“It is a bad land and no use to us,” said Leif. “We will not stay here any longer. But I think this is the place that Bjarni came to last of all. I shall call it Stoneland. At any rate, we’ve landed on it, which is more than Bjarni did.”

With a northerly wind they sailed southwards down the land for two days and nights, keeping well off the shore but with the land in sight on their right hand. On the morning of the third day they saw that the character of the country had changed; it was now covered with forest, and there were no more ice mountains. It was a level wooded land, with broad stretches of white sand.

The wind failed them, and they rowed in to the shore, stopping at noon for the midday ceremony of the shadow of the gunwale on the thwart. Leif and Tryker discussed this for a long time. Then they rowed on and dropped anchor in a little bay with a beach; again Leif and Tyrker went on shore together.

They came back presently. “This is a better place,” Leif said, “and here is all the timber that we need. We will come
back later and load up the cargo, and explore the country. But now, while this good weather lasts, we will go on and see what other new things we can find.”

They called that country Woodland, and sailed on. Before long they came to a cape, and followed the land around. After that they sailed on west or south-west, before a northeast wind.

For some days they were out of sight of land. There was little to be done except to steer the ship before the wind, which Leif did most of the time. The rest of them sat about busy with various crafts, or slept. One afternoon Tyrker produced a chisel and a mallet, and began chipping at one of the stones of the ballast.

Haki watched him with interest. Then he asked: “What are you doing, Father?”

The old German told him: “In Norway I learned how to put words upon a stone, so those that come afterwards may see what I have said.”

Haki thought about this for a time. Then he said: “That is very wonderful, but not much good. To understand the words needs somebody as wise as you, and there is nobody like that upon the ship.”

Tyrker said: “That is true. But Leif also knows this art, which I am practising to keep my hand in.”

Haki might have guessed as much. Leif could do everything.

The German chipped on industriously for a quarter of an hour. Then he laid his chisel down and blew the dust off the stone, rubbing his hand across the marks. “There,” he said to the runner. “Look at that. Those marks mean Haki. That is your name.”

The Scot looked at them, and touched them with his finger gingerly. They were cut deep and well.

He smiled. “This is a great wonder. A wise man coming afterwards would find my name.” He was very pleased.

The men crowded around, admiring the work and fingering the marks. Leif noticed them from his position at the helm; a faint frown crossed his brow. The leader must excel in everything. He gave the steering oar to a man that he could trust, and came down to the body of the ship. He stooped and felt the inscription. “It is well cut, my foster father,” he said. “Give me the mallet and the chisel, and let me see if I can still recall the craft.”

He squatted down beside the stone and hammered away industriously for a time. Then he rubbed the dust out of the grooves. “There,” he said, and they all crowded round to look.

Someone asked: “Lord, what does it mean?”

Tyrker said: “I understand the meaning, Lord. It is Hekja.”

There was a murmur of applause; the stone was fingered and examined most minutely. Everyone could see that Leif’s carvings were bigger and deeper than Tyrker’s. Moreover, the word itself was longer. They had the right leader, no doubt about it.

Presently the men dispersed a little; Haki drew Hekja over to the stone and showed her the carvings. He explained it to her. “These cuts mean my name, and those cuts mean yours. Leif has just done it.”

She fingered the marks, trying to understand the wonder. Crouching down by the stone, she raised her eyes to Leif. “Lord, are these cuts our names?”

He smiled down at her, towering over them. “So, Haki and Hekja. Your names are now together, for as long as this stone shall endure.”

She stared up at him, and the pieces of the puzzle fell together in her mind. So that was what it meant! She turned to Haki. “Are we married now?”

There was a great burst of laughter from the crew. She shrank down as the laughter roared and beat about her; her eyes filled with tears. “Why are they laughing, Haki? What is this all about?”

He touched her hand, and spoke to her quietly in Gaelic. “Don’t let them see you crying—they’ll only laugh more. I don’t think they meant it as a marriage.”

The Norsemen were still laughing; jokes as rich and rare as this one did not often come their way on board a ship. Hekja said, angry and half crying: “But that’s what he said! He said our names would be together as long as the stone lasted. That means for ever. Stones don’t rot away.”

Haki said doubtfully: “I don’t think they meant it like that. I don’t believe that is the way they do a marriage.”

“It’s as good a way as any other.” They were still speaking in Gaelic. “Haki—I hate these people. I can’t make out their customs, and they’re always laughing at us. Can’t we get away?”

He touched her hand again. “Don’t talk about that now—someone may understand. Besides, Leif is a good man, and he’s promised that we shall be free.”

She said: “I hate them when they laugh.”

For the rest of the day she was tearful and upset, but she would not leave the stone alone. She sat crouched down in the bottom of the ship with her eyes fixed on it; when it grew dark she crept over to it and laid out her sleeping-bag beside it, so that she could feel the indentation of the letters with her fingers in the night. It suddenly became her best thing, displacing all her few possessions in her preference. Her name and Haki’s were together on that stone, for as long as the stone should last. That meant for ever. It was mystical, and wonderful, and comforting to her.

They sailed on for another day. Then in the morning they saw land quite close to them, a low-lying sandy point
directly ahead. They sailed to the east of it and found that it stretched on ahead of them in the form of a continuous beach, uninterrupted for as far as they could see. At the head of the beach there was a sandy cliff a hundred feet or so in height that stretched along the shore indefinitely.

All day they sailed along this beach, mile after mile, hour after hour, marvelling at its continuity.

Leif said: “I will not go much further. Here is another land, and there may be another, and another, to the far end of the world, but we will not go further now. These beaches are a very great wonder. We will call them Wonderstrands.”

In the evening they came to a little sandy bay at a point where the beach seemed to divide, and anchored there for the night. In the morning they drove the ship on shore at half-tide, and all got out upon the sand to stretch their legs. They soon discovered that they were on a small, low-lying island; the mainland seemed to be across half a mile of shallow water to the west. It was a still, hot, summer day. And here they found a curious phenomenon. The dew upon the grass, when they tasted it, was as sweet as honey, very wonderful to them. The warm climate, the quiet and the shade upon the island, and the sweetness of the dew, induced in them a sort of awe. They had heard tales about the Islands of the Blest that lay beyond the sunset; was it possible that they had come to them? And if so, what would they meet next? Would earthly weapons be of any use to them?

It was a thoughtful party that embarked again when the tide rose.

They anchored for the night again a little way from the land, and sailed southwards when dawn came. Soon the land turned westwards and they followed it; to the south of them there were islands clearly to be seen. They coasted along looking for a harbour; in the middle of the afternoon they found an entrance to the west of a low sandy spit that seemed to lead to an extensive stretch of inland water.

Leif said: “This is as far as we will go. We will go in here and make a camp and rest, and find out all we can about the country.”

They sailed in past the sandy spit, lowered the sail, and got out the great oars. They found themselves in a long stretch of inland water running roughly north-east; on each side of them was a wooded land, with little beaches on the shores beneath the shade of the fir-trees. The water was calm and blue, the sun very warm.

None of them had ever been in such a place as that before. Essentially they were farmers, sailors only by necessity, and they were sick of the sea. They rowed on slowly into the heart of this magnificent new country, wondering, entranced. Presently the strait that they were in widened into a great bay; from this they saw a little channel leading northwards deep into the country, right away from the ocean. Leif steered his vessel into this. To the east of the little channel, hardly wider than a river, the land showed an open, park-like country of grass pastures and scattered trees; to the west low hills rose straight up from the channel, thickly clothed in firs.

They went on slowly, and in silence. Land birds swept around them; a herd of deer ran off across the pasture, startled by their approach. Presently the channel widened out again and they turned west, to find themselves in a still inland lagoon, half a mile long and a little less in width, entirely surrounded by the wooded hills. The trees cast perfect reflections in the still water; it was very quiet.

Leif sighed deeply, looking round about. “Here we will rest,” he said.

They put the ship on to a sandy, shady beach beneath a little wooded knoll, and went on shore. Leif chose a site down by the beach to make a camp, and sent out parties to explore the country round about. Very soon they discovered that they were on a neck of land that ran roughly east and west, perhaps three or four miles broad from north to south. To the eastwards the land stretched out to the beaches they
had known as Wonderstrands; to the west the country was unknown.

Leif said: “Here is all the wood we want; we will unload the ship. These trees will make a good cargo for us. We will cut some of them down and trim them into roof-beams, so that we shall not have to carry useless weight back home with us.”

A party set to work upon the trees. Haki and Hekja were set to carry all the stores ashore up to the place selected for the camp. Suddenly Hekja dropped her load, caught Haki by the arm, and cried:

“Haki—look! They’re throwing the stones overboard!”

True enough, a party of men were tipping the flat rocks of the ballast out into the shallow water round the ship, preparing to receive the lumber. Haki said: “What about it?”

She cried: “Our stone! Our stone, with our names on it!”

She set off running at top speed down to the ship. Haki followed at a more leisurely pace; as he drew near the ship he heard a burst of laughter. He clambered in over the side and saw Hekja struggling with the heavy stone, tears streaming down het cheeks, while the Norsemen stopped their work to enjoy the joke again.

She cried: “Haki! Haki! come and help me with it.”