Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/210

 and spared not words overmuch, but herein he used the most when he told of Elfhild, what she was like in those latter days, and how his heart enfolded her, and how sweet was her converse with him; and when he was done Steelhead said: What is in thy mind concerning dwelling in the Dale amidst thine own folk? Said Osberne: My mind it is to live and die here, and do all that is due to the folk of my fathers. Said Steelhead: Then must thou be healed of this trouble; that is, thou must forget thy love and thy longing, or at the least thou must think more of other matters than of this. For I will not have it that thou my fosterling shouldst be a kill-joy among men of the kindred; wherefore ill-luck will come of it.

Said Osberne, knitting his brows: I will not be healed in this way. For do I not know that she also is wrapped in sorrow and tormented by longing. Shall I leave her, therefore, as the dastard leaves a wounded friend before the on-coming foeman?

Steelhead smiled on him. Quoth he: Thou wilt not be healed? So be it; then mayest thou not abide in the Dale amongst the kindred, but carry thy trouble to the lands of the aliens, where there is none to remember the joyous face of thee before the trouble was. This may I do, said Osberne, and even so shall it be since it is thy will. But hast thou nought else to say to enhearten me in my travel? This I have thereto, quoth Steelhead, that though the world be wide