Yea do my bidding, O Folk-wolf, lest a grief of the Gods should weigh
On the ancient House of the Wolfings and my death o'ercloud its day."

And still she clung about him, while he spake no word of yea or nay: but
at the last he let himself glide wholly into her arms, and the
dwarf-wrought hauberk fell from his knees and lay on the grass.

So they abode together in that wood-lawn till the twilight was long gone,
and the sun arisen for some while. And when Thiodolf stepped out of the
beech-wood into the broad sunshine dappled with the shadow of the leaves
of the hazels moving gently in the fresh morning air, he was covered from
the neck to the knee by a hauberk of rings dark and grey and gleaming,
fashioned by the dwarfs of ancient days.




CHAPTER IV--THE HOUSE FARETH TO THE WAR


Now when Thiodolf came back to the habitations of the kindred the whole
House was astir, both thrall-men and women, and free women hurrying from
cot to stithy, and from stithy to hall bearing the last of the war-gear
or raiment for the fighting-men. But they for their part were some
standing about anigh the Man's-door, some sitting gravely within the
hall, some watching the hurry of the thralls and women from the midmost
of the open space amidst of the habitations, whereon there stood yet
certain wains which were belated: for the most of the wains were now
standing with the oxen already yoked to them down in the meadow past the
acres, encircled by a confused throng of kine and horses and thrall-folk,