The days encountered him heavily and sulkily. It seemed as if all their endeavours were directed to show him in earnest _how_ empty and tedious and intolerable they could be, if they seriously set about it. The bright, cloudless summer days sneered at him when they met him with ice-cold scornful light from sunrise to sunset. Grey and rainy days, on the other hand, showed him without disguise their dull side. Hjor-Leif could not come to an agreement with himself which of the two kinds of days was really the more intolerable. They were all alike impossible. The one point he was clear about with regard to the days was that he had without doubt still the worst remaining. He cursed them with oaths which were powerful both in length and strength, and derived from an inexhaustible supply. But they were no help--not even momentarily. In the battle with the days he suffered one defeat after another; they were far stronger than he. They were invincible. And they possessed, although he daily experienced that, in spite of all, they did pass, a peculiarity of appearing endless, which deprived him of all hope.
Hjor-Leif tried in every way to put a little meaning into them.
He set his freemen to build a winter dwelling, a house nineteen fathoms long. It was to contain them all, together with their wives. He had only taken young, newly married people with him from Norway, with the single exception of his old headman. Hjor-Leif did what he could to take a little interest in the work. But it was only self-deception. The days did not for a moment let go their wild-beast clutch on his neck.
He set the serfs to build a house eighteen fathoms long, and bullied them till they quailed and shivered and fell into helpless embarrassment merely at the sight of him. Yes, he instilled a wholesome terror into the Irish serfs. They slunk about, and hardly knew whether to walk upright or on all fours. And they had no eyes--at any rate, there seemed no more any sight in their eyes. Regarding them, he felt sure that he had made them harmless for ever. But it brought him no comfort either to treat them like dogs or to realize their harmlessness. That did not bring a spark of his spirits back. There was nothing to rouse them in that quarter.