The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley [241]
“Will you talk against me?”
She had never denied him anything, since she was but a toddling child and he cradled among the furs of their mother’s bedcloset. They walked to the boat, and pushed it off the strand and got in. He rowed with great energy and a practiced, easy motion. She looked upon him, and finally said, “Nay, I will not talk against you, but I will pray against you.”
Kollgrim smiled.
Against this scheme, Gunnar raised many unanswerable objections. There were neither servants nor sheep to spare for another steading. Kollgrim’s services in getting game for the table could not be spared. Helga’s services in looking after the sheep and the dairy could not be spared. It was not seemly for an unmarried woman to go off before marriage and live by herself, as she would often be living if Kollgrim was out hunting. The steading itself bore a burden of ill fame and ill luck. They would do better for themselves if they stayed away from it, and left it to Bjorn Bollason the lawspeaker, although rumors of Bjorn Bollason’s interest in the steading had died down. Steadings were being abandoned in Hvalsey Fjord, if Kollgrim was so intent upon raising sheep. But Kollgrim was not intent upon raising sheep, only upon having this particular steading. And on this point Gunnar grew the most irate, and accused Kollgrim of always having been dissatisfied with Lavrans Stead and the life there. After these arguments, there was a long period of bitterness between father and son, for Kollgrim was loud in his complaints of Gunnar’s injustice. Helga put away any expectation of removing to the other steading, although with difficulty. Every arrangement at Lavrans Stead now seemed poor and inconvenient.
One day it happened that Thorkel Gellison appeared with two of his servingmen, saying that his wife Jona was ill, and wished to have Johanna with her for a few days, but after Thorkel and Gunnar had talked for a while, it came out that Jona was not very unwell, and still perfectly capable of getting about the steading and doing her work. In fact, she had been more ill earlier in the summer, and had not thought to call upon Johanna. Now Gunnar wished to know the real purpose of Thorkel’s visit, and Thorkel admitted that he intended to persuade Gunnar to allow Kollgrim, at least, if not Kollgrim and Helga, to take over the abandoned steading, for, he said, Kollgrim was a much steadier fellow than he had once been, and he needed but some additional cares to mold him into a proper man. Such an effect had taken place with Gunnar himself, in the year of the vomiting ill, and Kollgrim was already five or six winters older than Gunnar had been then. The boy, folk said, lived too close to his mother and his father, and they watched over him, folk also said, as if he were a child. In addition to this, many folk in Vatna Hverfi district would be relieved at the occupation of the steading, especially by Vatna Hverfi folk and not by strangers from the north. Folk who knew Bjorn Bollason and Signy considered them well enough, and Bjorn Bollason seemed to be enterprising as lawspeaker, whether or not he actually knew all of the laws, but he and Signy were alert and pushing in that northern way, not so pleasant to be with, and yet always offering this and that or making invitations. And the fact was that they would think so well of themselves if they got into Gunnars Stead that they would be unbearable. Now Gunnar laughed and said that they did not think of such things in an out-of-the way place like Hvalsey Fjord, and Thorkel laughed in return and said that the Hvalsey Fjorders had always been proud of their humility, and that was a fact, and the conversation died.
The case was, that Gunnar was much angered at Kollgrim for putting his scheme to Thorkel, but in this as in all things, he thought, Kollgrim had gotten the better of him, for he owed such a debt to Thorkel that he could never simply dismiss any of Thorkel’s wishes,