and Thorkell riding up, “I can easily see what the errand of these kinsmen is—­they are going to make me a bid for my land, and if that is the case they will call me aside for a talk; I guess they will seat themselves each on either side of me; so, then, if they should give me any trouble you must not be slower to set on Thorstein than I on Thorkell.  You have long been true to us kinsfolk.  I have also sent to the nearest homesteads for men, and at just the same moment I should like these two things to happen:  the coming in of the men summoned, and the breaking up of our talk.” [Sidenote:  Halldor gets the best of it] Now as the day wore on, Thorstein hinted to Halldor that they should all go aside and have some talk together, “for we have an errand with you.”  Halldor said it suited him well.  Thorstein told his followers they need not come with them, but Beiner went with them none the less, for he thought things came to pass very much after what Halldor had guessed they would.  They went very far out into the field.  Halldor had on a pinned-up cloak with a long pin brooch, as was the fashion then.  Halldor sat down on the field, but on either side of him each of these kinsmen, so near that they sat well-nigh on his cloak; but Beiner stood over them with a big axe in his hand.  Then said Thorstein, “My errand here is that I wish to buy land from you, and I bring it before you now because my kinsman Thorkell is with me; I should think that this would suit us both well, for I hear that you are short of money, while your land is costly to husband.  I will give you in return an estate that will beseem you, and into the bargain as much as we shall agree upon.”  In the beginning Halldor took the matter as if it were not so very far from his mind, and they exchanged words concerning the terms of the purchase; and when they felt that he was not so far from coming to terms, Thorkell joined eagerly in the talk, and tried to bring the bargain to a point. [Sidenote:  He refuses to deal with them] Then Halldor began to draw back rather, but they pressed him all the more; yet at last it came to this, that he was the further from the bargain the closer they pressed him.  Then said Thorkell, “Do you not see, kinsman Thorstein, how this is going?  Halldor has delayed the matter for us all day long, and we have sat here listening to his fooling and wiles.  Now if you want to buy the land we must come to closer quarters.”  Thorstein then said he must know what he had to look forward to, and bade Halldor now come out of the shadow as to whether he was willing to come to the bargain.  Halldor answered, “I do not think I need keep you in the dark as to this point, that you will have to go home to-night without any bargain struck.”  Then said Thorstein, “Nor do I think it needful to delay making known to you what we have in our mind to do; for we, deeming that we shall get the better of you by reason of the odds on our side, have bethought us of two choices for you:  one choice is, that