d Karlsefne, "than how
she went out. But whether she lives or is dead she had a warning which
we had best take heed of. I am for going home myself."

Freydis said that she should stay. She liked the country and was
minded to live in it. Others were of her mind. About a hundred chose
to settle there with her and her husband.

There arose then the question of a ship, and Karlsefne said that he
could not go home and leave them there with no means of escape. He
said that he would go out in his own ship and look for the others, but
Freydis would not have that. "Leave us here; we shall do well enough,"
she said. "As for the ship that has Thorhall the Huntsman in it, I
would far sooner have none than his, with him in it."

"We have tools enough here, and timber enough," Karlsefne said. "We
will build you a ship as soon as look at you." So it was settled they
were to build a new ship before they left. That night Freydis's child
was born. It was a girl, and she called it Walgerd. That had been the
name of Thorstan's daughter, who had not lived. Gudrid wondered why
she chose that name. She could never understand Freydis--nobody could;
yet she had been right about her in one thing. Freydis loved the child
more than life itself. She was so jealous of it that she was uneasy
when any one came in to see her, and used to lean right over it and
hide it out of sight. Her yellow hair fell over her face, her eyes
showed fire. She was like a wild beast guarding her young. As for
Thorhall, her husband, she warned him out of the house, and he never
dared put his head inside the door. She allowed Gudrid the entry,
sulkily, it is true; but that was only her way of doing things. She
was glad of her in her heart. "I am even with you now," she said, with
her face to the wall.

"I am glad of it," Gudrid said. "I always wished you happy."

"I have never been so, since I became a woman," said Freydis, and
Gudrid did not know what she meant.

"I was happy enough," she went on, in a grumbling, even voice--as even
it was as the constant running of water in a drain--"when I was a
child, running and sporting with the boys. I loved all the things that
they loved--I could swim as well as any, and ride, and fight with
stones. But when they began to find me a girl, and to hold me and try
to be alone with me, I had horror. They made me ashamed. And worse
was to come--and I almost killed a young man for it--and after that I
ha