women of the household were within call, and he answered with great insolence: “If thy lordship pleases, I am Kark, the thrall of Jarl Haakon. My master and thine is just beyond in the Fiord, collecting taxes.”
“Aye, aye! we know that full well; but I have given,—not willingly, to be sure,—but I have given my taxes already. What would thy master, Jarl Haakon, have now? His tax was full heavy upon me.”
Kark drew from the bosom of his tunic a well-filled purse. “The Jarl returns thee thy tax many times over and bids thee instead send him, in my care, thy wife Aasa.”
Brynjulf stood staring at Kark. “Art thou mad, thou hound of a thrall? Send him my wife? Nay, I swear to cleave thee where thou standest, if thou dost not take back thy villain’s message.”
Kark handed the purse to Brynjulf again. The peasant dashed it aside. “Let the gold of Jarl Haakon rot in his hand!—and thou, if I look upon thee, my knife will fly out of its sheath to slay thee.”
Kark turned sullenly aside, and with the thralls around him went back to the earl.
Brynjulf entered his cottage.
“What doth fret thee?” asked his wife; “thou dost seem to be bewitched, or as if thou hadst seen a ghost.”
