ere.

When the spring came, Gunnar went to the Thing, bidding Hallgerda take
heed, and to give no cause of offence to his friends. But she would give
no promise, and he set forth with a heavy heart.

By ill-fortune, Njal and Gunnar owned a wood between them, and when Njal
and his sons departed to the Thing, Bergthora, Njal's wife, ordered
Swart her servant to cut her some branches for kindling fires from this
very forest. These tidings reached the ears of Hallgerda, and she
muttered with a grim face, 'It is the last time that Swart shall steal
my wood,' and bade Kol, her bailiff, start early next morning and seek
Swart.

'And when I find him?' asked Kol; but Hallgerda only turned away
angrily.

'You, the worst of men, ask that?' said she. 'Why, you shall kill him,
of course.'

So Kol took his axe, though he was ill at ease, for he knew that evil
would come of it, and he mounted one of Gunnar's horses and fared to the
wood.

He soon saw Swart and his men piling up bundles of firewood, so he left
his horse in a hollow, and crouched down behind some bushes, till he
heard Swart bid the men carry the wood to Njal's house, as he himself
had more work to do. He began to look about for a tall straight young
stem with which to make himself a bow, when Kol sprang out of the bushes
and dealt Swart such a stroke with his axe that he fell dead without a
word. After that Kol went back and told Hallgerda.

And Hallgerda spoke cheering words, and said he need have no fear, for
that she would protect him; but Kol's heart was heavy.

Now Hallgerda had forced Kol to slay Swart, to bring about a quarrel
between her husband and Njal, so she straightway sent a messenger to
seek Gunnar at the Thing, and tell him what had befallen Swart. Gunnar
listened in silence to the messenger's tale; then he called his men
around him, and they all went to Njal's tent, and begged him to come out
and speak to Gunnar.

'Swart, your house servant has been killed by Hallgerda and Kol her
man,' said Gunnar gravely when Njal stood before him; and he told the
tale as he had heard it from the messenger.

'It is for you, Njal, to fix the atonement,' he said at the end.

'You will have work to atone for all Hallgerda's misdoings,' answered
Njal, 'and it will take all our old friendship to keep us from
quarrelling now. But I have it in mind that at the last you shall win
through, but after hard fighting. As to the atonement, as you are my
friend and ha