Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln.

By Charles W. Whistler, M.R.C.S.

CONTENTS

[PREFACE.]

If any excuse is needed for recasting the ancient legend of Grim the fisher and his foster-son Havelok the Dane, it may be found in the fascination of the story itself, which made it one of the most popular legends in England from the time of the Norman conquest, at least, to that of Elizabeth. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries it seems to have been almost classic; and during that period two full metrical versions—one in Norman-French and the other in English—were written, besides many other short versions and abridgments, which still exist. These are given exhaustively by Professor Skeat in his edition of the English poem for the Early English Text Society, and it is needless to do more than refer to them here as the sources from which this story is gathered.

These versions differ most materially from one another in names and incidents, while yet preserving the main outlines of the whole history. It is evident that there has been a far more ancient, orally-preserved tradition, which has been the original of the freely-treated poems and concise prose statements of the legend which we have. And it seems possible, from among the many variations, and from under the disguise of the mediaeval forms in which it has been hidden, to piece together what this original may have been, at least with some probability.

We have one clue to the age of the legend of Havelok in the statement by the eleventh-century Norman poet that his tale comes from a British source, which at least gives a very early date for the happenings related; while another version tells us that the king of “Lindesie” was a Briton. Welsh names occur, accordingly, in several places; and it is more than likely that the old legend preserved a record of actual events in the early days of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in England, when there were yet marriages between conquerors and conquered, and the origins of Angle and Jute and Saxon were not yet forgotten in the pedigrees of the many petty kings.

One of the most curious proofs of the actual British origin of the legend is in the statement that the death of Havelok’s father occurred as the result of a British invasion of Denmark for King Arthur, by a force under a leader with the distinctly Norse name of Hodulf. The claim for conquest of the north by Arthur is very old, and is repeated by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and may well have originated in the remembrance of some successful raid on the Danish coasts by the Norse settlers in the Gower district of Pembrokeshire, in company with a contingent of their Welsh neighbours.

This episode does not occur in the English version; but here an attack on Havelok on his return home to Denmark is made by men led by one Griffin, and this otherwise unexplainable survival of a Welsh name seems to connect the two accounts in some way that recalls the ancient legend at the back of both.

I have therefore treated the Welsh element in the story as deserving a more prominent place, at least in subsidiary incidents, than it has in the two old metrical versions. It has been possible to follow neither of these exactly, as in names and details they are widely apart; but to one who knows both, the sequence of events will, I think, be clear enough.

I have, for the same reason of the British origin of the legend, preferred the simple and apposite derivation of the name of “Curan,” taken by the hero during his servitude, from the Welsh Cwran, “a wonder,” to the Norman explanation of the name as meaning a “scullion,” which seems to be rather a guess, based on the menial position of the prince, than a translation.

For the long existence of a Welsh servile population in the lowlands of Lincolnshire there is evidence enough in the story of Guthlac of Crowland, and the type may still be found there. There need be little excuse for claiming some remains of their old Christianity among them, and the “hermit” who reads the dream for the princess may well have been a half-forgotten Welsh priest. But the mediaeval poems have Christianized the ancient legend, until it would seem to stand in somewhat the same relationship to what it was as the German “Niebelungen Lied” does to the “Volsunga Saga.”

With regard to the dreams which recur so constantly, I have in the case of the princess transferred the date of hers to the day previous to her marriage, the change only involving a difference of a day, but seeming to he needed, as explanatory of her sudden submission to her guardian. And instead of crediting Havelok with the supernatural light bodily, it has been transferred to the dream which seems to haunt those who have to do with him.

As to the names of the various characters, they are in the old versions hardly twice alike. I have, therefore, taken those which seem to have been modernized from their originals, or preserved by simple transliteration, and have set them back in what seems to have been their first form. Gunther, William, and Bertram, for instance, seem to be modernized from Gunnar, Withelm, and perhaps Berthun; while Sykar, Aunger, and Gryme are but alternative English spellings of the northern Sigurd, Arngeir, and Grim.

The device on Havelok’s banner in chapter xxi. is exactly copied from the ancient seal of the Corporation of Grimsby,[^[1]] which is of the date of Edward the First. The existence of this is perhaps the best proof that the story of Grim and Havelok is more than a romance. Certainly the Norse “Heimskringla” record claims an older northern origin for the town than that of the Danish invasion of Alfred’s time; and the historic freedom of its ships from toll in the port of Elsinore has always been held to date from the days of its founder.

The strange and mysterious “blue stones” of Grimsby and Louth are yet in evidence, and those of the former town are connected by legend with Grim. Certainly they have some very ancient if long-forgotten associations, and it is more than likely that they have been brought as “palladia” with the earliest northern settlers. A similar stone exists in the centre of the little East Anglian town of Harleston, with a definite legend of settlement attached to it; and there may be others. The Coronation Stone of Westminster and the stone in Kingston-on-Thames are well-known proofs of the ancient sanctity that surrounded such objects for original reasons that are now lost.

The final battle at Tetford, with its details, are from the Norman poem. The later English account is rounded off with the disgrace and burning alive of the false guardian; but for many reasons the earlier seems to be the more correct account. Certainly the mounds of some great forgotten fight remain in the Tetford valley, and Havelok is said to have come to “Carleflure,” which, being near Saltfleet, and on the road to Tetford, may be Canton, where there is a strong camp of what is apparently Danish type.

Those who can read with any comfort the crabbed Norman-French and Early English poetic versions will see at once where I have added incidents that may bring the story into a connected whole, as nearly as possible on the old Saga lines; and those readers to whom the old romance is new will hardly wish that I should pull the story to pieces again, to no purpose so far as they are concerned. And, at least, for a fairly free treatment of the subject, I have the authority of those previous authors whom I have mentioned.

In the different versions, the founder of Grimsby is variously described as a steward of the Danish king’s castle, a merchant, a fisher, and in the English poem—probably because it was felt that none other would have undertaken the drowning of the prince—as a thrall. Another version gives no account of the sack episode, but says that Grim finds both queen and prince wandering on the shore. Grim the fisher is certainly a historic character in his own town, and it has not been hard to combine the various callings of the worthy foster-father of Havelok and the troubles of both mother and son. A third local variant tells that Havelok was found at Grimsby by the fisher adrift in an open boat; and I have given that boat also a place in the story, in a different way.

The names of the kings are too far lost to be set back in their place in history, but Professor Skeet gives the probable date of Havelok and Grim as at the end of the sixth century, with a possible identification of the former with the “governor of Lincoln” baptized by Paulinus. I have, therefore, assumed this period where required. But a legend of this kind is a romance of all time, and needs no confinement to date and place. Briton and Saxon, Norman and Englishman, and maybe Norseman and Dane, have loved the old story, and with its tale of right and love triumphant it still has its own power.

Stockland, 1899

Chas. W. Whistler

[CHAPTER I.
GRIM THE FISHER AND HIS SONS.]

This story is not about myself, though, because I tell of things that I have seen, my name must needs come into it now and then. The man whose deeds I would not have forgotten is my foster-brother, Havelok, of whom I suppose every one in England has heard. Havelok the Dane men call him here, and that is how he will always be known, as I think.

He being so well known, it is likely that some will write down his doings, and, not knowing them save by hearsay, will write them wrongly and in different ways, whereof will come confusion, and at last none will be believed. Wherefore, as he will not set them down himself, it is best that I do so. Not that I would have anyone think that the penmanship is mine. Well may I handle oar, and fairly well axe and sword, as is fitting for a seaman, but the pen made of goose feather is beyond my rough grip in its littleness, though I may make shift to use a sail-needle, for it is stiff and straightforward in its ways, and no scrawling goeth therewith.

Therefore my friend Wislac, the English priest, will be the penman, having skill thereto. I would have it known that I can well trust him to write even as I speak, though he has full leave to set aside all hard words and unseemly, such as a sailor is apt to use unawares; and where my Danish way of speaking goeth not altogether with the English, he may alter the wording as he will, so long as the sense is always the same. Then, also, will he read over to me what he has written, and therefore all may be sure that this is indeed my true story.

Now, as it is needful that one begins at the beginning, it happens that the first thing to be told is how I came to be Havelok’s foster-brother, and that seems like beginning with myself after all. But all the story hangs on this, and so there is no help for it.

If it is asked when this beginning might be, I would say, for an Englishman who knows not the names of Danish kings, that it was before the first days of the greatness of Ethelbert of Kent, the overlord of all England, the Bretwalda, and therefore, as Father Wislac counts, about the year of grace 580. But King Ethelbert does not come into the story, nor does the overlord of all Denmark; for the kings of whom I must speak were under-kings, though none the less kingly for all that. One must ever be the mightiest of many; and, as in England, there were at that time many kings in Denmark, some over wide lands and others over but small realms, with that one who was strong enough to make the rest pay tribute to him as overlord, and only keeping that place by the power of the strong hand, not for any greater worth.

Our king on the west coast of Denmark, where the story of Havelok the Dane must needs begin, was Gunnar Kirkeban—so called because, being a heathen altogether, as were we all in Denmark at that time, he had been the bane of many churches in the western isles of Scotland, and in Wales and Ireland, and made a boast thereof. However, that cruelty of his was his own bane in the end, as will be seen. Otherwise he was a well-loved king and a great warrior, tall, and stronger than any man in Denmark, as was said. His wife, the queen, was a foreigner, but the fairest of women. Her name was Eleyn, and from this it was thought that she came from the far south. Certainly Gunnar had brought her back from Gardariki,[^[2]] whither he had gone on a trading journey one year. Gunnar and she had two daughters and but one son, and that son was Havelok, at this time seven years old.

Next to the king came our own lord, Jarl Sigurd, older than Gunnar, and his best counsellor, though in the matter of sparing harmless and helpless church folk his advice was never listened to. His hall was many miles from the king’s place, southward down the coast.

Here, too, lived my father, Grim, with us in a good house which had been his father’s before him. Well loved by Jarl Sigurd was Grim, who had ever been his faithful follower, and was the best seaman in all the town. He was also the most skilful fisher on our coasts, being by birth a well-to-do freeman enough, and having boats of his own since he could first sail one. At one time the jarl had made him steward of his house; but the sea drew him ever, and he waxed restless away from it. Therefore, after a time, he asked the jarl’s leave to take to the sea again, and so prospered in the fishery that at last he bought a large trading buss from the Frisian coast, and took to the calling of the merchant.

So for some years my father, stout warrior as he proved himself in many a fight at his lord’s side, traded peacefully—that is, so long as men would suffer him to do so; for it happened more than once that his ship was boarded by Vikings, who in the end went away, finding that they had made a mistake in thinking that they had found a prize in a harmless trader, for Grim was wont to man his ship with warriors, saying that what was worth trading was worth keeping. I mind me how once he came to England with a second cargo, won on the high seas from a Viking’s plunder, which the Viking brought alongside our ship, thinking to add our goods thereto. Things went the other way, and we left him only an empty ship, which maybe was more than he would have spared to us. That was on my second voyage, when I was fifteen.

Mostly my father traded to England, for there are few of the Saxon kin who take ship for themselves, and the havens to which he went were Tetney and Saltfleet, on the Lindsey shore of Humber, where he soon had friends.

So Grim prospered and waxed rich fast, and in the spring of the year wherein the story begins was getting the ship ready for the first cruise of the season, meaning to be afloat early; for then there was less trouble with the wild Norse Viking folk, for one cruise at least. Then happened that which set all things going otherwise than he had planned, and makes my story worth telling.

We—that is my father Grim, Leva my mother, my two brothers and myself, and our two little sisters, Gunhild and Solva—sat quietly in our great room, busy at one little thing or another, each in his way, before the bright fire that burned on the hearth in the middle of the floor. There was no trouble at all for us to think of more than that the wind had held for several weeks in the southwest and northwest, and we wondered when it would shift to its wonted springtide easting, so that we could get the ship under way once more for the voyage she was prepared for. Pleasant talk it was, and none could have thought that it was to be the last of many such quiet evenings that had gone before.

Yet it seemed that my father was uneasy, and we had been laughing at him for his silence, until he said, looking into the fire, “I will tell you what is on my mind, and then maybe you will laugh at me the more for thinking aught of the matter. Were I in any but a peaceful land, I should say that a great battle had been fought not so far from us, and to the northward.”

Then my mother looked up at him, knowing that he had seen many fights, and was wise in the signs that men look for before them; but she asked nothing, and so I said, “What makes you think this, father?”

He answered me with another question.

“How many kites will you see overhead at any time, sons?”

I wondered at this, but it was easy to answer—to Raven, at least.

“Always one, and sometimes another within sight of the first,” Raven said.

“And if there is food, what then?”

“The first swoops down on it, and the next follows, and the one that watches the second follows that, and so on until there are many kites gathered.”

“What if one comes late?”

“He swings overhead and screams, and goes back to his place; then no more come.”

“Ay,” he said; “you will make a sailor yet, son Raven, for you watch things. Now I will tell you what I saw today. There was the one kite sailing over my head as I was at the ship garth, and presently it screamed so that I looked up. Then it left its wide circles over the town, and flew northward, straight as an arrow. Then from the southward came another, following it, and after that another, and yet others, all going north. And far off I could see where others flew, and they too went north. And presently flapped over me the ravens in the wake of the kites, and the great sea eagles came in screaming and went the same way, and so for all the time that I was at the ship, and until I came home.”

“There is a sacrifice to the Asir somewhere,” I said, “for the birds of Odin and Thor have always their share.”

My father shook his head.

“The birds cry to one another, as I think, and say when the feast is but enough for those that have gathered. They have cried now that there is room for all at some great feasting. Once have I seen the like before, and that was when I was with the ship guard when the jarl fought his great battle in the Orkneys; we knew that he had fought by the same token.”

But my mother said that I was surely right. There was no fear of battle here, and indeed with Gunnar and Sigurd to guard the land we had had peace for many a long year on our own coasts, if other lands had had to fear them. My father laughed a little, saying that perhaps it was so, and then my mother took the two little ones and went with them into the sleeping room to put them to rest, while I and my two brothers went out to the cattle garth to see that all was well for the night.

Then, when our eyes were used to the moonlight, which was not very bright, away to the northward we saw a red glow that was not that of the sunset or of the northern lights, dying down now and then, and then again flaring up as will a far-off fire; and even as we looked we heard the croak of an unseen raven flying thitherward overhead.

“Call father,” I said to Withelm, who was the youngest of us three. The boy ran in, and presently my father came out and looked long at the glow in the sky.

“Even as I thought,” he said. “The king’s town is burning, and I must go to tell the jarl. Strange that we have had no message. Surely the king’s men must be hard pressed if this is a foe’s work.”

So he went at once, leaving us full of wonder and excited, as boys will be at anything that is new and has a touch of fear in it. But he had hardly gone beyond the outbuildings when one came running and calling him. The jarl had sent for him, for there was strange news from the king. Then he and this messenger hastened off together.

In half an hour the war horns were blowing fiercely, and all the quiet town was awake, for my father’s forebodings were true, and the foe was on us. In our house my mother was preparing the food that her husband should carry with him, and I was putting a last polish on the arms that should keep him, while the tramp of men who went to the gathering rang down the street, one by one at first, and then in twos and threes. My mother neither wept nor trembled, but worked with a set face that would not show fear.

Then came in my father, and I armed him, begging at the same time that I might go also, for I could use my weapons well enough; but he told me that some must needs bide at home as a guard, and that I was as much wanted there as at the king’s place, wherewith I had to be content. It was by no means unlikely that we also might be attacked, if it was true that the king’s men were outnumbered, as was said.

Now when my father went to say farewell to us, nowhere could be found my brother Withelm.

“The boy has gone to watch the muster,” my father said. “I shall see him there presently.”

Then, because he saw that my mother was troubled more than her wont, he added, “Have no fear for me. This will be no more than a raid of Norsemen, and they will plunder and be away with the tide before we get to the place.”

So he laughed and went out, having done his best to cheer us all, and I went with him to where the men were gathered in their arms in the wide space in the midst of the houses. There I sought for little Withelm, but could not find him among the women and children who looked on; and before we had been there more than a few minutes the jarl gave the word, and the march was begun. There were about fifteen miles to be covered between our town and the king’s.

I watched them out of sight, and then went home, having learned that I was to be called out only in case of need. And as I drew near the homestead I saw a light in the little ash grove that was behind the garth.[^[3]] In the midst of the trees, where this light seemed to be, was our wooden image of Thor the Hammer Bearer, older than any of us could tell; and in front of this was what we used as his altar—four roughly-squared stones set together. These stones were blue-black in colour, and whence they came I do not know, unless it was true that my forefathers brought them here when first Odin led his folk to the northern lands. Always they had been the altar for my people, and my father held that we should have no luck away from them.

So it was strange to see a light in that place, where none would willingly go after dark, and half was I feared to go and see what it might mean. But then it came into my mind that the enemy might be creeping on the house through the grove, and that therefore I must needs find out all about it. So I went softly to the nearest trees, and crept from one to another, ever getting closer to the light; and I will say that I feared more that I might see some strange thing that was more than mortal than that I should see the leading foeman stealing towards me. But presently it was plain that the light did not move as if men carried it, but it flickered as a little fire; and at last I saw that it burned on the altar stones, and that frightened me so that I almost fled.

Maybe I should have done so, but that I heard a voice that I knew; and so, looking once more, I saw a figure standing before the fire, and knew it. It was little Withelm, and why a ten-year-old boy should be here I could not think. But I called him softly, and he started somewhat, turning and trying to look through the darkness towards me, though he did not seem afraid. There was a little fire of dry sticks burning on the stones, and the gaunt old statue seemed to look more terrible than ever in its red blaze. One might have thought that the worn face writhed itself as the light played over it.

“It is I, Withelm,” I said softly, for the fear of the place was on me. “We have sought you everywhere, and father would have wished you farewell. What are you doing here?”

I came forward then, for it was plain that the child feared nothing, so that I was put to shame. And as I came I asked once more what he was doing in this place.

“The jarl has surely forgotten the sacrifice to the Asir before the warriors went to fight, and they will be angry,” he answered very calmly. “It is right that one should remember, and I feared for father, and therefore—”

He pointed to the altar, and I saw that he had laid his own untasted supper on the fire that he had lighted, and I had naught to say. The thing was over-strange to me, who thought nothing of these things. It was true that the host always sacrificed before sailing on the Viking path, but tonight had been urgent haste.

“Thor will not listen to any but a warrior,” I said. “Come home, brother, for mother waits us.”

“If not Thor, who is maybe busy at the battle they talk of, then do I think that All Father will listen,” he said stoutly. “But this was all that I had to make sacrifice withal, and it may not be enough.”

“The jarl will make amends when he comes back,” I said, wishing to get home and away from this place, and yet unwilling to chide the child. “Now let us go, for mother will grow anxious.”

With that he put his hand in mine, and we both saluted Thor, as was fitting, and then went homeward. It seemed to me that the glare in the north was fiercer now than when I had first seen it.

Now, after my mother had put Withelm to bed, I told her how I had found him; and thereat she wept a little, as I could see in the firelight.

After a long silence she said, “Strange things and good come into the mind of a child, and one may learn what his fate shall be in the days to come. I am sure from this that Withelm will be a priest.”

Now as one may buy the place of a godar, with the right to have a temple of the Asir for a district and the authority that goes therewith, if so be that one falls vacant or is to be given up by the holder, this did not seem unlikely, seeing how rich we were fast growing. And indeed my mother’s saying came to pass hereafter, though not at all in the way of which we both thought.

There was no alarm that night. The old warriors watched round the town and along the northern tracks, but saw nothing, and in the morning the black smoke hung over the place of the burning, drifting slowly seaward. The wind had changed, and they said that it would doubtless have taken the foe away with it, as my father had hoped. So I went down to the ship with Raven, and worked at the few things that were still left to be done to her as she lay in her long shed on the slips, ready to take the water at any tide. She was only waiting for cargo and stores to be put on board her with the shift of wind that had come at last, and I thought that my father would see to these things as soon as he came back.

Now in the evening we had news from the Jarl, and strange enough it was. My father came back two days afterwards and told us all, and so I may as well make a short story of it. The ways of Gunnar Kirkeban had been his end, for a certain Viking chief, a Norseman, had wintered in Wales during the past winter, and there he had heard from the Welsh of the wrongs that they had suffered at his hands. Also he had heard of the great booty of Welsh gold that Gunnar had taken thence in the last summer; and so, when these Welsh asked that he would bide with them and help fight the next Danes who came, he had offered to do more than that—he would lead them to Gunnar’s place if they would find men to man three ships that he had taken, and would be content to share the booty with them.

The Welsh king was of the line of Arthur, and one who yet hoped to win back the land of his fathers from the Saxons and English; and so he listened to this Hodulf, thinking to gain a powerful ally in him for attack on the eastern coast of England after this. So, favoured by the wind that had kept us from the sea, Hodulf, with twenty ships in all, had fallen on Gunnar unawares, and had had an easy victory, besetting the town in such wise that only in the confusion while the wild Welsh were burning and plundering on every side had the messenger to the jarl been able to slip away.

But when the jarl and our men reached the town there was naught to be done but to make terms with Hodulf as best he might, that the whole country might not be overrun. For Gunnar had been slain in his own hall, with his two young daughters and with the queen also, as was supposed. Havelok the prince was in his hands, and for his sake therefore Sigurd had been the more ready to come to terms.

Then Hodulf sent messengers to the overlord of all Denmark, saying that he would hold this kingdom as for him, and backed up that promise with a great present from Gunnar’s treasure, so that he was listened to. Therefore our jarl was helpless; and there being no other king strong enough to aid him if he rose, in the end he had to take Hodulf for lord altogether, though it went sorely against the grain.

I have heard it said by the Welsh folk that Hodulf held the kingdom for their lord; and it is likely that he humoured them by saying that he would do so, which was a safe promise to make, as even King Arthur himself could never have reached him to make him pay scatt.

[CHAPTER II.
KING HODULF’S SECRET.]

My father came home heavy and anxious enough, for he did not know how things would go under this new king, though he had promised peace to all men who would own him. We in our place saw nothing of him or his men for the next few weeks, but he was well spoken of by those who had aught to do with him elsewhere. So my father went on trying to gather a cargo for England; but it was a slow business, as the burnt and plundered folk of the great town had naught for us, and others sold to them. But he would never be idle, and every day when weather served we went fishing, for he loved his old calling well, as a man will love that which he can do best. Our two boats and their gear were always in the best of order, and our kinsman, Arngeir, used and tended them when we were away in the ship in summertime.

Now, one evening, as we came up from the shore after beaching the boat on the hard below the town, and half a mile from the nearest houses, and being, as one may suppose, not altogether in holiday trim, so that Grim and his boys with their loads of fish and nets looked as though a fisher’s hovel were all the home that they might own, we saw a horseman, followed at a little distance by two more, riding towards us. The dusk was gathering, and at first we thought that this was Jarl Sigurd, who would ask us maybe to send fish to his hall, and so we set our loads down and waited for him.

But it was not our lord, and I had never seen this man before. From his arms, which were of a new pattern to me, he might be one of the host of Hodulf, as I thought.

“Ho, fisher!” he cried, when he was yet some way from us; “leave your lads, and come hither. I have a word for you.”

He reined up and waited, and now I was sure that he was a Norseman, for his speech was rougher than ours. He was a tall, handsome man enough; but I liked neither his voice nor face, nor did I care to hear Grim, my father, summoned in such wise, not remembering that just now a stranger could not tell that he was aught but a fisher thrall of the jarl’s.

But my father did as he was asked, setting down the nets that he was carrying, and only taking with him the long boathook on which he had slung them as he went forward. I suppose he remembered the old saying, that a man should not stir a step on land without his weapons, as one never knows when there may be need of them; and so, having no other, he took this.

I heard the first questions that the man asked, for he spoke loudly.

“Whose man are you?”

“Sigurd’s,” answered my father shortly.

“Whose are the boats?”

“Mine, seeing that I built them.”

“Why, then, there is somewhat that you can do for me,” the horseman said. “Is your time your own, however?”

“If the jarl needs me not.”

“Tonight, then?”

“I have naught to do after I have carried the nets home.”

“That is well,” said the stranger; and after that he dropped his voice so that I heard no more, but he and my father talked long together.

We waited, and at last the talk ended, and my father came hack to us, while the stranger rode away northward along the sands. Then I asked who the man was, and what he wanted.

“He is some chief of these Norsemen, and one who asks more questions of a thrall, as he thinks me, than he would dare ask Sigurd the jarl, or Grim the merchant either, for that matter.”

Seeing that my father did not wish to say more at this time, we asked nothing else, but went homeward in silence. It seemed as if he was ill at ease, and he went more quickly than was his wont, so that presently Raven and little Withelm lagged behind us with their burdens, for our catch had been a good one.

Then he stopped outside the garth when we reached home, and told me not to go in yet. And when the others came up he said to them, “Do you two take in the things and the fish, and tell mother that Radbard and I have to go down to the ship. There is cargo to be seen to, and it is likely that we shall he late, so bid her not wait up for us.”

Then he told me to come, and we left the two boys at once and turned away towards the haven. There was nothing strange in this, for cargo often came at odd times, and we were wont to work late in stowing it. I did wonder that we had not stayed to snatch a bit of supper, but it crossed my mind that the Norseman had told my father of some goods that had maybe been waiting for the whole day while we were at sea. And then that did not seem likely, for he had taken us for thralls. So I was puzzled, but held my peace until it should seem good to my father to tell me what we were about.

When we reached a place where there was no house very near and no man about, he said to me at last, “What is on hand I do not rightly know, but yon man was Hodulf, the new king, as I suppose we must call him. He would not tell me his name, but I saw him when he and the jarl made terms the other day. Now he has bidden me meet him on the road a mile from the town as soon as it is dark, and alone. He has somewhat secret for me to do.”

“It is a risk to go alone and unarmed,” I answered; “let me go home and get your weapons, for the errand does not seem honest.”

“That is what I think also,” said my father, “and that is why I am going to meet him. It is a bad sign when a king has a secret to share with a thrall, and I have a mind to find out what it is. There may be some plot against our jarl.”

He was silent for a few minutes, as if thinking, and then he went on.

“I cannot take arms, or he would suspect me, and would tell me nothing; but if there is any plotting to be done whereof I must tell the jarl, it will be as well that you should hear it.”

Then he said that he thought it possible for me to creep very close to the place where he was to meet Hodulf, so that I could hear all or most of what went on, and that I might as well be armed in case of foul play, for he did not suppose that the Norseman would think twice about cutting down a thrall who did not please him.

It was almost dark by this time, and therefore he must be going. I was not to go home for arms, but to borrow from Arngeir as we passed his house. And this I did, saying that I had an errand beyond the town and feared prowling men of the Norse host. Which danger being a very reasonable one, Arngeir offered to go with me; and I had some difficulty in preventing him from doing so, for he was like an elder brother to all of us. However, I said that I had no great distance to go, and feigned to be ashamed of myself for my fears; and he laughed at me, and let me go my way with sword and spear and seax[^[4]] also, which last my father would take under his fisher’s jerkin.

I caught up my father quickly, and we went along the sands northwards until we came to the place where we must separate. The road was but a quarter of a mile inland from this spot, for it ran near the shore, and it was not much more than that to the place where Hodulf would be waiting.

“Creep as near as you can,” my father said; “but come to help only if I call. I do not think that I am likely to do so.”

Then we went our ways, he making straight for the road, and I turning to my left a little. It was dark, for there was no moon now, but save that I was soundly scratched by the brambles of the fringe of brushwood that grew all along the low hills of the coast, there was nothing to prevent my going on quickly, for I knew the ground well enough, by reason of yearly bird nesting. When I reached the roadway the meeting place was yet to my left, and I could hear my father’s footsteps coming steadily in the distance. So I skirted the road for a little way, and then came to an open bit of heath and rising land, beyond which I thought I should find Hodulf. Up this I ran quickly, dropping into the heather at the top; and sure enough, in a hollow just off the road I could dimly make out the figure of a mounted man waiting.

Then my father came along the road past me, and I crawled among the tall heather clumps until I was not more than twenty paces from the hollow, which was a little below me.

Hodulf’s horse winded me, as I think, and threw up its head snorting, and I heard its bit rattle. But my father was close at hand, and that was lucky.

“Ho, fisher, is that you?” he called softly.

“I am here,” was the answer, and at once my father came into the hollow from the road.

“Are any folk about?” Hodulf said.

“I have met none. Now, what is all this business?” answered my father.

“Business that will make a free man of you for the rest of your days, and rich, moreover, master thrall,” said Hodulf. “That is, if you do as I bid you.”

“A thrall can do naught else than what he is bidden.”

“Nay, but he can do that in a way that will earn great reward, now and then; and your reward for obedience and silence thereafter in this matter shall be aught that you like to ask.”

“This sounds as if I were to peril my life,” my father said. “I know naught else that can be worth so much as that might be.”

“There is no peril,” said Hodulf scornfully; “your skin shall not be so much as scratched—ay, and if this is well done it will know a master’s dog whip no more.”

I heard my father chuckle with a thrall’s cunning laugh at this, and then he said eagerly, “Well, master, what is it?”

“I will tell you. But first will you swear as on the holy ring that of what you shall do for me no man shall know hereafter?”

“What I do at your bidding none shall know, and that I swear,” answered my father slowly, as if trying to repeat the king’s words.

“See here, then,” said Hodulf, and I heard his armour clatter as he dismounted.

Then the footsteps of both men shuffled together for a little while, and once I thought I heard a strange sound as of a muffled cry, at which Hodulf muttered under his breath. I could see that they took something large from the saddle bow, and set it on the ground, and then they spoke again.

“Have you a heavy anchor?” asked the king.

“A great one.”

“Well, then, tie it to this sack and sink it tonight where tide will never shift it. Then you may come to me and claim what reward you will.”

“Freedom, and gold enough to buy a new boat—two new boats!” said my father eagerly.

Hodulf laughed at that, and got on his horse again. I saw his tall form lift itself against the dim sky as he did so.

“What is in the sack?” asked my father.

“That is not your concern,” Hodulf answered sharply. “If you know not, then you can tell no man, even in your sleep. Put off at once and sink it.”

“It is in my mind,” said my father, “that I had better not look in the sack. Where shall I find you, lord, when the thing is in the sea? For as yet I have not heard your name.”

I think that Hodulf had forgotten that he would have to answer this question, or else he thought that everyone knew him, for he did not reply all at once.

“You may ask the king for your reward,” he said, after a little thought, “for this is his business. Now you know that it will be best for you to be secret and sure. Not much worth will your chance of escape from torture be if this becomes known. But you know also that the reward is certain.”

“The king!” cried my father, with a sort of gasp of surprise.

I could almost think that I saw him staring with mouth agape as would a silly thrall; for so well had he taken the thrall’s part that had I not known who was speaking all the time, I had certainly had no doubt that one was there.

“Come to Hodulf, the king, and pray for freedom and your gold as a boon of his goodness, saying naught else, or making what tale you will of a hard master, or justice, so that you speak naught of what you have done, and that—and maybe more—shall be granted.”

“You yourself will speak for me?”

“I am the king—and think not that the darkness will prevent my knowing your face again,” Hodulf replied.

There was a threat in the words, and with them he turned his horse and rode away quickly northwards. I heard the hoofs of his men’s horses rattle on the road as they joined him, before he had gone far.

When the sounds died away altogether, and there was no fear of his coming back suddenly on us, my father whistled and I joined him. He almost started to find how near I was.

“You have heard all, then?” he said.

“Every word,” I answered, “and I like it not. Where is this sack he spoke of?”

It lay at his feet. A large sack it was, and full of somewhat heavy and warm that seemed to move a little when I put my hand on it. Still less did I like the business as I felt that.

“More also!” quoth my father, as if thinking of the king’s last words. “If that does not mean a halter for my neck, I am mistaken. What have we here, son, do you think?”

“Somewhat that should not be here, certainly,” I answered. “There would not be so much talk about drowning a dog, as one might think this to be.”

“Unless it were his wife’s,” answered my father, with a laugh.

Then he stooped, and I helped him to get the sack on his shoulders. It was heavy, but not very—not so heavy as a young calf in a sack would be; and he carried it easily, taking my spear to help him.

“The thrall is even going to take this to the house of Grim the merchant, whom the king will not know again, though he may see in the dark,” said he; “then we shall know how we stand.”

We met no one on our way back, for the town had gone to sleep, until the watchman passed the time of night with us, thinking no doubt that we had fish or goods in the burden. And when we came home a sleepy thrall opened to us, for all were at rest save him. And he too went his way to the shed where his place was when he had stirred the fire to a blaze and lit a torch that we might see to eat the supper that was left for us.

Then we were alone, and while I set Arngeir’s weapons in a corner, my father put down the sack, and stood looking at it. It seemed to sway a little, and to toss as it settled down. And now that there was light it was plain that the shape of what was inside it was strangely like that of a child, doubled up with knees to chin, as it showed through the sacking.

“Hodulf or no Hodulf,” said my father, “I am going to see more of this.”

With that he took a knife from the table and cut the cord that fastened the mouth, turning back the sack quickly.

And lo! gagged and bound hand and foot in such wise that he could not move, in the sack was a wondrously handsome boy of about the size of Withelm; and for all his terrible journey across the king’s saddle, and in spite of our rough handling, his eyes were bright and fearless as he looked up at us.

“Radbard,” said my father, “what if Hodulf had met with a thrall who had done his bidding in truth?”

I would not think thereof, for surely by this time there had been no light in the eyes that seemed to me to be grateful to us.

Now my father knelt down by the boy’s side, and began to take the lashings from him, telling him at the same time to be silent when the gag was gone.

And hard work enough the poor child had to keep himself from screaming when his limbs were loosed, so cramped was he, for he had been bound almost into a ball. And even as we rubbed and chafed the cold hands and feet he swooned with the pain of the blood running freely once more.

“This is a business for mother,” said my father, on that; “get your supper, and take it to bed with you, and say naught to the boys in the morning. This is a thing that may not be talked of.”

Now I should have liked to stay, but my father meant what he said, and I could be of no more use; so I took my food, and went up to the loft where we three slept, and knew no more of what trouble that night might have for others.

[CHAPTER III.
HAVELOK, SON OF GUNNAR.]

Now after I had gone, Grim, my father, tried to bring the child round, but he could not do so; and therefore, leaving him near the fire, he went softly to call Leva, my mother, to help him; and all the while he was wondering who the child might be, though indeed a fear that he knew only too well was growing in his heart, for there would surely he only one whom Hodulf could wish out of his way.

As he opened the door that led to the sleeping room beyond the high seat, the light shone on Leva, and showed her sitting up in bed with wide eyes that seemed to gaze on somewhat that was terrible, and at first he thought her awake. But she yet slept, and so he called her gently, and she started and woke.

“Husband, is that you?” she said. “I had a strange dream even now which surely portends somewhat.”

Now, as all men know, our folk in the north are most careful in the matter of attending to dreams, specially those that come in troubled times, holding that often warning or good counsel comes from them. I cannot say that I have ever had any profit in that way myself, being no dreamer at all; but it is certain that others have, as may be seen hereafter. Wherefore my father asked Leva what this dream might be.

“In my dream,” she answered, “it seemed that you came into the house bearing a sack, which you gave into my charge, saying that therein lay wealth and good fortune for us. And I would not believe this, for you said presently that to gain this the sack and all that was therein was to be thrown into the sea, which seemed foolishness. Whereon I cast it into a corner in anger, and thereout came pitiful cries and wailings. Then said I that it were ill to drown aught that had a voice as of a child, and so you bade me leave it. Then I seemed to sleep here; but presently in my dream I rose and looked on the sack again, and lo! round about it shone a great light, so that all the place was bright, and I was afraid. Then you came and opened the sack, and therein was a wondrous child, from whose mouth came a flame, as it were the shaft of a sunbeam, that stretched over all Denmark, and across the sea to England, whereby I knew that this child was one who should hereafter be king of both these lands. And on this I stared even as you woke me.”

Now Grim was silent, for this was passing strange, and moreover it fitted with his thought of who this child might be, since Hodulf. would make away with him thus secretly.

“What make you of the dream?” asked Leva, seeing that he pondered on it.

“It is in my mind that your dream will come true altogether, for already it has begun to do so,” he answered. “Rise and come into the hall, and I will show you somewhat.”

On that Leva made haste and dressed and came out, and there, lying as if in sleep before the fire, was the wondrous child of her dream, and the sack was under his head as he lay; and she was wont to say to those few who knew the story, that the kingliness of that child was plain to be seen, as had been the flame of which she had dreamed, so that all might know it, though the clothes that he wore were such as a churl might be ashamed of.

Then she cried out a little, but not loudly, and knelt by the child to see him the better; and whether he had come to himself before and had dropped asleep for very weariness, or out of his swoon had passed into sleep, I cannot say, but at her touch he stirred a little.

“What child is this? and how came he here?” she asked, wondering.

“Already your dream has told you truly how he came,” Grim answered, “but who he is I do not rightly know yet. Take him up and bathe him, wife; and if he is the one I think him, there will be a mark whereby we may know him.”

“How should he be marked? And why look you to find any sign thus?”

But Grim had turned down the rough shirt and bared the child’s neck and right shoulder, whereon were bruises that made Leva well-nigh weep as she saw them, for it was plain that he had been evilly treated for many days before this. But there on the white skin was the mark of the king’s line—the red four-armed cross with bent ends which Gunnar and all his forebears had borne.

Seeing that, Leva looked up wondering in her husband’s face, and he answered the question that he saw written in her eyes.

“He is as I thought—he is Havelok, the son of Gunnar, our king. Hodulf gave him to me that I might drown him.”

Then he told her all that had happened, and how from the first time that he had lifted the sack and felt what was within it he had feared that this was what was being done. Hodulf would have no rival growing up beside him, and as he dared not slay him openly, he would have it thought that he had been stolen away by his father’s friends, and then folk would maybe wait quietly in hopes that he would come again when time went on.

Now Leva bathed Havelok in the great tub, and with the warmth and comfort of the hot water he waked and was well content, so that straightway, when he was dressed in Withelm’s holiday clothes, which fitted him, though he was but seven years old at this time, and Withelm was a well-grown boy enough for his ten winters, he asked for food, and they gave him what was yet on the board; and we lived well in Denmark.

“There is no doubt that he hath a kingly hunger,” quoth Grim as he watched him.

“Friend,” said Havelok, hearing this, though it was not meant for his ears, “it is likely, seeing that this is the third day since I have had food given me. And I thank you, good people, though I would have you know that it is the custom to serve the king’s son kneeling.”

“How should we know that you are the king’s son indeed?” asked Grim.

“I am Havelok, son of Gunnar,” the boy said gravely. “Yon traitor, Hodulf, has slain my father, and my two sisters, and driven out my mother, whither I cannot tell, and now he would drown me.”

Then the boy could hardly keep a brave front any longer, and he added, “Yet I do not think that you will do to me as I heard him bid you.”

Then came over Grim a great pity and sorrow that it should seem needful thus to sue to him, and there grew a lump in his throat, so that for a while he might not answer, and the boy thought him in doubt, so that in his eyes there was a great fear. But Leva wept outright, and threw herself on her knees beside him, putting her arms round him as he sat, speaking words of comfort.

Then Grim knelt also, and said, “Thralls of yours are we, Havelok, son of Gunnar, and for you shall our lives be given before Hodulf shall harm you. Nor shall he know that you live until the day comes when you can go to him sword in hand and helm on head, with half the men of this realm at your back, and speak to him of what he did and what he planned, and the vengeance that shall be therefor.”

So Grim took on himself to be Havelok’s foster-father, and, as he ended, the boy said with glowing eyes, “I would that I were grown up. How long shall this be before it comes to pass?”

And then of a sudden he said, as a tired child will, “Friends, I am sorely weary. Let me sleep.”

So Leva took him in her arms and laid him in their own bed; and at once he slept, so that she left him and came back to Grim by the fireside, for there was much to be said.

First of all it was clear that Havelok must be hidden, and it was not to be supposed that Hodulf would be satisfied until he had seen the thrall to whom he had trusted such a secret come back for his reward. If he came not he would be sought; and then he would find out to whom he had spoken, and there would be trouble enough.

But it seemed easy to hide Havelok on board the ship, and sail with him to England as soon as possible. A few days might well pass before a thrall could get to Hodulf, so that he would suspect nothing just at first. There were merchants in England who would care for the boy well, and the two boats might be sunk, so that the king should not ask whose they were. So when Grim came home again the fisher would be thought of as drowned on his errand, and Hodulf would be content.

But then, after a little talk of this, it was plain that all the town could not be told to say that the fisher was drowned on such a night, and Hodulf would leave naught undone to find the truth of the matter. So the puzzle became greater, and the one thing that was clear was that Grim was in sore danger, and Havelok also.

Then suddenly outside the dogs barked, and a voice which they obeyed quieted them. Grim sprang for his axe, which hung on the wall, and went to the door, whereon someone was knocking gently.

“Open, uncle; it is I, Arngeir.”

“What does the boy want at this time?” said Grim, taking down the great bar that kept the door, axe in hand, for one must be cautious in such times as these.

Arngeir came in—a tall young man of twenty, handsome, and like Grim in ways, for he was his brother’s son.

“Lucky am I in finding you astir,” he said. “I thought I should have had to wake you all. Are you just home from sea, or just going out?”

“Not long home,” answered Leva; “but what has brought you?”

“I have a guest for you, if I may bring one here at this hour.”

“A friend of yours never comes at the wrong time,” Grim said. “Why not bring him in?”

“If it were a friend of mine and a man he would do well enough at my house for the night,” said Arngeir, smiling; “but the one for whom I have come is a lady, and, I think, one in sore trouble.”

“Who is she?” asked my mother, wondering much.

“From the king’s town, certainly,” answered Arngeir, “but I do not know her name. Truth to tell, I forgot to ask it, for she is sorely spent; and so I made haste to come to you.”

Then Leva would know how a lady came at this time to Arngeir’s house, for he was alone, save for his four men, being an orphan without other kin beside us, and his house was close to our shipyard and the sea.

“She came not to me, but I found her,” he replied. “My horse is sick, and I must get up an hour ago and see to it for the second time tonight. Then as I came from the stable I saw someone go towards the shipyard, and, as I thought, into the open warehouse. It was dark, and I could not tell then if this was man or woman; but I knew that no one had business there, and there are a few things that a thief might pick up. So I took an axe and one of the dogs, and went to see what was on hand, but at first there was naught to be found of anyone. If it had not been for the dog, I think that I should have gone away, but he went into the corner where the bales of wool are set, and there he whined strangely, and when I looked, there was this lady on the bales, and she was weeping and sore afraid. So I asked her what was amiss, and it was not easy to get an answer at first. But at last she told me that she had escaped from the burning of the king’s town, and would fain be taken across the sea into some place of peace. So I cheered her by saying that you would surely help her; and then I took her to my house and came to you. Worn and rent are her garments, but one may see that they have been rich, and I deem her some great lady.”

“Go and bring her here, husband,” said my mother, on hearing that.

But he was already going, and at once he and Arngeir went out and down the street. There were many other ladies and their children who had taken refuge here with the townsfolk after the burning, and the coming of this one was but another count in the long tale of trouble that began on the Welsh shore with the ways of Gunnar, the church’s bane.

My father was long gone, and the day was breaking when he came back. My mother slept in the great chair before the fire, for waiting had wearied her, but she woke as she heard Grim’s footstep, and unbarred the door to him, ready to welcome the guest that she looked for. But he was alone, and on his face was the mark of some new trouble, and that a great one.

He came in and barred the door after him, and then sat down wearily and ate for the first time since we had had our meal at sea; and while he did so Leva asked him nothing, wondering what was wrong, but knowing that she would hear in good time. And when he had eaten well he spoke.

“The lady is Eleyn the queen. She has been wandering for these many days from place to place, sometimes in the woods, and sometimes in hiding in the cottages of the poor folk, always with a fear of staying in one place, lest Hodulf should find her, for it is known that he is seeking her. Then at last one told her of my ship, and she is here to seek me.”

Now one may know what the wonder and pity of my mother was, and she would fain have gone to her. But Grim had left her at Arngeir’s house, for folk were stirring in the town, and there were many who would know the queen if they saw her.

“It will soon be known that Arngeir has a guest,” my mother said, “whereas none would have wondered had she been here.”

“By this time tomorrow it will not matter if Hodulf knows,” answered Grim, “for she will be safe.”

“Where will you hide her then and what of Havelok?”

“For those two there is no safety but across the sea, and they are the most precious cargo that I shall ever have carried. Already Arngeir and the men are at work on the ship, getting the rollers under her keel, that she may take the water with the next tide. I shall sail with the tide that comes with the darkness again, saying that I shall find cargo elsewhere in other ports, as I have done once before.”

“I had not looked to say farewell to you quite so soon,” my mother said; “but this is right. Now I will have all things ready, that the queen shall be in what comfort she may on the voyage. But it will be well that none shall know, even of your seamen, who the passengers are, else will word go to Hodulf in some way hereafter that Havelok has escaped.”

“I have thought of that,” answered Grim. “It will be best that none, not even Radbard, shall know who this is whom we have in the house. A chance word goes far sometimes.”

“The boy will tell his name.”

“There are many who are named after him, and that is no matter. Do you speak to him, for it is plain that he has sense enough, and bid him say naught but that he and his mother have escaped from the town, and, if you will, that he escaped in the sack. I will speak to Radbard, and there will be no trouble. Only Arngeir must know the truth, and that not until we are on the high seas perhaps.”

So there seemed to be no more fear, and in an hour the house was astir, and there was work enough for all in preparing for the voyage. As for me, I went down to the ship with my father, and worked there.

Now, I will say that not for many a long year did I know who this foster-brother of mine was. It was enough for me to be told that he was the son of some great man or other with whom Hodulf had a private feud. Nor did I ever speak of that night’s work to any, for my father bade me not to do so. Presently I knew, of course, that the lady was Havelok’s mother; but that told me nothing, for I never heard her name.

We worked at the ship for three hours or so, stowing the bales of wool and the other little cargo we had; and then my father sent me to the fishing-boats for a pair of oars belonging to the ship’s boat that were there, and, as it fell out, it was a good thing that I and not one of the men went. When I came to the place where they were drawn up on the beach, as we had left them last night, there was a stranger talking to some of the fisher folk, who were working at their nets not far off; and though another might have paid no heed to this, I, with the remembrance of last night fresh in my mind, wondered if he was by any chance there on an errand from Hodulf. I thought that, were I he, I should surely send someone to know, at least, if the fisher went out last night after I had spoken with him. So I loitered about until the man went away, which he did slowly, passing close to me, and looking at the boats carefully, as if he would remember them. Then I went and asked the men to whom he had been speaking what he wanted. They said that they wondered that he had not spoken to me, for he had been asking about my father and of his ship, and if he took any passenger with him this voyage. It would seem that he wanted to sail with us, from all he said.

Certainly he had begun by asking whose boats these were, and wondered that a merchant should go fishing at all, when there was no need for him to do so. Also he had asked if Grim had been out last night, and they had of course told him that he had not, for neither boat had been shifted from the berth she had been given when we came in at dusk.

“Ah,” he had said, “well did I wot that your merchant would do no night work,” and so made a jest of the matter, saying that in his country it were below the state of a merchant to have aught to do with a thrall’s work. He was certainly a Norseman, and they thought that I should find him with my father. Now I thought otherwise, and also I saw that all was known. This man was a spy of Hodulf’s, and would go straight back to his master. My father must hear of this at once; and I hurried back to the ship, and took him aside and told him. And as I did so his face grew grey under the tan that sea and wind had given it, and I knew not altogether why.

“Tell Arngeir to come to me,” he said; “I am going to the jarl. Tell no one, but go home and say to mother that I shall be with her in an hour. Then come back and work here.”

Then he and Arngeir went to Sigurd, and told him all from the beginning. And when the jarl heard, he was glad for the safety of the queen and of Havelok, but he said that there was no doubt that Denmark was no place for Grim any longer.

“That is my thought also,” said my father; “but now am I Havelok’s foster-father, and for him I can make a home across the sea, where I will train him up for the time that shall surely come, when he shall return and take his father’s kingdom.”

“That is well,” the jarl said, “but you have little time. What Hodulf will do one cannot say, but he may come here with his men behind him to force me to give you up, and the town will be searched for Havelok, and both he and the queen will be lost.”

“If that is so,” my father answered, “we have time enough. Two hours for the spy to reach his master; one hour for Hodulf to hear him, and to bethink himself; an hour for gathering his men; and four hours, at the least, in which to get here. Eight hours, at the least, have we, and the tide serves in six. I had thought of waiting till dark, but that is of no use now. We may as well go, for there are true men here, who will wait to welcome him who flies when he comes again.”

“This is a sore wrench for you and yours, good friend and faithful,” Sigurd said, “but it must be. Nevertheless I can make your loss as little as it may be. You shall sell all that is yours to me at your own price, that you may have the means to make a new home well, wherever you may choose.”

At first my father would not have that, saying that there would be much trouble on his account presently.

But Sigurd said that, first, the trouble was not of his making at all; and next, that if Hodulf plundered the place, it was as well to send away as much as possible beforehand; and lastly—and this was what touched my father most—that he must think of his charge.

“Why, old friend, you are giving up all for Havelok, as would I. And am I to have no share in the training of him for the days to come?”

Therewith he waited for no more words, but went to his great chest, and took thereout chain after chain of linked gold rings, and put them in a canvas bag, without weighing or counting them, and gave them to Grim.

“Lord, here is enough to buy half the town!” my father said.

“What of that? The town is Havelok’s by right, and maybe you can buy him a village across seas with it. But give me a full quittance for my purchase of your goods and cattle and house, that I may have right to them.”

That Grim did at once, before witnesses who were called in, none wondering that he chose thus to secure his property while he was away, because Hodulf might make demands on it. They did not know that any money changed hands, and thought it formal only, and a wise thing to be done.

After that Grim and Arngeir took leave of the jarl, thanking him, and they went to our house.

There waited my mother anxiously enough, for she knew from my message that there was somewhat new to be told, or my father had not left the ship. Nor do I think that what was to be done was altogether a surprise to her, for she had thought much, and knew the dangers that might crop up. So, being very brave, she strove to make light of the trouble that leaving her home cost her, and set about gathering the few things that she could take.

Now on the hearth sat Withelm, tending the fire, and he heard presently that we were all to go to sea; and that pleased him well, for he had ever longed to sail with his father. As for Havelok, he had waked once, and had well eaten, and now was sleeping again.

Then said Withelm, “When will the sacrifice to Aegir and Ran[^[5]] for luck on the swan’s path be?”

“Scant time have we for that,” my father said, “for tide will not wait.”

“Then,” said the boy, “it were well to take the stone altar with us, and make sacrifice on board. I have heard that Aegir is wrathful and strong.”

Then my father said to Leva, “The boy is right in one thing, and that is, that if we are to make a new home beyond the sea, the blue stones that have belonged to our family since time untold should go with us, else will there be no luck in this flitting.”

“What matter?”

“West they came with us in the days of Odin, and west they shall go with us once more,” my father said.

And there was an end of question on the matter, for presently Arngeir came up with the team of oxen and a sled, and my father hastily cried to Thor as in time of sudden war, and then on the sled they loaded the stones easily. I helped, and it is certain that they were no trouble to uproot or lift, though they were bedded in the ground and heavy. Wherefrom we all thought that the flitting was by the will of the Norns, and likely to turn out well.

But in no way could we lift Thor himself. It was as if he were rooted, and maybe he was so. Therefore we left him, but sadly.

One may suppose that, had any noticed that Grim was taking these sacred things with him, there would have been a talk; but as we sailed light, none thought them aught but needed ballast; and we brought other stones to the ship with them and afterwards.

Of course folk did wonder at this sudden sailing of ours, but my father made no secret of his wish to get out of the way of Hodulf, who had taken the ships of one or two other men elsewhere, so that all thought he feared that his would be the next to be seized, and deemed him prudent in going. As for our own crew, they were told that it was certain that the ship would be taken unless we went on this tide, and so they worked well.

Very early in the morning, and unseen, Arngeir had brought Eleyn, the queen, on board, and she was in the cabin under the raised after deck all the while that the bustle of making ready was going on. Only my father went in there at any time, unless he gave the key to one of us, for there he kept his valuables and the arms.

Presently, when all the men were forward and busy, I got Havelok on board unnoticed. We had kept Withelm running to and fro from ship to house with little burdens all the morning, mightily busy; and then, when the chance came, Havelok in Withelm’s clothes, and with a bundle on his head, came running to me. I waited by the after cabin, and I opened the door quickly and let him in. Then he saw his mother; and how those two met, who had thought each other lost beyond finding, I will not try to say.

I closed the door softly and left them, locking it again, and found Withelm close to me, and Arngeir watching to see that all went well.

Soon after that there came a Norseman, dressed as a merchant, who talked with my father of goods, and lading, and whither he was bound, and the like. When he went away, he thought that he had found out that we were for the Texel, but I do not know that he was from Hodulf. There had been time for him to send a spy in haste, however, if he wished to watch us; but at any rate this man heard naught of our charges.

Then, at the last moment, my mother and the children came on board, and at once we hauled out of the harbour. I mind that an old woman ran along the wharf when she found that all were going, and cried that Dame Leva had not paid for certain fowls bought of her; and my father laughed in lightness of heart, and threw her a silver penny, so that she let us go with a blessing. And after that it did not matter what the people thought of this going of ours, for in an hour we were far at sea with a fair wind on the quarter, heading south at first, that the Norseman might see us, but when the land was dim astern, and there was no more fear, bearing away south and west for the Humber in far-off England.

Now that was the last I saw of Denmark for many a long year, and I knew it must be so. But, as I have told, none but my father and mother, and now Arngeir, knew all that we were carrying with us.

[CHAPTER IV.
ACROSS THE SWAN’S PATH.]

All that night, and during the morning of the next day, we sailed steadily with a fresh northwest breeze that bade fair to strengthen by-and-by. If it held, we should see the cliffs of Northumbria on our bow tomorrow morning, and then would run down the coast to the Humber, where my father meant to put in first. He thought to leave the queen and Havelok with merchants whom he knew in Lindsey, and with them would stay my mother and the little ones while he made a trading voyage elsewhere. There would be time enough to find out the best place in which to make a home when the autumn came, and after he had been to an English port or two that he did not know yet.

When half the morning was past, the sun shone out warmly, and all came on deck from the after cabin, where the ladies and children were. Our men knew by this time that we had passengers, flying like ourselves from Hodulf, and therefore they were not at all surprised to see Havelok and his mother with their mistress. None of them had ever seen either of them before, as it happened, though I do not think that any could have recognized the queen as she was then, wan and worn with the terror of her long hiding. Very silent was she as she sat on deck gazing ever at the long white wake of the ship that seemed to stretch for a little way towards Denmark, only to fade away as a track over which one may never go back. And silent, too, was my mother; but the children, who had no care, were pleased with all things, and Raven and I were full of the ways of old seamen.

So everything went quietly until after we had our midday meal. We were all amidships on the wide deck, except my father and Arngeir, who sat side by side on the steersman’s bench on the high poop. There was no spray coming on board, for we were running, and the ship was very steady. Raven and I were forward with the men, busy with the many little things yet to be done to the rigging and such like that had been left in the haste at last, and there was no thought but that this quiet, save for some shift of wind maybe, would last until we saw the English shore.

Now I do not know if my father had seen aught from the after deck, but presently he came forward, and passed up the steps to the forecastle, and there sat down on the weather rail, looking out to leeward for some time quietly. I thought that maybe he had sighted some of the high land on the Scots coast, for it was clear enough to see very far, and so I went to see also. But there was nothing, and we talked of this and that for ten minutes, when he said, “Look and see if you can catch sight of aught on the skyline just aft of the fore stay as you sit.”

I looked long, and presently caught sight of something white that showed for a moment as we heaved up on a wave, and then was gone.

“Somewhat I saw,” I said, “but it has gone. It might have been the top of a sail.”

Then I caught a glimpse of it again, and my father saw it also, and, as we watched, it hove up slowly until it was plain to be seen. The vessel it belonged to was sailing in such a way as to cross our course in the end, though she was only a few points nearer the wind than we were. It seemed that she was swifter than ourselves, too, from the way she kept her place on our bow. Now a merchant must needs look on every sail with more or less distrust, as there is always a chance of meeting with ship-plundering Vikings, though the best of them will do naught but take toll from a trader on the high seas. So before long all our men were watching the stranger, and soon it was plain that she was a longship, fresh from her winter quarters. We thought, therefore, that she was not likely to trouble about us, having no need of stores as yet, and we being plainly in ballast only. Nor did she alter her course in any way, but mile after mile she sailed with us, always edging up nearer as she went, until at last we could see the men on her bows and the helmsman at his place.

I thought that one could hardly see a more handsome ship than she was, fresh with new paint, and with her dragon head shining golden in the sun. But I had seen her before, and that in no pleasant way. She was the ship of which I have already spoken—that which we beat off two years ago, taking their cargo of plunder by way of amends for being attacked.

There was this difference, however, at that time, that then we had all our men on board, and the Viking was short-handed after a fighting raid, whereas now we had but fifteen men instead of five-and-twenty, because in the hurry we had not had time to summon any who lived beyond the town, and it was plain that the Viking had a full crew, maybe of sixty men.

“It is in my mind,” my father said to Arngeir, “that our old foe will think twice before he attacks us again; but seeing whom we have to deal with, it is as well to be ready. We might keep him off with arrows, if he does not find out how few we are, should he make an attempt on us; but if he boards, we must submit, and make the best bargain we can.”

So he passed word that the men were to lie down on deck, leaving only a few to be seen, that the Viking might think us as he had known us before; and then the arms-chests were opened, and the bows and throwing weapons were set to hand by us boys while the men armed themselves.

Then my father spoke to them, saying, “I do not know if this Viking will pass us by as too hard a nut to crack, seeing that he knows of us already; but if he does not, it will be of no use our trying to fight him, as you can see. I would not waste your lives for naught. But it may be that a show of force will keep him off, so we will wait under arms until we are sure what he will do.”

Then the men broke out, saying that they had beaten this man before with him as leader, and they were in no mind to give up without a fight.

“Well, then,” my father answered, “it is plain that you will back me, and so I will call on you if there is need or chance. But we have the women folk to think of now, and we must not risk aught.”

Now the longship held on her course steadily, never shifting her helm for so much as a point. In half an hour or so we must be alongside one another, at this rate, and that Arngeir did not altogether like the look of, for it would seem as if she meant to find out all about us at least. There was some little sea running, and it might be thought easier to board us on the lee side, therefore. We could not get away from her in any way, for even now, while she was closer hauled than we, she kept pace with us, and had she paid off to the same course as ourselves, she would have left us astern in a very short time.

Presently a man swarmed up her rigging in order to look down on our decks, and as he went up, my father bade our men crawl over to windward, so that he should see all one gunwale lined with men, and so think that both were, and deem that we were setting a trap for them in order to entice them alongside by pretending to be hardly manned. At the same time, he sent the ladies and children into the cabin, so that they might not be seen.

That did not please Havelok at all, for he seemed to scent a fight in the air, and wanted weapons, that he might stand beside the other men, asking for an axe for choice. It was all that I could do to quiet him by saying that if there was any need of him I would call him, but that just now we thought the Vikings would go away if they saw many warriors on deck. Which indeed was all that we hoped, but he thought that would spoil sport, and so hastened into the shelter.

After that there fell a silence on us, for at any moment now we might be hailed by the other ship. And when we were but a bow shot apart the hail came. The two vessels were then broadside on to each other, we a little ahead, if anything. My father was steering now, fully armed, and Arngeir was beside him with myself. I had the big shield wherewith one guards the helmsman if arrows are flying.

The Viking bade us strike sail, and let him come alongside, but my father made no answer. Still we held on, and the Viking paid off a little, as though he were not so sure if it were wise to fall on us, as we showed no fear of him.

Then my father spoke to Arngeir in a stern voice that I had heard only when we met this same ship before.

“This will not last long. If there is one chance for us, it is to run him down and it may be done. Our ship will stand the blow, for these longships are but eggshells beside her. Pass the word for the men to shoot the steersman when I give the word. Then they must run forward, lest the Vikings climb over the bows as we strike her.”

Arngeir’s eyes flashed at that, and at once he went to the men, and there was a click and rattle as the arrows went to string, and they gathered themselves together in readiness to leap up when the word came. There seemed every chance that we should be upon the longship before they knew what we were about, for we had the weather gauge.

Now the Viking hailed again, and again bore up for us a little, whereat my father smiled grimly, for it helped his plan. And this time, as there was no answer, his men sent an arrow or two on board, which did no harm.

“It is plain that we are to be taken,” my father said on that, “so we will wait no longer. Stand by, men, and one lucky shot will do all. Shoot!”

The helm went up as he spoke, and the men leaped to their feet, raining arrows round the two men who were at the helm, and down on the Viking we swept with a great cheer.

But in a moment there were four men on her after deck, and whether the first helmsman was shot I cannot say; but I think not, for quickly as we had borne down on her she was ready, rushing away from us, instead of luffing helplessly, as we had expected. It would almost have seemed that our move had been looked for.

Ten more minutes passed while we exchanged arrow flights, and then the longship had so gained on us that she struck sail and waited for us with her long oars run out and ready.

“That is all we can do,” said my father, with a sort of groan. “Put up your weapons, men, for it is no good fighting now.”

They did so, growling; and as we neared the longship, her oars took the water, and she flew alongside of us, and a grappling hook flung deftly from her bows caught our after gunwale, and at once she dropped astern, and swung to its chain as to a tow line. We were not so much as bidden to strike sail now, and the Vikings began to crowd forward in order to board us by the stern, as the grappling chain was hove short by their windlass.

“Hold on,” my father cried to them “we give up. Where is your chief?”

Now the men were making way for him when a strange thing happened. Out of the after cabin ran Havelok when he heard that word, crying that it was not the part of good warriors to give up while they could wield sword—words that surely he had learned from Gunnar, his father. And after him came his mother, silent, and terrified lest he should be harmed.

Havelok ran up the steps to my father, and the queen followed. I have said that there was a little sea running, and this made the ships jerk and strain at the chain that held them together fiercely, now that it was so short. And even as the queen came to the top step, where there was no rail, for the steps were not amidships, but alongside the gunwale, one of these jerks came; and in a moment she was in the sea, and in a moment also Arngeir was after her, for he was a fine swimmer.

The Vikings cried out as they saw this, but the poor queen said no word, nor did she ever rise again after the first time. It is likely that she was drawn under the longship at once.

So for a little while there was no talk of terms or fighting, but all held their breath as they watched to see if the queen floated alongside anywhere; but there was only Arngeir, who swam under the lee of the Viking, and called to her men for guidance. They threw him a rope’s end as he came to the stern, and he clung to it for a little while, hoping to see the flash of a white hood that the queen wore, over the white wave crests: but at last he gave up, and the Vikings hauled him on board, praising him for his swimming, as he had on his mail.

Then the chief turned to my father, and spoke to him across the few fathoms of water that were between the ships.

“We meet again, Grim, as time comes round; and now I have a mind to let you go, though I have that old grudge against you, for I think that your wife is loss enough.”

“Not my wife, Arnvid, but a passenger—one whom I would not have lost for all that you can take from me.”

“Well, I am glad it is no worse. But it seems that you are in ballast. How comes it that you have no cargo for me, for you owe me one?”

Then my father told him shortly that he had fled from Hodulf; and all those doings were news to the Viking, so that they talked in friendly wise, while the men listened, and the ships crept on together down the wind.

But when all was told, save of the matter of Havelok, and who the lost lady was, the Viking laughed shortly, and said, “Pleasant gossip, Grim, but not business. What will you give us to go away in peace? I do not forget that you all but ran us down just now, and that one or two of us have arrows sticking in us which came from your ship. But that first was a good bit of seamanship, and there is not much harm from the last.”

“Well,” said my father, “it seems to me that you owe me a ship, for it is certain that I once had that one, and gave her back to you.”

The Viking laughed.

“True enough, and therefore I give you back your ship now, and we are quits. But I am coming on board to see what property I can lift.”

My father shrugged his shoulders, and turned away, and at once the Vikings hauled on the chain until their dragon head was against our quarter, when the chief and some twenty of his men came on board. The way in which they took off the hatches without staying to question where they should begin told a tale of many a like plundering.

Then, I do not know how it was rightly, for I was aft with my father, there began a quarrel between the Vikings and our men; and though both Grim and the chief tried to stop it, five of our few were slain outright, and three more badly hurt before it was ended. The rest of our crew took refuge on the fore deck, and there bided after that. The whole fray was over in a few minutes, and it seemed that the Vikings half expected somewhat of the sort.

Then they took all the linen and woollen goods, and our spare sails, and all the arms and armour from the men and from the chests to their own ship. Only they left my father and Arngeir their war gear, saying that it were a shame to disarm two brave men.

Then the chief said, “Little cargo have you, friend Grim, and therefore I am the more sure that you have store of money with you. Even flight from Hodulf would not prevent you from taking that wherewith to trade. So I must have it; and it rests with you whether we tear your ship to splinters in hunting for your hiding place or not.”

“I suppose there is no help for it, but I will say that the most of what I have is not mine,” said my father.

“Why, what matter? When one gives gold into the hands of a seafarer, one has to reckon with such chances as this. You must needs hand it over.”

So, as there was naught else to do, Grim brought out the jarl’s heavy bag, and gave it to the chief, who whistled to himself as he hefted it.

“Grim,” he said, “for half this I would have let you go without sending a man on board. What is this foolishness? You must have known that.”

“The gold is not mine,” my father answered; “it was my hope that you would have been content with the cargo.”

“Well, I have met with an honest man for once,” the Viking said; and he called his men, and they cast off and left us.

But we were in no happy plight when he had gone away to the eastward on his old course. Half our men were gone, for the wounded were of no use, and the loss of the queen weighed heavily on us. And before long it began to blow hard from the north, and we had to shorten sail before there was real need, lest it should be too much for us few presently, as it certainly would have been by the time that darkness fell, for the gale strengthened.

Then, added to all this, there was trouble in the cabin under the after deck, for since his mother was lost, Havelok had spoken no word. I had brought him down to my mother from the deck, and had left him with her, hoping that he did not know what had happened; but now he was in a high fever, and sorely ill. Perhaps he would have been so in any case, after the long days of Hodulf’s cruelty, but he had borne them well. A child is apt, however, to give up, as it were, suddenly.

So, burdened with trouble, we drove before the gale, and the only pleasant thing was to see how the good ship behaved in it, while at least we were on our course all the time. Therefore, one could not say that there was any danger; and but for these other things, none would have thought much of wind or sea, which were no worse than we had weathered many a time before. We had sea room, and no lee shore to fear, and the ship was stanch, and no sailor can ask for more than that.

[CHAPTER V.
STORM AND SHIPWRECK.]

The gale held without much change through the night, and then with morning shifted a few points to the westward, which was nothing to complain of. The sea rose, and a few rain squalls came up and passed; but they had no weight in them, and did not keep the waves down as a steady fall will. And all day long it was the same, and the ship fled ever before it. There was no thought now of reaching any port we might wish, but least of all did we think of making the Lindsey shore, which lies open to the north and east. When the gale broke, we must find harbour where we could; and indeed; to my father at this time all ports were alike, as refuge from Hodulf. When darkness came again one of the wounded men died, and Havelok was yet ill in the after cabin, so that my mother was most anxious for him. The plunging ship was no place for a sick child.

Now it was not possible for us to tell how far we had run since we had parted from the Viking, and all we knew was that we had no shore to fear with the wind as it was, and therefore nothing but patience was needed. But in the night came a sudden lull in the gale that told of a change at hand, and in half an hour it was blowing harder than ever from the northeast, and setting us down to the English coast fast, for we could do naught but run before such a wind. It thickened up also, and was very dark even until full sunrise, so that one could hardly tell when the sun was above the sea’s rim.

I crept from the fore cabin about this time, after trying in vain to sleep, and found the men sheltering under the break of the deck and looking always to leeward. Two of them were at the steering oar with my father, for Arngeir was worn out, and I had left him in the cabin, sleeping heavily in spite of the noise of waves and straining planking. Maybe he would have waked in a moment had that turmoil ceased.

It was of no use trying to speak to the men without shouting in their ears, and getting to windward to do that, moreover, and so I looked round to see if there was any change coming. But all was grey overhead, and a grey wall of rain and flying drift from the wave tops was all round us, blotting out all things that were half a mile from us, if there were anything to be blotted out. It always seems as if there must be somewhat beyond a thickness of any sort at sea. But there was one thing that I did notice, and that was that the sea was no longer grey, as it had been yesterday, but was browner against the cold sky, while the foam of the following wave crests was surely not so white as it had been, and at this I wondered.

Then I crawled aft and went to my father and asked him what he thought of the wind and the chance of its dropping. He had had the lead going for long now.

“We are right off the Humber mouth, to judge by the colour of the water,” he told me, “or else off the Wash, which is more to the south. I cannot tell which rightly, for we have run far, and maybe faster than I know. If only one could see—”

There he stopped, and I knew enough to understand that we were in some peril unless a shift of wind came very soon, since the shore was under our lee now, if by good luck we were not carried straight into the great river itself. So for an hour or more I watched, and all the time it seemed that hope grew less, for the sea grew shorter, as if against tide, and ever its colour was browner with the mud of the Trent and her sisters.

Presently, as I clung to the rail, there seemed to grow a new sound over and amid all those to which I had become used—as it were a low roaring that swelled up in the lulls, and sank and rose again. And I knew what it was, and held up my hand to my father, listening, and he heard also. It was the thunder of breakers on a sandy coast to leeward.

He put his whistle to his lips and called shrilly, and the men saw him if they could not hear, and sprang up, clawing aft through the water that flooded the waist along the rail.

“Breakers to leeward, men,” he cried “we must wear ship, and then shall clear them. We shall be standing right into Humber after that, as I think.”

Arngeir heard the men trampling, if not the whistle, and he was with us directly, and heard what was to be done.

“It is a chance if the yard stands it,” he said, looking aloft.

“Ay, but we cannot chance going about in this sea, and we are too short of men to lower and hoist again. Listen!”

Arngeir did so, and heard for the first time the growing anger of the surf on the shore, and had no more doubt. We were then running with the wind on the port quarter, and it was useless to haul closer to the wind on that tack, whereas if we could wear safely we should be leaving the shore at once by a little closer sailing.

“Ran is spreading her nets,” said Arngeir, “but if all holds, she will have no luck with her fishing.”[^[6]]

Then we manned the main sheet and the guys from the great yards, but we were all too few for the task, which needed every man of the fifteen that we had sailed with. There was the back stay to be set up afresh on the weather quarter for the new tack also, and three men must see to that.

We watched my father’s hand for the word, and steadily sheeted home until all seemed to be going well. But the next moment there was a crash and a cry, and we were a mastless wreck, drifting helplessly. Maybe some flaw of wind took us as the head of the great sail went over, but its power was too much for the men at guys and back stay, and they had the tackle torn through their hands. The mast snapped six feet above the deck, smashing the gunwales as it fell forward and overboard, but hurting none of us.

Then a following sea or two broke over the stern, and I was washed from the poop, for I had been at the sheet, down to the deck, and there saved myself among the fallen rigging, half drowned. One of the men was washed overboard at the same time, but a bight of the rigging that was over the side caught him under the chin, and his mates hauled him on board again by the head, as it were. He was wont to make a jest of it afterward, saying that he was not likely to be hanged twice, but he had a wry neck from that day forward.

No more seas came over us, for the wreck over the bows brought us head to wind, though we shipped a lot of water across the decks as she rolled in the sea. Then we rode to the drag of the fallen sail for a time, and it seemed quiet now that there was no noise of wind screaming in rigging above us. But all the while the thunder of the breakers grew nearer and plainer.

I bided where I was, for the breath was knocked out of me for the moment. I saw my father lash the helm, and then he and the rest got the two axes that hung by the cabin door, and came forward with them. The mast was pounding our side in a way that would start the planking before long, and it must be cut adrift, and by that time I could join him.

When that was done, and it did not take long, we cleared the anchor and cable and let go, for it was time. The sound of the surf was drowning all else. But the anchor held, and the danger was over for the while, and as one might think altogether; but the tide was running against the gale, and what might happen when it turned was another matter.

Now we got the sail on deck again, and unlaced it from the yard, setting that in place with some sort of rigging, ready to be stepped as a mast if the wind shifted to any point that might help us off shore.

It may be thought how we watched that one cable that held us from the waves and the place where they broke, for therein lay our only chance, and we longed for the clear light that comes after rain, that we might see the worst, at least, if we were to feel it. But the anchor held, and presently we lost the feeling of a coming terror that had been over us, the utmost peril being past. My father went to the after cabin now, and though the poor children were bruised with the heavy rolling of the ship as she came into the wind, they were all well save Havelok, and he had fallen asleep in my mother’s arms at last.

With the turn of the tide, which came about three hours after midday, the clouds broke, and slowly the land grew out of the mists until we could see it plainly, though it was hardly higher than the sea that broke over it in whirling masses of spindrift. By-and-by we could see far-off hills beyond wide-stretching marshlands that looked green and rich across yellow sandhills that fringed the shore. And from them we were not a mile, and at their feet were such breakers as no ship might win through, though, if we might wait until they were at rest, the level sand was good for beaching at the neap tides. For we were well into Humber mouth, and to the northward of us, across the yellow water, was the long point of Spurn, and the ancient port of Ravenspur, with its Roman jetties falling into decay under the careless hand of the Saxon, under its shelter. There was no port on this southern side of the Humber, though farther south was Tetney Haven and again Saltfleet, to which my father had been, but neither in nor out of them might a vessel get in a northeast gale.

I have said that this clearness came with the turn of the tide, and now that began to flow strongly, setting in with the wind with more than its wonted force, for the northwest shift of the gale had kept it from falling, as it always will on this coast. That, of course, I learned later, but it makes plain what happened next. Our anchor began to drag with the weight of both tide and wind, and that was the uttermost of our dread.

Slowly it tore through its holding, and as it were step by step at first, and once we thought it stopped when we had paid out all the cable. But wind and sea were too strong, and presently again we saw the shore marks shifting, and we knew that there was no hope. The ship must touch the ground sooner or later, and then the end would come with one last struggle in the surf, and on shore was no man whose hand might be stretched to drag a spent man to the land, if he won through. It would have seemed less lonely had one watched us, but I did not know then that no pity for the wrecked need be looked for from the marshmen of the Lindsey shore. There was not so much as a fisher’s boat of wicker and skins in sight on the sandhills, where one might have looked to see some drawn up.

Now my father went to the cabin and told my mother that things were at their worst, and she was very brave.

“If you are to die at this time, husband,” she said, “it is good that I shall die with you. Better it is, as I think, than a sickness that comes to one and leaves the other. But after that you will go to the place of Odin, to Valhalla; but I whither?”

Then spoke little Withelm, ever thoughtful, and now not at all afraid.

“If Freya wants not a sailor’s wife who is willing to fight the waves with Grim, my father, it will be strange.”

My mother was wont to say that this saying of the child’s did much to cheer her at that time, but there is little place for a woman in the old faiths. So she smiled at him, and that made him bold to speak of what he had surely been thinking since the storm began.

“I suppose that Aegir is wroth because we made no sacrifice to him before we set sail. I think that I would cast the altar stones to him, that he may know that we meant to do so.”

This sounds a child’s thought only, and so it was; but it set my father thinking, and in the end helped us out of trouble.

“I have heard,” my father said, “that men in our case have thrown overboard the high-seat pillars, and have followed them to shore safely. We have none, but the stones are more sacred yet. Overboard they shall go, and as the boat with them goes through the surf we may learn somewhat.”

With that he hastened on deck, and told the men what he would do; and they thought it a good plan, as maybe they would have deemed anything that seemed to call for help from the strong ones of the sea. So they got the boat ready to launch over the quarter, and the four stones, being uncovered since the Vikings took our cargo, were easily got on deck, and they were placed in the bottom of the boat, and steadied there with coils of fallen rigging, so that they could not shift. They were just a fair load for the boat. Then my father cried for help to the Asir, bidding Aegir take the altar as full sacrifice; and when we had done so we waited for a chance as a long wave foamed past us, and launched the boat fairly on its back, so that she seemed to fly from our hands, and was far astern in a moment.

Now we looked to see her make straight for the breakers, lift on the first of them, and then capsize. That first line was not a quarter of a mile from us now.

But she never reached them. She plunged away at first, heading right for the surf, and then went steadily westward, and up the shore line outside it, until she was lost to sight among the wild waves, for she was very low in the water.

“Cheer up, men,” my father said, as he saw that; “we are not ashore yet, nor will be so long as the tide takes that current along shore. We shall stop dragging directly.”

And so it was, for when the ship slowly came to the place where the boat had changed her course, the anchor held once more for a while until the gathering strength of the tide forced it to drag again. Now, however, it was not toward the shore that we drifted, but up the Humber, as the boat had gone; and as we went the sea became less heavy, for we were getting into the lee of the Spurn headland.

Soon the clouds began to break, flying wildly overhead with patches of blue sky and passing sunshine in between them that gladdened us. The wind worked round to the eastward at the same time, and we knew that the end of the gale had come. But, blowing as it did right into the mouth of the river, the sea became more angry, and it would be worse yet when the tide set again outwards. Already we had shipped more water than was good, and we might not stand much more. It seemed best, therefore, to my father that we should try to run as far up the Humber as we might while we had the chance, for the current that held us safe might change as tide altered in force and depth.

So we buoyed the cable, not being able to get the anchor in this sea, and then stepped the yard in the mast’s place, and hoisted the peak of the sail corner-wise as best we might; and that was enough to heel us almost gunwale under as the cable was slipped and the ship headed about up the river mouth. We shipped one or two more heavy seas as she paid off before the wind, but we were on the watch for them, and no harm was done.

After that the worst was past, for every mile we flew over brought us into safer waters; and now we began to wonder where the boat with its strange cargo had gone, and we looked out for her along the shore as we sailed, and at last saw her, though it was a wonder that we did so.

The tide had set her into a little creek that opened out suddenly, and there Arngeir saw her first, aground on a sandbank, with the lift of each wave that crept into the haven she had found sending her higher on it. And my father cried to us that we had best follow her; and he put the helm over, while we sheeted home and stood by for the shock of grounding.

Then in a few minutes we were in a smother of foam across a little sand bar, and after that in quiet water, and the sorely-tried ship was safe. She took the ground gently enough in the little creek, not ten score paces from where the boat was lying, and we were but an arrow flight from the shore. As the tide rose the ship drifted inward toward it, so that we had to wait only for the ebb that we might go dry shod to the land.

Before that time came there was rest for us all, and we needed it sorely. It was a wonder that none of the children had been hurt in the wild tossing of the ship, but children come safely through things that would be hard on a man. Bruised they were and very hungry, but somehow my mother had managed to steady them on the cabin floor, and they were none the worse, only Havelok slept even yet with a sleep that was too heavy to be broken by the worst of the tossing as he lay in my mother’s lap. She could not tell if this heavy sleep was good or not.

Then we saw to the wounded men, and thereafter slept in the sun or in the fore cabin as each chose, leaving Arngeir only on watch. It was possible that the shore folk would be down to the strand soon, seeking for what the waves might have sent them, and the tide must be watched also.

Just before its turn he woke us, for it was needful that we should get a line ashore to prevent the ship from going out with the ebb, and with one I swam ashore. There was not so much as a stump to which to make fast, and so one of the men followed me, and we went to the boat, set the altar stones carefully ashore, then fetched the spare anchor, and moored her with that in a place where the water seemed deep to the bank.

It was a bad place. For when the tide fell, which it did very fast, we found that we had put her on a ledge. Presently therefore, and while we were trying to bail out the water that was in her, the ship took the ground aft, and we could not move her before the worst happened. Swiftly the tide left her, and her long keel bent and twisted, and her planks gaped with the strain of her own weight, all the greater for the water yet in her that flowed to the hanging bows. The good ship might sail no more. Her back was broken.

That was the only time that I have ever seen my father weep. But as the stout timbers cracked and groaned under the strain it seemed to him as if the ship that he loved was calling piteously to him for help that he could not give, and it was too much for him. The gale that was yet raging overhead and the sea that was still terrible in the wide waters of the river had been things that had not moved him, for that the ship should break up in a last struggle with them was, as it were, a fitting end for her. But that by his fault here in the hardly-won haven she should meet her end was not to be borne, and he turned away from us and wept.

Then came my mother and set her hand on his shoulder and spoke softly to him with wise words.

“Husband, but a little while ago it would have been wonderful if there were one of us left alive, or one plank of the ship on another. And now we are all safe and unhurt, and the loss of the ship is the least of ills that might have been.”

“Nay, wife,” he said; “you cannot understand.”

“Then it is woe for the—for the one who is with us. But how had it been if you had seen Hodulf and his men round our house, and all the children slain that one might not escape, while on the roof crowed the red cock, and naught was left to us? We have lost less than if we had stayed for that, and we have gained what we sought, even safety. See, to the shore have come the ancient holy things of our house, and that not by your guidance. Surely here shall be the place for us that is best.”

“Ay, wife; you are right in all these things, but it is not for them.”

Then she laughed a little, forcing herself to do so, as it seemed.

“Why, then, it is for the ship that I was ever jealous of, for she took you away from me. Now I think that I should be glad that she can do so no more. But I am not, for well I know what the trouble must be, and I would have you think no more of it. The good ship has saved us all, and so her work is done, and well done. Never, if she sailed many a long sea mile with you, would anything be worth telling of her besides this. And the burden of common things would surely be all unmeet for her after what she has borne hither.”

“It is well said, Leva, my wife,” my father answered.

From that time he was cheerful, and told us how it was certain that we had been brought here for good, seeing that the Norns[^[7]] must have led the stones to the haven, so that this must be the place that we sought.

[CHAPTER VI.
THE BEGINNING OF GRIMSBY TOWN.]

Easily we went ashore when the tide fell, across the spits of sand that ran between the mud banks, and we climbed the low sandhill range that hid the land from us, and saw the place where we should bide. And it might have been worse; for all the level country between us and the hills was fat, green meadow and marsh, on which were many cattle and sheep feeding. Here and there were groves of great trees, hemmed in with the quickset fences that are as good as stockades for defence round the farmsteads of the English folk, and on other patches of rising ground were the huts of thralls or herdsmen, and across the wide meadows glittered and flashed streams and meres, above which the wildfowl that the storm had driven inland wheeled in clouds. All the lower hills seemed to be wooded thickly, and the alder copses that would shelter boar and deer and maybe wolves stretched in some places thence across the marsh. Pleasant and homely seemed all this after long looking at the restless sea.

Then said my father, “Now am I no longer Grim the merchant, and that pride of mine is at an end. But here is a place where Grim the fisher may do well enough, if I am any judge of shore and sea. Here have we haven for the boats, and yonder swim the fish, and inland are the towns that need them. Nor have we seen a sign of a fisher so far as we have come.”

Now we had been seen as soon as we stood on the sandhills; and before long the herdsman and thralls began to gather to us, keeping aloof somewhat at first, as if fearing my father’s arms. But when we spoke with them we could learn nothing, for they were Welsh marshmen who knew but little of the tongue of their English masters. Serfs they were now in these old fastnesses of theirs to the English folk of the Lindiswaras, who had won their land and called it after their own name, Lindsey.

But before long there rode from one of the farmsteads an Englishman of some rank, who had been sent for, as it would seem, and he came with half a dozen armed housecarls behind him to see what was going on. Him we could understand well enough, for there is not so much difference between our tongue and that of the English; and when he learned our plight he was very kindly. His name was Witlaf Stalling, and he was the great man of these parts, being lord over many a mile of the marsh and upland, and dwelling at his own place, Stallingborough, some five miles to the north and inland hence.

Now it had been in this man’s power to seize us and all we had as his own, seeing that we were cast on his shore; but he treated us as guests rather, bidding us shelter in one of his near farmsteads as long as we would, and telling my father to come and speak with him when we had saved what we could from the wreck. He bade the thralls help at that also, so that we had fallen in with a friend, and our troubles were less for his kindness.

We saved what cargo we had left during the next few days, while we dwelt at the farm. Then at the height of the spring tides the ship broke up, for a second gale came before the sea that the last had raised was gone. And then I went with my father to speak with Witlaf the thane at Stallingborough, that we might ask his leave to make our home on the little haven, and there become fishers once more.

That he granted readily, asking many questions about our troubles, for he wondered that one who had owned so good a ship seemed so content to become a mere fisher in a strange land, without thought of making his way home. But all that my father told him was that he had had to fly from the new king of our land, and that he had been a fisher before, so that there was no hardship in the change.

“Friend Grim,” said Witlaf when he had heard this, “you are a brave man, as it seems to me, and well may you prosper here, as once before. I will not stand in your way. Now, if you will hold it from me on condition of service in any time of war, to be rendered by yourself and your sons and any men you may hire, I will grant you what land you will along the coast, so that none may question you in anything. Not that the land is worth aught to any but a fisher who needs a place for boats and nets; but if you prosper, others will come to the place, and you shall be master.”

One could hardly have sought so much as that, and heartily did we thank the kindly thane, gladly taking the fore shore as he wished. But he said that he thought the gain was on his side, seeing what men he had won.

“Now we must call the place by a name, for it has none,” he said, laughing. “Grim’s Stead, maybe?”

“Call the place a town at once,” answered my father, laughing also. “Grimsby has a good sound to a homeless man.”

So Grimsby the place has been from that day forward, and, as I suppose, will be now to the end of time. But for a while there was only the one house that we built of the timbers and planks of our ship by the side of the haven—a good house enough for a fisher and his family, but not what one would look for from the name.

By the time that was built Havelok was himself again, though he had been near to his death. Soon he waxed strong and rosy in the sea winds, and out-went Withelm both in stature and strength. But it seemed that of all that had happened he remembered naught, either of the storm, or of his mother’s death, or of the time of Hodulf. My mother thought that the sickness had taken away his memory, and that it might come back in time. But from the day we came to the house on the shore he was content to call Grim and Leva father and mother, and ourselves were his brothers, even as he will hold us even now. Yet my father would never take him with us to the fishing, as was right, seeing who he was and what might lie before him. Nor did he ever ask to go, as we had asked since we were able to climb into the boat as she lay on the shore; and we who knew not who he was, and almost forgot how he came to us, ceased to wonder at this after a while; and it seemed right that he should be the home-stayer, as if there must needs be one in every household.

Nevertheless he was always the foremost in all our sports, loving the weapon play best of all, so that it was no softness that kept him from the sea. I hold that the old saw that says, “What is bred in the bone cometh out in the flesh,” is true, and never truer than in the ways of Havelok.

For it is not to be thought that because my father went back perforce to the fisher’s calling he forgot that the son of Gunnar Kirkeban should be brought up always in such wise that when the time came he should be ready to go to the slayer of his father, sword in hand, and knowing how to use it. Therefore both Havelok and we were trained always in the craft of the warrior.

Witlaf the thane was right when he said that men would draw to the place if we prospered, and it was not so long before the name that had been a jest at first was so no longer. Truly we had hard times at first, for our one ship’s boat was all unfitted for the fishing; but the Humber teemed with fish, and there were stake nets to be set that need no boat. None seemed to care for taking the fish but ourselves, for the English folk had no knowledge of the riches to be won from the sea, and the eels of the river were the best that they ever saw. So they were very ready to buy, and soon the name of Grim the fisher was known far and wide in Lindsey, for my father made great baskets of the willows of the marsh, and carried his burden of fish through the land, alone at first, until we were able to help him, while Arngeir and we minded the nets.

Only two of our men stayed here with us, being fishers and old comrades of my father. The rest he bade find their way home to Denmark to their wives and children, from the Northumbrian coast, or else take service with the king, Ethelwald, who ruled in East Anglia, beyond the Wash, who, being a Dane by descent from the Jutes who took part with Angles and Saxons in winning this new land, was glad to have Danish men for his housecarls. Some went to him, and were well received there, as we knew long afterwards.

The man who had been washed overboard and hauled back at risk of his neck was one of these. His name was Mord, and he would have stayed with us; but my father thought it hard that he should not have some better chance than we could give him here, for it was not easy to live at first. Somewhat of the same kind he said to Arngeir, for he had heard of this king when he had been in the king’s new haven in the Wash some time ago. But Arngeir would by no means leave the uncle who had been as a father to him.

Now when we marked out the land that Witlaf gave us, there was a good omen. My father set the four blue altar stones at each corner of the land as the boundaries, saying that thus they would hallow all the place, rather than make an altar again of them here where there was no grove to shelter them, or, indeed, any other spot that was not open, where a holy place might be. And when we measured the distances between them a second time they were greater than at first, which betokens the best of luck to him whose house is to be there. I suppose that they will bide in these places now while Grimsby is a town, for, as every one knows, it is unlucky to move a boundary stone.

Soon my father found a man who had some skill in the shipwright’s craft, and brought him to our place from Saltfleet. Then we built as good a boat as one could wish, and, not long after that, another. But my father was careful that none of the Lindsey folk whom he had known should think that this fisher was the Grim whom they had once traded with, lest word should go to Hodulf in any way.

Now we soon hired men to help us, and the fishing throve apace. We carried the fish even to the great city of Lincoln, where Alsi the Lindsey king had his court, though it was thirty miles away. For we had men in the villages on the road who took the great baskets on from one to another, and always Grim and one of us were there on the market day, and men said that never had the town and court seen such fish as Grim’s before. Soon, therefore, he was rich, for a fisher; and that was heard of by other fishers from far off, and they drew to Grimsby, so that the town spread, and Witlaf the good thane said that it was a lucky day which drove us to his shore, for he waxed rich with dues that they were willing to pay. We built boats and let them out to these men, so that one might truly say that all the fishery was Grim’s.

Then a trading ship put in, hearing of the new haven, and that was a great day for us. But her coming made my father anxious, since Hodulf was likely to seek for news of Grim the merchant from any who had been to England; and hearing at last of him, he would perhaps be down on us, Vikingwise, with fire and sword. But after that traders came and went, and we heard naught of him except we asked for news; for he left us in peace, if he knew that his enemy lived yet. Men said that he was not much loved in Denmark.

So the town grew, and well did we prosper, so that there is naught to be said of any more trouble, which is what my story seems to be made up of so far. Yet we had come well through all at last; and that, I suppose, is what makes the tale of any man worth hearing.

Twelve years went all well thus, and in those years Havelok came to manhood, though not yet to his full strength. What that would be in a few more summers none could tell, for he was already almost a giant in build and power, so that he could lift and carry at once the four great fish baskets, which we bore one at a time when full of fish, easily, and it was he who could get a stranded boat afloat when we could hardly move her between us, though all three of us were strong as we grew up.

Very handsome was Havelok also, and, like many very strong men, very quiet. And all loved him, from the children who played along the water’s edge to the oldest dame in the town; for he had a good word for all, and there was not one in the place whom he had not helped at one time or another. More than one there was who owed him life—either his own, or that of a child saved from the water.

Most of all Havelok loved my father; and once, when he was about eighteen, he took it into his head that he was burdensome to him by reason of his great growth. So nothing would satisfy him but that he must go with us to the fishing, though it was against Grim’s will somewhat. But he could make no hand at it, seeing that he could pull any two of us round if he took an oar, and being as likely as not to break that moreover. Nor could he bear the quiet of the long waiting at the drift nets, when hour after hour of the night goes by in silence before the herring shoal comes in a river of blue and silver and the buoys sink with its weight; rather would he be at the weapon play with the sons of Witlaf, our friend, who loved him.

But though the fishing was not for him, after a while he would not be idle, saying, when my father tried to persuade him to trouble not at all about our work, that it was no shame for a man to work, but, rather, that he should not do so. So one day he went to the old Welsh basket maker who served us, and bade him make a great basket after his own pattern, the like of which the old man had never so much as thought of.

“Indeed, master,” he said, when it was done, “you will never be able to carry so great a load of fish as that will hold.”

“Let us see,” quoth Havelok, laughing; and with that he put him gently into it, and lifted him into the air, and on to his mighty shoulder, carrying him easily, and setting him down in safety.

The basket maker was cross at first, but none was able to be angry with Havelok long, and he too began to smile.

“It is ‘curan’ that you are, master,” he said; “not even Arthur himself could have done that.”

“Many times have I heard your folk call me that. I would learn what it means,” said Havelok.

But the old man could hardly find the English word for the name, which means “a wonder,” and nothing more. Nevertheless the marsh folk were wont to call their friend “Hablok Curan” in their talk, for a wonder he was to all who knew him.

So he came home with his great basket, and said, “Here sit I by the fire, eating more than my share, and helping to win it not at all. Now will I make amends, for I will go the fisher’s rounds through the marshlands with my basket, and I think that I shall do well.”

Now my father tried to prevent him doing this, because, as I know now, it was not work for a king’s son. But Havelok would not be denied.

“Fat and idle am I, and my muscles need hardening,” he said. “Let me go, father, for I was restless at home.”

So from that time he went out into the marshland far and wide, and the people grew to know and love him well. Always he came back with his fish sold, and gave money and full account to my father, and mostly the account would end thus:

“Four fish also there were more, but the burden was heavy, and so I even gave them to a certain old dame.”

And my mother would say, “It is likely that the burden was lighter for her blessing.”

And, truly, if the love of poor folk did help, Havelok’s burden weighed naught, great though it was.

Yet we thought little of the blessings of the Welsh folk of the marsh in those days, for they blessed not in the names of the Asir, being sons of the British Christians of long ago, and many, as I think, Christians yet. Witlaf and all the English folk were Odin’s men, as we were, having a temple at the place called Thor’s Way, among the hills. But we had naught to do with the faith of the thralls, which was not our business. Only Withelm was curious in the matter, and was wont to ask them thereof at times, though at first they feared to tell him anything, seeing how the Saxons and English had treated the Christian folk at their first coming. But that was forgotten now, by the English at least, and times were quiet for these poor folk. There was a wise man, too, of their faith, who lived in the wild hills not far from the city, and they were wont to go to him for advice if they needed it. They said also that the king of Lindsey had once been a Christian, for he was Welsh by birth on his mother’s side, and had been so brought up. It is certain that his sister Orwenna, who married Ethelwald of East Anglia, was one, but I have seen Alsi the king at the feasts of the Asir at Thor’s Way when Yuletide was kept, so it is not so certain about him. He had many Welsh nobles about him at the court, kinsmen of his mother mostly, so that it did not seem strange, though there is not much love lost between the English and the folk whom they conquered, as one might suppose.

Now, as I have said, none but Withelm thought twice about these things; but in the end the love of the marsh folk was a thing that was needed, and that Withelm had learned somewhat of their faith was the greatest help that could be, as will be seen.

[CHAPTER VII.
BROTHERHOOD.]

True are the words of the Havamal, the song of the wisdom of Odin, which say, “One may know and no other, but all men know if three know.”

Therefore for all these years my father told none of us the secret of Havelok’s birth; and when Arngeir married my sister Solva he made him take oath that he would not tell what he knew to her, while she, being but a child at the time of the flight, had forgotten how this well-loved brother of hers came to us. But it happened once that Grim was sick, and it seemed likely that he would die, so that this secret weighed on him, and he did not rightly know what to do for the best, Havelok at the time being but seventeen, and the time that he should think of his own place not being yet come. At that time he told Arngeir all that he foresaw, and set things in order, that we three should not be backward when need was.

He called us to him, Havelok not being present, and spoke to us.

“Sons,” he said, “well have you all obeyed me all these years, and I think that you will listen to me now, for I must speak to you of Havelok, who came to us as you know. Out of his saving from his foes came our flight here; and I will not find fault with any of the things that happened, for they have turned out well, save that it seems that I may never see the land of my birth again, and at times I weary for it. For me Denmark seems to lie within the four square of the ancient stones; but if you will do my bidding, you and Havelok shall see her again, though how I cannot tell.”

Then I could hardly speak for trouble, but Withelm said softly, “As we have been wont to do, father, so it shall be.”

“Well shall my word be kept, therefore,” Grim said, smiling on us. “Listen, therefore. In the days to come, when time is ripe, Arngeir shall tell you more of Havelok your foster-brother, and there will be signs enough by which he shall know that it is time to speak. And then Havelok will need all the help that you can give him; and as your lord shall you serve him, with both hands, and with life itself if need be. And I seem to see that each of you has his place beside him—Radbard as his strong helper, and Raven as his watchful comrade, and Withelm as his counsellor. For ‘Bare is back without brother behind it,’ son Radbard and ‘Ere one goes out, give heed to the doorways,’ son Raven; and ‘Wisdom is wanted by him who fares widely’ son Withelm. So say the old proverbs, and they are true. No quarreller is Havelok; but if he must fight, that will be no playground. Careful is he; but he has met with no guile as yet, and he trusts all men. Slow to think, if sure, are so mighty frames as his becomes, even when quick wit is needed.”

He was silent for a while, and I thought that he had no more to say, and I knew that he had spoken rightly of what each was best fitted for, but he went on once more.

“This is my will, therefore, that to you shall Havelok be as the eldest brother from this time forward, that these places shall not have to come suddenly to you hereafter. Then will you know that I have spoken rightly, though maybe it seems hard to Radbard and Raven now, they being so much older.”

Then I said truly that already Havelok was first in our hearts. And that was true, for he was as a king among us—a king who was served by all with loving readiness, and yet one who served all. Maybe that is just what makes a good king when all is said and done.

Then my father bade us carry him out of the house and down to the shore where there was a lonely place in the sandhills, covered with the sweet, short grass that the sheep love; and, while Raven and I bore him, Withelm went and brought Havelok.

“This is well, father,” he said gladly. “I had not thought you strong enough to come thus far.”

“Maybe it is the last time that I come living out of the house,” Grim said; “but there is one thing yet to be done, and it must be done here. See, son Havelok, these are your brothers in all but blood, and they must be that also in the old Danish way.”

“Nothing more is needed, father,” Havelok said, wondering. “I have no brothers but these of mine, and they could be no more so.”

Thereat my father smiled, as well content, but he said that the ancient way must he kept.

“But I am sorely weak,” he added. “Fetch hither Arngeir.”

It was because of this illness that none of us were at the fishing on that day, and Arngeir was not long in coming. And while we waited for that little while my father was silent, looking ever northward to the land that he had given up for Havelok; and I think that foster-son of his knew it, for he knelt beside him and set his strong arm round him, saying nothing. So Arngeir came with Raven, who went for him, and my father told him what he needed to be done; and Arngeir said that it was well thought of, and went to work with his seax on the smooth turf.

He cut a long strip where it seemed to be toughest, leaving the ends yet fast, and carefully he raised it and stretched it until it would make an arch some three spans high, and so propped it at either end with more turf that it stayed in that position.

Then my father said, “This is the old custom, that they who are of different family should be brothers indeed. Out of one earth should they be made afresh, as it were, that on the face of earth they shall be one. Pass therefore under the arch, beginning with Havelok.”

Then, while my father spoke strange and ancient runes, Havelok did as he was bidden, kneeling down and creeping under the uplifted turf; and as I came after him he gave me his hand and raised me, and so with each of the other two. And then, unbidden, Arngeir followed, for he too loved Havelok, and would fain be his brother indeed.

After that my father took a sharp flint knife that he had brought with him, and with it cut Havelok’s arm a little, and each of us set his lips to that wound, and afterwards he to the like marks in our right arms, and so the ancient rite was complete.

Yet it had not been needed, as I know, for not even I ever thought of him but as the dearest of brothers, though I minded how he came.

Now after this my father grew stronger, maybe because this was off his mind; but he might never go to sea again, nor even to Lincoln town, for he was not strong enough. What his illness was I do not rightly know, hut I do not think that any one here overlooked him, though it might be that from across the sea Hodulf had power to work him harm. It was said that he had Finnish wizards about his court; but if that was so, he never harmed the one whom he had most to fear—even Havelok. But then I suppose that even a Finn could not harm one for whom great things are in store.

So two years more passed over, and then came the time of which one almost fears to think—the time of the great famine. Slowly it came on the land; but we could see it coming, and the dread of it was fearsome, but for the hope that never quite leaves a man until the end. For first the wheat that was winter sown came not up but in scattered blades here and there, and then ere the spring-sown grain had lain in the land for three weeks it had rotted, and over the rich, ploughed lands seemed to rise a sour smell in the springtime air, when one longs for the sweetness of growing things. And then came drought in April, and all day long the sun shone, or if it were not shining the clouds that hid it were hard and grey and high and still over land and sea.

Then before the marsh folk knew what they were doing, the merchants of Lincoln had bought the stored corn, giving prices that should have told men that it was precious to those who sold as to the buyers; and then the grass failed in the drought, and the farmers were glad to sell the cattle and sheep for what they could gain, rather than see them starve.

Then my father bade us dry and store all the fish we might against the time that he saw was coming, and hard we worked at that. And even as we toiled, from day to day we caught less, for the fish were leaving the shores, and we had to go farther and farther for them, until at last a day came when the boats came home empty, and the women wept at the shore as the men drew them up silently, looking away from those whom they could feed no longer.

That was the worst day, as I think, and it was in high summer. I mind that I went to Stallingborough that day with the last of the fresh fish of yesterday’s catch for Witlaf’s household, and it was hotter than ever; and in all the orchards hung not one green apple, and even the hardy blackberry briers had no leaves or sign of blossom, and in the dikes the watercress was blackened and evil to see.

But I will say that in Grimsby we felt not the worst, by reason of that wisdom of my father, and always Witlaf and his house shared with us. Hard it was here, but elsewhere harder.

And then came the pestilence that goes with famine always. I have heard that men have prayed to their gods for that, for it has seemed better to them to die than live.

With the first breath of the pestilence died Grim my father, and about that I do not like to say much. He bade us remember the words he had spoken of Havelok our brother, and he spoke long to Arngeir in private of the same; and then he told us to lay him in mound in the ancient way, but with his face toward Denmark, whence we came. And thereafter he said no more, but lay still until there came up suddenly through the thick air a thunderstorm from the north; and in that he passed, and with his passing the rain came.

Thereof Withelm said that surely Odin fetched him, and that at once he had made prayer for us. But the Welsh folk said that not Odin but the White Christ had taken the man who had been a father to them, and had staved off the worst of the famine from them.

Then pined and died my mother Leva, for she passed in her sleep on the day before we made the mound over her husband, and so we laid them in it together, and that was well for both, as I think, for so they would have wished.

So we made a great bale fire over my father’s mound, where it stood over the highest sandhill; and no warrior was ever more wept, for English and Welsh and Danes were at one in this. We set his weapons with him, and laid him in the boat that was the best—and a Saxon gave that—and in it oars and mast and sail, and so covered him therein. And so he waits for the end of all things that are now, and the beginning of those better ones that shall be.

That thunderstorm was nothing to the land, for it skirted the shores and died away to the south, and after it came the heat again; but at least it brought a little hope. There were fish along the shore that night, too, if not many; and though they were gone again in the morning, there was a better store in every house, for men were mindful of Grim’s teaching.

Now, of all men, Havelok seemed to feel the trouble of the famine the most, because he could not bear to see the children hungry in the cottages of the fishers. It seemed to him that he had more than his share of the stores, because so mighty a frame of his needed feeding mightily, as he said. And so for two days after my father died and was left in his last resting, Havelok went silent about the place. Here by the shore the pestilence hardly came, and so that trouble was not added to us, though the weak and old went, as had Grim and Leva, here and there.

Then, on the third day, Havelok called Arngeir and us, and spoke what was in his mind.

“Brothers, I may not bear this any longer, and I must go away. I can do no more to help than can the weakest in the town; and even my strength is an added trouble to those who have not enough without me. Day by day grows the store in the house less; and it will waste more slowly if I am elsewhere.”

Then Arngeir said quickly, “This is foolishness, Havelok, my brother. Whither will you go? For worse is the famine inland; and I think that we may last out here. The fish will come back presently.”

“I will go to Lincoln. All know that there is plenty there, for the townsfolk were wise in time. There is the court, and at the court a strong man is likely to be welcome, if only as one who shall keep the starving poor from the doors, as porter.”

He spoke bitterly, for Alsi, the king, had no good name for kindness, and at that Withelm laughed sadly.

“Few poor would Havelok turn away,” he said, under his breath; “rather were he likely to take the king’s food from the very board, and share it among them.”

That made us laugh a little, for it was true enough; and one might seem to see our mighty one sweeping the table, while none dared try to stay him.

But many times of late Havelok had gone dinnerless, that he might feed some weak one in the village. Maybe some of us did likewise; but, if so, we learned from him.

“Well, then,” Havelok said, when we had had our wretched laugh, “Alsi, the king, can better afford to feed me than can anyone else. Therefore, I will go and see about it. And if not the king, then, doubtless, some rich merchant will give me food for work, seeing that I can lift things handily. But Radbard here is a great and hungry man also, and it will be well that he come with me; or else, being young and helpless, I may fall into bad hands.”

So he spoke, jesting and making little of the matter. But I saw that he was right, and that we who were strong to take what might come should go away. It was likely that a day of our meals would make a week’s fare for Arngeir’s three little ones, and they were to be thought for.

Now for a little while Arngeir tried to keep us back; but it was plain that he knew also that our going was well thought of, and only his care for Havelok stood in the way. Indeed, he said that I and Raven might go.

“Raven knows as much about the fish as did our father,” Havelok said. “He will go out in the morning, and look at sky and sea, and sniff at the wind; and if I say it will be fine, he says that the herrings will be in such a place; and so they are, while maybe it rains all day to spite my weather wisdom. You cannot do without Raven; for it is ill to miss any chance of the sea just now. Nor can Withelm go, for he knows all in the place, and who is most in want. It will not do to be without house steward. So we two will go. Never have I been to Lincoln yet, and Radbard knows the place well.”

I think that I have never said that Grim would never take Havelok to the city, lest he should be known by some of the Danish folk who came now and then to the court, some from over seas, and others from the court of King Ethelwald, of whom I have spoken, the Norfolk king. But that danger was surely over now, for Havelok would be forgotten in Denmark; and Ethelwald was long dead, and his wife also, leaving his daughter Goldberga to her uncle Alsi, as his ward. So Alsi held both kingdoms until the princess was of age, when she would take her own. It was said that she lived at Dover until that time, and so none of her Danes were likely to be at court if we went there and found places.

So Havelok’s plan was to be carried out, and he and I were to set forth next morning. Arngeir was yet uneasy about it, nevertheless, as one could see; but I did not at that time know why it should be so doubtful a matter that two strong men should go forth and seek their fortune but thirty miles away. So we laughed at him.

“Well,” he said, “every one knows Radbard; but they will want to know who his tall comrade may be. Old foes has Havelok, as Radbard knows, and therefore it may be well to find a new name for him.”

“No need to go far for that,” Withelm said. “The marsh folk call him Curan.”

“Curan, the wonder, is good,” Arngeir said, after a little thought, for we all knew Welsh enough by this time. “Or if you like a Danish name better, brother, call it ‘Kwaran,’ but silent about yourself you must surely be.”

We used to call him that at times—for it means “the quiet” in our old tongue—seeing how gentle and courtly he was in all his ways. So the name was well fitting in either way.

“Silent and thoughtful should the son of a king be,” says the Havamal, and so it was with Havelok, son of Gunnar.

Now when I came to think, it was plain that we three stood in the mind of our brother in the place which my father had boded for us, and I was glad. Well I knew that Raven, the watchful, and Withelm, the wise and thoughtful, would do their parts; and I thought that whether I could do mine was to be seen very shortly. If I failed in help at need it should not be my fault. It had been long growing in my mind who Havelok must be, though I said nothing of what I thought, because my father had bidden me be silent long ago, and I thought that I knew why.

We were to start early in the morning, so that we should get to the city betimes in the evening; and there was one thing that troubled the good sisters more than it did us. They would have had us go in all our finery, such as we were wont to wear on holidays and at feastings; but none of that was left. It had gone in buying corn, while there was any left to buy, along with every silver penny that we had. So we must go in the plain fisher gear, that is made for use and not for show, frayed and stained, and a trifle tarry, but good enough. It would not do to go in our war gear into a peaceful city; and so we took but the seax that every Englishman wears, and the short travelling spear that all wayfarers use. Hardly was it likely that even the most hungry outlaw of the wild woldland would care to fall on us; for by this time such as we seemed had spent their all in food for themselves and their families, and all the money in Lindsey seemed to have gone away to places where there was yet somewhat to buy.

Busy were those kind sisters of ours that night in making ready the last meal that we should need to take from them. And all the while they foretold pleasant things for us at the king’s court—how that we should find high honour and the like. So they set us forth well and cheerfully.

With the dawn we started, and Havelok was thoughtful beyond his wont after we had bidden farewell to the home folk, so that I thought that he grieved for leaving them at the last.

“Downhearted, are you, brother?” I said, when we had gone a couple of miles in silence across the level. “I have been to Lincoln two or three times in a month sometimes in the summer, and it is no great distance after all. I think nothing of the journey, or of going so short a way from home.”

“Nor do I,” he answered. “First, I was thinking of the many times my father, Grim, went this way, and now he can walk no more; and then I was thinking of that empty cottage we passed just now, where there was a pleasant little family enough three months ago, who are all gone. And then—ay, I will tell you—I had a dream last night that stays in my mind, so that I think that out of this journey of ours will come somewhat.”

“Food and shelter, to wit,” said I, “which is all we want for a month or two. Let us hear it.”

“If we get all that I had in that dream, we shall want no more all our lives,” he said, with a smile; “but it seems a foolish dream, now that I come to tell it.”

“That is mostly the way with dreams. It is strange how wonderful they seem until daylight comes. I have heard Witlaf’s gleeman say that the best lays he ever made were in his sleep; but if he remembered aught of them, they were naught.”

“It is not like that altogether with my dream,” Havelok said, “for it went thus. I thought that I was in Denmark—though how I knew it was Denmark I cannot say—and on a hill I sat, and at my feet was stretched out all the land, so that I could see all over it at once. Then I longed for it, and I stretched out my arms to gather it in, and so long were they that they could well fathom it, and so I drew it to myself. With towns and castles it was gathered in, and the keys of the strongholds fell rattling at my feet, while the weight of the great land seemed to lie on my knees. Then said one, and the voice was the voice of Grim, ‘This is not all the dream that I have made for you, but it is enough for now.’ That is the dream, therefore, and what make you of it?”

“A most amazing hunger, brother, certainly, and promise of enough to satisfy it withal. I think that the sisters have talked about our advancement at court until you have dreamed thereof.”

“Why,” he said, “that is surely at the bottom of the dream, and I am foolish to think more of it.”

Then we went on, and grew light hearted as the miles passed. But though I had seemed to think little of the dream, it went strangely with my thoughts of what might lie before Havelok in days to come.

As we went inland from the sea, the track of the pestilence was more dread, for we passed house after house that had none living in them, and some held the deserted dead. I might say many things of what we saw, but I do not like to think of them much. Many a battlefield have I seen since that day, but I do not think them so terrible as the field over which has gone the foe that is unseen ere he smites. One knows the worst of the battle when it is over and the roll is called, but who knows where famine and pestilence stay? And those have given life for king or land willingly, but these were helpless.

It was good to climb the welds and look back, for in the high lands there was none of this. Below us the levels, with their bright waters, were wrapped in a strange blue haze, that had come with the famine at its worst, and, as men said, had brought or made the sickness. I had heard of it; but it was not so plain when one was in it, or else our shore was free, which is likely, seeing how little we suffered.

After that we kept to the high land, not so much fearing the blue robe of the pestilence as what things of its working we might see; and so it was late in the afternoon that we came in sight of Lincoln town, on its hill, with the wide meres and river at its feet. I have seen no city that stands more wonderfully than this of ours, with the grey walls of the Roman town to crown the gathering of red and brown roofs that nestle on the slope and within them. And ever as we drew nearer Havelok became more silent, as I thought because he had never seen so great a town before, until we passed the gates of the stockade that keeps the town that lies without the old walls, and then he said, looking round him strangely, “Brother, you will laugh at me, no doubt, for an arrant dreamer, but this is the place whereto in dreams I have been many a time. Now we shall come to yon turn of the road among the houses, and beyond that we shall surely see a stone-arched gate in a great wall, and spearmen on guard thereat.”

It was so, and the gate and guard were before us in a few more steps. It was the gate of the old Roman town, inside which was the palace of the king and one or two more great houses only. Our English kin hate a walled town or a stone house, and they would not live within the strong walls, whose wide span was, save for the king’s palace, which was built partly of the house of the Roman governor, and these other halls, which went for naught in so wide a meadow, empty and green, and crossed by two paved roads, with grass growing between the stones. There were brown marks, as of the buried stones of other foundations, on the grass where the old streets had been.

All the straggling English town was outside the walls, and only in time of war would the people use them as a stronghold, as they used the still more ancient camps on the hills.

“Many times have you heard us tell of this place, Havelok,” I said. “It is no wonder that you seem to know it.”

“Nay,” he answered, “but this is the city of my dreams, and somewhat is to happen here.”

[CHAPTER VIII.
BERTHUN THE COOK.]

For that night we went to the house of the old dame with whom my father and I were wont to lodge when we came to the market, and she took us in willingly, though she could make little cheer for us. Truly, as had been said, the scarcity was not so great in Lincoln, but everything was terribly dear, and that to some is almost as bad.

“No money have I now, dame,” I said ruefully, “but I think that for old sake’s sake you will not turn us away.”

“Not I, faith,” she answered. “I mind the first day your father came here, and never a penny had he, and since then there has been no want in this house. Luck comes with Grim and his folk, as I think. But this is a son whom I have not seen before, if he is indeed your brother.”

“I am Grim’s son Curan,” said Havelok, “and I have not been to Lincoln ere this. But I have heard of you many times.”

That pleased our old hostess, and then she asked after Grim. Hard it was to have to tell her that he was gone, and hard it was for her to hear, for the little house had been open to us for ten years.

“What will you do now, masters?” she asked, when she had told us of many a kindness done to her and her husband, who was long dead now, by my father.

I told her that we were too many at home since the fishing had failed, and had therefore come to find some work here, at the court if possible.

“Doubtless two strong men will not have to go far to find somewhat,” she said; “but the court is full of idle folk, and maybe no place is empty. Now I will have you bide with me while you are at a loose end, for there are yet a few silver pennies in store, and I ween that they came out of Grim’s pouch to me. Lonely am I, and it is no good hoarding them when his sons are hungry.”

We thanked her for that kind saying, but she made light of it, saying that almost did she hope that we should find no work, that we might bide and lighten her loneliness for a time.

“But if an old woman’s advice is good for aught, you shall not go to the court first of all. Sour is King Alsi, and he is likely to turn you away offhand rather than grant the smallest boon. But there is Berthun the cook, as we call him—steward is his court name though—and he orders the household, and is good-natured, so that all like him. Every morning he comes into the market, and there you can ask him if there is a place for you, and he loves to look on a man such as Curan. But if it is weapons you want—and I suppose that is in the minds of tall men always, though it brings sorrow in the end—there is the captain of the guard who lives over the gate, and he might be glad to see you enough.”

We said that we would see the steward, for we wanted no long employment. We would go back to Grimsby when the famine ended, if it were only by the coming of the fish again.

Then she gave us of the best she had—black bread and milk to wit; and after that we slept soundly before the fire, as I had done many times before in that humble house. Black bread and milk it was again in the morning; but there was plenty, and goodwill to season it. Then the old dame sent us forth cheerfully and early, that we might not miss Berthun the steward, from whom she hoped great things for us.

So we sat in the marketplace for an hour or more watching the gates of the wall for his coming; and men stared at Havelok, so that we went to the bridge and waited there. One could see all the market from thence. There were a good many of the market folk coming in presently, and most of them knew me, and more than one stopped and spoke.

Now Havelok grew restless, and wandered here and there looking at things, though not going far from me; and while I was thus alone on the bridge, a man I knew by sight came and leaned on the rail by me, and told me that he had just seen the most handsome man and the goodliest to look on that was in the kingdom, as he thought.

“Yonder he stands,” he said, “like a king who has fallen on bad times. I mind that I thought that Alsi, our king, would look like that, before I saw him, and sorely disappointed was I in him therefore. Now I wonder who yon man may be?”

I did not say that I knew, but I looked at Havelok, and for the first time, perhaps because I had never seen him among strangers before, I knew that he was wondrous to look on. Full head and shoulders was he above all the folk, and the Lindseymen are no babes in stature. And at the same moment it came to me that it were not well that men should know him as the son of Grim the fisher. If my father, who was the wisest of men, had been so careful for all these years, I must not be less so; for if there were ever any fear of the spies of Hodulf, it would be now when his foe might be strong enough in years to think of giving trouble. Not that I ever thought much of the said Hodulf, seeing how far off he was; but my father had brought me up to dread him for this brother of mine. Certainly by this time Hodulf knew that Grim had come to England in safety, for the name of the new town must have come to his ears: and if Grim, then the boy he had given to him.

The man who spoke to me went away soon, and Havelok strolled back to me.

“I would that the cook, or whoever he is, would come,” he said. “I grow weary of this crowd that seems to have naught to do but stare at a stranger.”

“What shall we ask, when he does come? and supposing that there is a place for but one of us?” I said.

“Why, then, the one it fits best will take it, and the other must seek some other chance. That is all.”

“As you will, brother,” I answered, “but I would rather that we should be together.”

“And I also. But after all, both will be in Lincoln, and we must take what comes. It is but for a little while, and we shall not like to burden that good old dame by being too hard to please. We want somewhat to do until we can go home, not for a day longer, and I care not what it is.”

“That is right,” I said; “and the sooner I see one of our folk coming over this bridge with a full basket of fish, the better I shall like it. But it may be a long day before that. Now, I have been thinking that it were not well that you should say that you are the son of Grim.”

I did not quite know how he would take this, for he was proud of my father as I. But that very pride made it easy.

“Maybe not,” he said thoughtfully, “for it seems unworthy of his sons that we have to ask for service from any man. But I do not think that he could blame us, as things are. Nevertheless, folk shall not talk.”

“Men know me,” said I, “but that cannot be helped.”

He laughed gaily at that.

“Why, here we speak as if one man in a hundred knew you. And after all it may be that we shall get a place that none need be ashamed of. Look, here comes a mighty fine lord from the gateway.”

It was Berthun the steward, for whom we were waiting, and I knew him well by sight. Often had he bought our fish, but I did not think that he would remember me by name, if he had ever heard it. He was a portly and well-favoured man, not old, and as he came down the street to the marketplace at the hill foot he laughed and talked with one and another of the townsfolk, whether high or low, in very pleasant wise.

Presently he stopped at a stall, and priced some meat; and when he had bought it he looked round and called for some men to carry it for him; and at that the idlers made a rush for him, tripping over one another in haste to be first, while he laughed at them.

He chose two or three, and sent them up the hill to the palace with their burdens, and then went to another booth and bought.

“This is work at which I should make a good hand,” said Havelok, laughing at the scrambling men who ran forward when the steward again called for porters. “Well paid also the job must be, to judge of their eagerness.”

The three men who had been chosen took their burden and went away, and the steward came near us, to a bakery that was close to the bridge end.

“I have a mind to do porter for once,” Havelok said. “Then I can at least earn somewhat to take back to the dame tonight.”

“If you do so,” I answered, “I will wait here for you. But you will have to fight for the place.”

Now the steward bought all that he needed, and that was bread for the whole palace for the day, and again he called for porters. Whereon Havelok got up from the bridge rail and went towards him in no great hurry, so that the idlers were in a crowd before him.

“Ho! friends,” cried Havelok, “let the good cook see all of us and make his choice. He can only take one at a time.”

“One, forsooth,” said a man from the crowd; “why, there is a load for four men there.”

“Well, then, let him pick four little ones, and give these little ones a chance of being seen.”

Now I do not think that he would have troubled with the matter any more; but whether the men knew that this was the last load that the steward had to send home, or whether they quarrelled, I cannot say, but in their eagerness to raise the two great baskets they fell to struggling over them, and the steward tried to quiet the turmoil by a free use of his staff, and there was a danger that the bread should be scattered.

“Here will be waste of what there is none too much of just now,” said Havelok; and with that he went to the aid of the steward, picking up and setting aside the men before him, and then brushing the struggling rivals into a ruefully wondering heap from about the baskets, so that he and the steward faced each other, while there fell a silence on the little crowd that had gathered. Even the men who had been put aside stayed their abuse as they saw what manner of man had come to the rescue of the baskets, and Havelok and the cook began to laugh.

“Fe, fi, fo, fum!” said Berthun; “here is surely a Cornish giant among us! Now I thank you, good Blunderbore, or whatever your name is, for brushing off these flies.”

“The folk in this place are unmannerly,” said Havelok; “hut if you want the bread carried up the hill I will do it for you.”

Berthun looked him up and down in a puzzled sort of way once or twice ere he answered, “Well, as that is your own proposal, pick your helpers and do so; I would not have asked such a thing of you myself.”

“There is not much help needed,” said Havelok. “I think this may be managed if I get a fair hold.”

Now we were used to seeing him carry such loads as would try the strength of even Raven and myself, who could lift a load for three men; but when he took the two great baskets of bread and swung them into place on either arm, a smothered shout went round the crowd, and more than once I heard the old Welsh name that the marsh folk had given him spoken.

“Let us be going,” said Havelok to the steward on that. “One would think that none of these had ever hefted a fair load in his life, to listen to them.”

So he nodded to me across the heads of the crowd, and followed Berthun, and the idlers followed him for a little. The guard turned these back at the gate, and Havelok went through, and I could see him no more.

Presently the crowd drifted back to their places, and I heard them talking. Havelok and his strength was likely to be a nine days’ wonder in Lincoln, and I was glad that I had asked him not to say whence he was.

“He is some thane’s son who is disguised,” said one.

“Maybe he is under a vow,” said another; and then one chimed in with a story of some prince of Arthur’s time, by name Gareth, who hid his state at his mother’s command.

“As for me,” said the baker, “I think that he is a fisher, as he looks—at least, that is, as his clothes make him.”

So even he had his doubts, and I will say that I understood well enough now why my father never brought him here before.

Havelok was long in coming back, as I thought, and I seemed to be wasting time here, and so I bethought me of the other man to whom the old dame had said we might go—namely, the captain of the gate. I should see Havelok if I stood there.

The captain was talking with some of his men as I came up, and of course it was of Havelok that they spoke; and seeing that I wore the same dress as he, they asked me if I knew who he was.

“He is a fisher from the coast,” I answered. “I have heard him called Curan.”

“Welsh then,” the captain answered, somewhat disappointed, as it seemed. “If he had been a Mercian, or even a Saxon, I would have had him here, but a fisher has had no training in arms after all.”

“Some of us have,” said I.

The captain looked me up and down, and then walked round me, saying nothing until we were face to face again.

“That, I take it, is a hint that you might like to be a housecarl of the king’s,” he said. “Are you a Lindseyman?”

“I am the son of Grim of Grimsby,” I said.

“Why, then, I suppose you would not think of it, seeing that my place is not empty; but if you will dress in that way you must not wonder if I took you for a likely man for a housecarl. We know Grim well by repute. Come in and tell me about the famine, and this new town of yours that one hears of.”

Now I could not see Havelok as yet, and so I went into the stone-arched Roman guardroom, and Eglaf the captain fetched out a pot of wine and some meat, and made me very welcome while we talked. And presently I thought that I might do worse than be a housecarl for a time, if Eglaf would have me. I should be armed at least, and with comrades to help if Havelok needed me; though all the while I thought myself foolish for thinking that any harm could come to him who was so strong. Nevertheless, what my father had laid on us all was to be heeded, and I was to be his helper in arms. So presently I told Eglaf that the housecarl’s life seemed an easy one, and that it would be pleasant to go armed for a while, if he would have me for a short time, seeing that the famine had left us naught to do.

“Well, there is plenty to eat and drink,” he said, “and good lodging in the great hall or here, as one’s post may be, and a silver penny every day; but no fighting to be done, seeing that Alsi will sooner pay a foe to go away than let us see to the matter. Doing naught is mighty hard work at times.”

Then he asked if I had arms, and I said that I would send for them at once, and that settled the matter. If I chose to come with my own arms I should be welcome.

“I am glad to get you,” he said, “for there will be a crowd in the place ere long, for the Witan is to meet, and the thanes will come with their men, and there will be fine doings, so that we need another strong arm or two that we may keep the peace,”

He took a long pull at the wine pot, and then went on, “Moreover, the princess’s Danes are sure to want to fight some of the English folk for sport.”

“What! is she here?”

“Not yet. They say that she is coming when the Witan meets, because the Witan wants to see her, not because Alsi does. But he dare not go against them, and so it must be.”

Now Goldberga, the princess, was, as I have said, Alsi’s ward, and was at this time just eighteen, so that it would be time for her to take the kingdom that was hers by right. It was common talk, however, that Alsi by no means liked the thought of giving the wide lands of East Anglia up to her, and that he would not do so if he could anywise help it. Maybe the Witan thought so also, and would see fair play. Ethelwald and his wife Orwenna had been well loved both here and in Norfolk, and it was said that Goldberga their daughter grew wondrous fair and queenly.

I had learned one thing though, and that was that we should have Ethelwald’s Danes here shortly, and that I did not like; but after all, what did these few men of an old household know of the past days in Denmark? There had been no going backwards and forwards between the two countries since the king died ten years ago. Nevertheless I was glad that I had found a friend in Eglaf, and that I was to be here.

Then I got up to go, and the captain bade me come as soon as I could, for he could talk to me as he could not to the men, maybe. So I bade him farewell, and went slowly back, down the street, sitting down in the old place.

It was not long after that before Havelok came, and I saw Berthun the steward come as far as the gate with him, and stand looking after him as he walked away; then Eglaf came out, and both looked and talked for a while, and therefore, as soon as I knew that Havelok saw me, I went away and across the bridge to a place that was quiet, and waited for him there.

“Well, brother,” I said, “you have had a long job with the cook. What is the end of it all?”

“I do not know,” he answered slowly. “That is to be seen yet.”

I looked at him, for his voice was strange, and I saw that he seemed to have the same puzzled look in his eyes as he had last night when we came first into the city. I asked if anything was amiss.

“Nothing,” he said; “but this is a place of dreams. I think that I shall wake presently in Grimsby.”

We walked on, and past the straggling houses outside the stockade, and so into the fields; and little by little he told me what was troubling him.

Berthun the steward had said nothing until the palace was reached, and had led him to the great servants’ hall, and there had bidden him set down his load and rest. Then he had asked if he would like to see the place, and of course Havelok had said that he would, wondering at the same time if this was all the pay that the porters got. So he was shown the king’s hall, and the arms on the wall, and the high seat, and the king’s own chamber, and many more things, and all the while they seemed nothing strange to Havelok.

“This Berthun watched me as a cat watches a mouse all the while,” he said, “and at last he asked if I had ever seen a king’s house before. I told him that I had a dream palace which had all these things, but was not the same. And at that he smiled and asked my name. ‘Curan,’ I said, of course; and at that he smiled yet more, in a way that seemed to say that he did not believe me. ‘It is a good name for the purpose,’ he said, ‘but I have to ask your pardon for calling you by the old giant’s name just now.’ I said that as he did not know my name, and it was a jest that fitted, it was no matter. Then he made a little bow, and asked if I would take any food before I went from the place; so I told him that it was just what I came for, and he laughed, and I had such a meal as I have not seen for months. It is in my mind that I left a famine in that house, so hungry was I. There is no pride about this Berthun, for he served me himself, and I thanked him.”

Then Havelok stopped and passed his hand over his face, and he laughed a little, uneasy laugh.

“And all the while I could not get it out of my head that he ought to be kneeling before me.”

“Well,” he went on after a little, “when I had done, this Berthun asked me a question, saying that he was a discreet man, and that if he could help me in any way he would do so. Had I a vow on me? Nothing more than to earn my keep until the famine was over, I said. I had left poor folk who would have the more for my absence, and he seemed to think that this was a wondrous good deed. So I told him that if he could help me in this I should be glad. Whereon he lowered his voice and asked if I must follow the way of Gareth the prince. I had not heard of this worthy, and so I said that what was good enough for a prince was doubtless good enough for me, and that pleased him wonderfully.

“‘Gladly will I take you into my service,’ he said, ‘if that will content you.’ Which it certainly would; and so I am to be porter again tomorrow. Then I said that I had a comrade to whom I must speak first. He said that no doubt word must be sent home of my welfare, and he saw me as far as the gate.”

“Which of you went out of the hall first?” I asked.

“Now I come to think of it, I did. I went to let him pass, as the elder, though it was in my mind to walk out as if the place belonged to me; and why, I do not know, for no such thought ever came to me in Witlaf’s house, or even in a cottage; but he stood aside and made me go first.”

Now I longed for Withelm and his counsel, for one thing was plain to me, and that was that with the once familiar things of the kingship before him the lost memory of his childhood was waking in Havelok, and I thought that the time my father boded was at hand. The steward had seen that a court and its ways were no new thing to him, and had seen too that he had been wont to take the first place somewhere; so he had deemed that this princely-looking youth was under a vow of service, in the old way. It is likely that the Welsh name would make him think that he was from beyond the marches to the west, and that was just as well.

Then Havelok said, “Let us go back to the widow’s house and sleep. My head aches sorely, and it is full of things that are confused, so that I do not know rightly who I am or where. Maybe it will pass with rest.”

We turned hack, and then I told him what I meant to do; and that pleased him, for we should see one another often.

“We are in luck, brother, so far,” he said, “having lit on what we needed so soon; but I would that these dreams would pass.”

“It is the poor food of many days gone by,” I said. “Berthun will cure that for you very shortly.”

“It is likely enough,” he answered more gaily.

“Little want is in that house, but honest Berthun does not know what a trencherman he has hired. But I would that we had somewhat to take back to our good old dame tonight.”

But she was more than satisfied with our news; and when she saw that Havelok was silent, she made some curious draught of herbs for him, which he swallowed, protesting, and after that he slept peacefully.

I went out to the marketplace and found a man whom I knew—one of those who carried our fish at times; and him I sent, with promise of two silver pennies presently, to Arngeir for my arms, telling him that all was well.

[CHAPTER IX.
CURAN THE PORTER.]

There is no need for me to say how my arms came to me from Grimsby, and how I went to Eglaf as I had promised. I will only say that the life was pleasant enough, if idle, as a housecarl, and that I saw Havelok every day at one time or another, which was all that I could wish.

But as I had to wait a day or two while the messenger went and the arms came from home, I saw Havelok meet the steward on the next day: and a quaint meeting enough it was, for Berthun hardly knew how he should behave to this man, whom he had made up his mind was a wandering prince.

There was the crowd who waited for the call for porters, as ever; hut the steward would have none of them, until he saw his new man towering over the rest, and then he half made a motion to unbonnet, which he checked and turned into a beckoning wave of the hand, whereon the idlers made their rush for him, and Havelok walked through and over them, more or less, as they would not make way for him. But so good-naturedly was this done, that even those whom he lifted from his path and dropped on one side laughed when they saw who had cleared a way for himself, and stood gaping to see what came next.

“Ho—why, yes—Curan—that was the name certainly. I have been looking for you, as we said,” stammered the steward.

“Here am I, therefore,” answered Havelok, “and where is the load?”

“Truth to tell, I have bought but this at present,” said the steward, pointing to a small basket of green stuff on the stall at which he stood.

“Well, I suppose there is more to come,” Havelok said, taking it up; “it will be a beginning.”

“I will not ask you to carry more than that,” Berthun began.

“Why, man, this is foolishness. If you have a porter, make him carry all he can, else he will not earn his keep.”

“As you will,” answered the steward, shrugging his shoulders as one who cannot account for some folk’s whims, and going on to the next booth.

Now, I suppose that the idlers looked to see Havelok walk away with this light load gladly, as any one of them would have done, and that then their turn would have come; but this was not what they expected. Maybe they would have liked to see the strong man sweep up all the palace marketing and carry it, as a show, but it might interfere with their own gains. So there was a murmur or two among them, and this grew when Havelok took the next burden in like manner.

“Ho, master cook,” cried a ragged man at last, “this is not the custom, and it is not fair that one man should do all the work, and all for one wage.”

Berthun took no notice of this; and so the cry was repeated, and that by more than one. And at last he turned round and answered.

“Go to, ye knaves,” he said with a red face and angrily; “if I find a man who will save me the trouble of your wrangles every day, shall I not do as I please?”

Then there was a tumult of voices, and some of them seemed sad, as if a last hope was gone, and that Havelok heard.

“There is somewhat in this,” he said to the cook. “What pay have you given to each man who carries for you?”

“A yesterday’s loaf each,” answered Berthun, wondering plainly that Havelok paid any heed to the noise.

“Well, then, let us go on, and we will think of somewhat,” Havelok said; and then he turned to the people, who were silent at once.

“I am a newcomer, and a hungry one,” he said, smiling quietly, “and I have a mind to earn my loaf well. Hinder me not for today, and hereafter I will take my chance with the rest, if need is.”

Thereat the folk began to laugh also, for it was plain that none had any chance at all if he chose to put forth his strength; but an old man said loudly, “Let the good youth alone now, and he shall talk with us when he has done his errand and fed that great bulk of his. He has an honest face, and will be fair to all.”

That seemed to please the crowd; and after that they said no more, but followed and watched the gathering up of Havelok’s mighty burden. And presently there was more than he could manage; and he spoke to Berthun, who checked himself in a half bow as he answered.

Then Havelok looked over the faces before him, and beckoned to two men who seemed weakly and could not press forward, and to them he gave the lighter wares, and so left the market with his master, as one must call the steward.

“What told I you?” said the old man, as they came back from the great gate. “Never saw I one with a face like that who harmed any man, either in word or deed.”

Now when Havelok had set down his load in the kitchen, he straightened himself and said to Berthun, who was, as one may say, waiting his pleasure.

“This is today’s task; but it is in my mind that I would stay up here and work.”

“What would you do?”

“There are men yonder who will miss the carrying if I am market porter always. But here are things I can earn my keep at, and help the other servants with at the same time. Water drawing there is, and carrying of logs for the fire, and cleaving them also, and many other things that will be but hardening my muscles, while they are over heavy to be pleasant for other folk.”

“Well,” answered Berthun, “that is all I could wish, and welcome to some here will you be. Let it be so.”

“Now, I do not think that you would make a gain by my work this morning?”

“Truly not, if any one is wronged by my doing so,” the puzzled steward said.

Then Havelok asked how many men would have been needed to carry up the goods that he had brought, and Berthun said that he was wont to send one at least from each stall, and more if the burden was heavy.

“Then today four poor knaves must go dinnerless by reason of my strength, and that does not please me altogether,” said Havelok gravely. “Give these two their loaves; and then, I pray you, give me the other four, and let me go back to the market.”

And then he added, with a smile, “I think that I can order matters there so that things will be more fair, and that you will have less trouble with that unmannerly scramble.”

“If you can do that, you are even as your name calls you. Take them and welcome, Curan, and then come here and do what work you will,” Berthun said in haste.

“Tasks you must set me, or I shall grow idle. That is the failing of over-big men,” Havelok said; and he took the loaves and left the palace with the two market men at his heels.

I saw him come back, and at once the crowd of idlers made for him, but in a respectful way enough. I knew, however, how easily these folks took to throwing mud and stones in their own quarrels, and I was a little anxious, for to interfere with the ways of the market is a high offence among them.

But Havelok knew naught of that, and went his way with his loaves to the bridge end, and there sat on the rail and looked at the men before him. And lo! back to my mind came old days in Denmark, and how I once saw Gunnar the king sitting in open court to do justice, and then I knew for certain that I was looking on his son. And when Havelok spoke it was in the voice of Gunnar that I had long forgotten, but which came back to me clear and plain, as if it were yesterday that I had heard it. Never does a boy forget his first sight of the king.

“Friends,” said Havelok, “if I do two men’s work I get two men’s pay, or else I might want to know the reason why. But I am only one man, all the same, and it seems right to me that none should be the loser. Wherefore I have a mind to share my pay fairly.”

There was a sort of shout at that and Havelok set his four loaves in a row on the rail beside him. But then some of the rougher men went to make a rush at them, and he took the foremost two and shook them, so that others laughed and bade the rest beware.

“So that is just where the trouble comes in,” said Havelok coolly; “the strong get the first chance, as I did this morning, by reason of there being none to see fair play.”

“Bide in the market, master, and we will make you judge among us,” cried a small man from the edge of the crowd.

“Fair and softly,” Havelok answered. “I am not going to bide here longer than I can help. Come hither, grandfer,” and he beckoned to the old man who had bidden them wait his return, “tell me the names of the men who have been longest without any work.”

The old man pointed out three, and then Havelok stopped him.

“One of these loaves is my own wage,” he said; “but you three shall have the others, and that will be the easiest day’s work you ever did. But think not that I am going to do the like every day, for Lincoln hill is no easy climb, and the loaf is well earned at the top. Moreover, it is not good to encourage the idle by working for them.”

So the three men had their loaves, and Havelok began to eat his own slowly, swinging his legs on the bridge rail while the men watched him.

“Master,” said the small man from behind, pushing forward a little, now that the crowd was looser, “make a law for the market, I pray you, that all may have a chance.”

“Who am I to make laws?” said my brother slowly, and, as he said this, his hand went up to his brows as it had gone last night when the palace had wearied him.

“The strong make laws for the weak,” the old man said to him in a low voice. “If the strong is honest, for the weak it is well. Things are hard for the weak here; and therefore say somewhat, for it may be of use.”

“It can be none, unless the strong is at hand to see that the law is kept.”

“Sometimes the market will see that a rule is not broken, for itself. There is no rule for this matter.”

Again Havelok passed his hand over his eyes, and he was long in answering. The loaf lay at his side now. Presently he looked straight before him, and, as if he saw far beyond Lincoln Hill and away to the north, he said, “This is my will, therefore, that from this time forward it shall be the law that men shall have one among them who may fairly and without favour so order this matter that all shall come to Berthun the steward in turns that shall be kept, and so also with the carrying for any other man. There shall be a company of porters, therefore, which a man must join before he shall do this work, save that every stranger who comes shall be suffered to take a burden once, and then shall be told of this company, and the custom that is to be. And I will that this old man shall see to this matter.”

And then he stopped suddenly, and seemed to start as a great shout went up from the men, a shout as of praise; and his eyes looked again on them, and that wonderingly.

“They will keep this law,” said the old man. “Well have you spoken.”

“I have said a lot of foolishness, maybe,” answered Havelok. “For the life of me I could not say it again.”

“There is not one of us that could not do so,” said his adviser. “But bide you here, master, in the town?”

“I am in service at the palace.”

Then the old man turned round to the others and said, “This is good that we have heard, and it is nothing fresh, for all trades have their companies, and why should not we? Is this stranger’s word to be kept?”

Maybe there were one or two of the rougher men who held their peace, for they had had more than their share of work, but from the rest came a shout of “Ay!” as it were at the Witan.

“Well, then,” said Havelok suddenly, getting down from his seat and giving his loaf to the old man, “see you to it; and if any give trouble hereafter, I shall hear from the cook, and, by Odin, I will even come down and knock their heads together for them. So farewell.”

He smiled round pleasantly, yet in that way which has a meaning at the back of it; and at that every cap went off and the men did him reverence as to a thane at least, and he nodded to them and came across to me.

“Come out into the fields, brother, for I shall weep if I bide here longer.”

So he said; and we went away quickly, while the men gathered round the old leader who was to be, and talked earnestly.

“This famine plays strange tricks with me,” he said when we were away from every one. “Did you hear all that I said?”

“I heard all, and you have spoken the best thing that could have been said. Eight years have I been to this market, and a porters’ guild is just what is needed. And it will come about now.”

“It was more dreaming, and so I must be a wise man in my dream. Even as in the palace yesterday it came on me, and I seemed to be at the gate of a great hall, and it was someone else that was speaking, and yet myself. It is in my mind that I told these knaves what my lordly will was, forsooth; and the words came to me in our old Danish tongue, so that it was hard not to use it. But it seems to me that long ago I did these things, or saw them, I know not which, somewhere. Tell me, did the king live in our town across the sea?”

“No, but in another some way off. My father took me there once or twice.”

“Can you mind that he took me also?”

I shook my head, and longed for Withelm. Surely I would send for him, or for Arngeir, if this went on. Arngeir for choice, for I could tell him what I thought; and that would only puzzle Withelm, who knew less than I.

“We will ask Arngeir some day,” I said; “he can remember.”

“I suppose he did take me,” mused Havelok; “and I suppose that I want more sleep or more food or somewhat. Now we will go and tell the old dame of my luck, for she has lost her lodger.”

Then he told me of his fortune with the steward.

“Half afraid of me he seems, for he will have me do just what I will. That will be no hard place therefore.”

But I thought that if I knew anything of Havelok my brother, he would be likely to make it hard by doing every one’s work for him, and that Berthun saw this; or else that, as I had thought last night, the shrewd courtier saw the prince behind the fisher’s garb.

So we parted presently at the gate of the palace wall, and I went back to the widow to wait for my arms, while he went to his master. And I may as well tell the end of Havelok’s lawmaking.

Berthun went down to the market next day, and came back with a wonder to be told. And it was to Havelok that he went first to tell it, as he was drawing bucket after bucket of water from the deep old Roman well in the courtyard to fill the great tub which he considered a fair load to carry at once.

“There is something strange happening in the market,” he said, “and I think that you have a hand in it. The decency of the place is wonderful, and you said that you thought I might have less trouble with the men than I was wont if you went down with the loaves. What did you? For I went to the baker’s stalls and bought, and looked round for the tail that is after me always; and I was alone, and all the market folk were agape to see what was to be done. I thought that I had offended the market by yesterday’s business, as they had called out on me, and I thought that I should have to come and fetch your—that is, if it pleased you. But first I called, as is my wont, for porters. Now all that rabble sat in a row along a wall, and, by Baldur, when I looked, they had cleaned themselves! Whereupon an old gaffer, who has carried things once or twice for me when there has been no crowd and he has been able to come forward, lifted up his voice and asked how many men I wanted, so please me.

“‘Two,’I said, wondering, and at that two got up and came to me, and I sent them off. It was the same at the next booth, and the next, for he told off men as I wanted them; and here am I back a full half-hour earlier than ever before, and no mud splashes from the crowd either. It is said that they have made a porters’ guild; and who has put that sense into their heads unless your—that is, unless you have done so, I cannot say.”

Havelok laughed.

“Well, I did tell them that they should take turns, or somewhat like that; and I also told them that if you complained of them I would see to it.”

“Did you say that you would pay them, may I ask—that is, of course, if they were orderly? For if so, I thank—”

“I told them that if you complained I would knock their heads together,” said Havelok.

And that was the beginning of the Lincoln porters’ guild; and in after days Havelok was wont to say that he would that all lawmaking was as easy as that first trial of his. Certainly from that day forward there was no man in all the market who would not have done aught for my brother, and many a dispute was he called on to settle. It is not always that a law, however good it may be, finds not a single one to set himself against it. But then Havelok was a strong man.

Now there is naught to tell of either Havelok or myself for a little while, for we went on in our new places comfortably enough. One heard much of Havelok, though, for word of him and his strength and goodliness, and of his kindness moreover, went through the town, with tales of what he had done. But I never heard that any dared to ask him to make a show of himself by doing feats of strength. Only when he came down to the guardroom sometimes with me would he take part in the weapon play that he loved, and the housecarls, who were all tried and good warriors, said that he was their master in the use of every weapon, and it puzzled them to know where he had learned so well, for he yet wore his fisher’s garb. They sent his arms with mine from Grimsby, thinking that he also needed them; but he left them with the widow.

Havelok used to laugh if they asked him this, and tell them that it came by nature, and in that saying there was more than a little truth. So the housecarls, when they heard how Berthun was wont to treat him, thought also that he was some great man in hiding, and that the steward knew who he was. They did not know but that my close friendship with him had sprung up since he came, and that was well, and Eglaf and he and I were soon much together. The captain wanted him to leave the cook and be one of his men, but we thought that he had better bide where he was, rather than let Alsi the king have him always about him. For now and then that strange feeling, as of the old days, came over him when he was in the great hall, and he had to go away and brood over it for a while until he would set himself some mighty task and forget it.

But one day he came to me and said that he was sure he knew the ways of a king too well for it all to be a dream, adding that Berthun saw that also, and was curious about him.

“Tell me, brother, whence came I? Was I truly brought up in a court?”

“I have never heard,” I answered. “All that I know for certain is that you fled with us from Hodulf, the new king, and that for reasons which my father never told me.”

Then said Havelok, “There was naught worth telling, therefore. I suppose I was the child of some steward like Berthun; but yet—”

So he went away, and I wondered long if it were not time that Arngeir should tell all that he knew. It was of no good for me to say that in voice and ways and deed he had brought back to me the Gunnar whom I had not seen for so many long years, for that was as likely as not to be a fancy of mine, or if not a fancy, he might be only a sister’s son or the like. But in all that he said there was no word of his mother, and by that I knew that his remembrance must be but a shadow, if a growing one.

But there was no head in all the wide street that was not turned to look after him; and now he went his way from me with two children, whom he had caught up from somewhere, perched on either shoulder, and another in his arms, and they crowed with delight as he made believe to be some giant who was to eat them forthwith, and ran up the hill with them. No such playmate had the Lincoln children before Havelok came.

[CHAPTER X.
KING ALSI OF LINDSEY.]

Three weeks after we came the Witan[^[8]] began to gather, and that was a fine sight as the great nobles of Lindsey, and of the North folk of East Anglia, came day by day into the town with their followings, taking up their quarters either in the better houses of the place or else pitching bright-coloured tents and pavilions on the hillside meadows beyond the stockades. Many brought their ladies with them, and all day long was feasting and mirth at one place or another, as friend met with friend. Never had I seen such a gay sight as the marketplace was at midday, when the young thanes and their men met there and matched their followers at all sorts of sports. The English nobles are far more fond of gay dress and jewels than our Danish folk, though I must say that when the few Danes of Ethelwald’s household came it would seem that they had taken kindly to the fashion of their home.

Our housecarls grumbled a bit for a while, for with all the newcomers dressed span new for the gathering, we had had nothing fresh for it from the king, as was the custom, and I for one was ashamed of myself, for under my mail was naught but the fisher’s coat, which is good enough for hard wear, but not for show. But one day we were fitted out fresh by the king’s bounty in blue and scarlet jerkins and hose, and we swaggered after that with the best, as one may suppose.

Berthun had the ordering of that business, and he came and sat with Eglaf in the gatehouse and talked of it.

“Pity that you do not put your man Curan into decent gear,” the captain said. “That old sailcloth rig does not do either him or you or the court credit.”

“That is what I would do,” said the steward, “but he will not take aught but the food that he calls his hire. He is a strange man altogether, and I think that he is not what he seems.”

“So you have told me many times, and I think with you. He will be some crack-brained Welsh princeling who has been crossed in love, and so has taken some vow on him, as the King Arthur that they prate of taught them to do. Well, if he is such, it is an easy matter to make him clothe himself decently. It is only to tell him that the clothes are from the king, and no man who has been well brought up may refuse such a gift.”

“But suppose that he thanks the king for the gift. Both he and the king will be wroth with me.”

“Not Curan, when he has once got the things on; and as for >Alsi, he will take the thanks to himself, and chuckle to think that the mistake has gained him credit for a good deed that he never did.”

“Hush, comrade, hush!” said Berthun quickly; “naught but good of the king!”

“I said naught ill. But if Woden or Frey, or whoever looks after good deeds, scores the mistake to Alsi as well, it will be the first on the count of charity that—”

But at this Berthun rose up in stately wise.

“I may not listen to this. To think that here in the guardroom I should hear such—”

“Sit down, comrade,” said Eglaf, laughing, and pulling the steward into his seat again. “Well you know that I would be cut to pieces for the king tomorrow if need were, and so I earn free speech of him I guard. If I may not say what I think of him to a man who knows as much of him as I, who may?”

“I have no doubt that the king would clothe Curan if I asked him,” said Berthun stiffly, but noways loth to take his seat again.

“But it is as much as your place is worth to do it. I know what you would say.”

Berthun laughed.

“I will do it myself, and if Alsi does get the credit, what matter?”

Wherefore it came to pass that as I was on guard at the gate leading to the town next day I saw a most noble-looking man coming towards me, and I looked a second time, for I thought him one of the noblest of all the thanes who had yet come, and the second look told me that it was Havelok in this new array. I will say that honest Berthun had done his part well; and if the king was supposed to be the giver, he had nothing to complain of. Eglaf had told me of the way in which the dressing of Havelok was to be done.

“Ho!” said I, “I thought you some newcomer.”

“I hardly know myself,” he answered, “and I am not going to grumble at the change, seeing that this is holiday time. Berthun came to me last evening, and called me aside, and said that it was the king’s wont to dress his folk anew at the time of the Witan, and then wanted to know if my vow prevented me from wearing aught but fisher’s clothes. And when I said that if new clothes went as wage for service about the place I was glad to hear it, he was pleased, as if it had been likely that I would refuse a good offer. So the tailor went to work on me, and hence this finery. But you are as fine, and this is more than we counted on when we left Grimsby. I suppose it is all in honour of the lady of the North folk, Goldberga.”

“Maybe, for I have heard that she is to come.”

“To be fetched rather, if one is to believe all that one hears. They say that Alsi has kept her almost as a captive in Dover, having given her into the charge of some friend of his there, that she may be far from her own kingdom and people. Now the Norfolk Witan has made him bring her here. Berthun seems to think there will be trouble.”

“Only because Alsi will not want to let the kingdom go from his hand to her. But that will not matter. He is bound by the old promise to her father.”

Now we were talking to one another in broad Danish, there being none near to hear us. We had always used it among ourselves at Grimsby, for my father loved his old tongue. But at that moment there rode up to the gate a splendid horseman, young and handsome, and with great gold bracelets on his arms, one or two of which caught my eye at once, for they were of the old Danish patterns, and just such as Jarl Sigurd used to wear. But if I was quick to notice these tokens of the old land, he had been yet quicker, for he reined up before I stayed him, as was my duty if he would pass through this gate to the palace, so that I might know his authority.

“If I am not mistaken,” he said in our own tongue, “I heard you two talking in the way I love best. Skoal, therefore, to the first Northman I have met between here and London town, for it is good to hear a friendly voice.”

“Skoal to the jarl!” I answered, and I gave the salute of Sigurd’s courtmen, which came into my mind on the moment with the familiar greeting of long years ago. And “Skoal,” said Havelok.

“Jarl! How know you that I am that?”

“By the jarl’s bracelet that you wear, surely.”

“So you are a real Dane—not an English-bred one like myself. That is good. You and I will have many a talk together. Odin, how good it is to meet a housecarl who speaks as man to man and does not cringe to me! Who are you?”

“Radbard Grimsson of Grimsby, housecarl just now to this King of Lindsey.”

“And your comrade?”

I was about to tell this friendly countryman Havelok’s name without thought, but stopped in time. Of all the things I had been brought up to dread most for him, that an English Dane should find him out was the worst, so I said, “He is called Curan, and he is a Lindsey marshman.”

“Who can talk Danish though his name is Welsh. That is strange. Well, you are right about me. I am Ragnar of Norwich, the earl, as the English for jarl goes. Now I want to see Alsi the king straightway.”

“That is a matter for the captain,” I said, and I called for him.

Eglaf came out and made a deep reverence when he saw the earl, knowing at once who he was, and as this was just what the earl had said that he did not like, he looked quaintly at me across Eglaf’s broad bent back, so that I had to grin perforce.

All unknowing of which the captain heard the earl’s business, and then told me to see him to the palace gates, and take his horse to the stables when he had dismounted and was in the hands of Berthun.

So I went, and Havelok turned away and went on some errand down the steep street.

This Ragnar was one of whom I had often heard, for he was the governor of all the North folk for Alsi until the Lady Goldberga should take her place. He was her cousin, being the son of Ethelwald’s sister, who was of course a Dane. Danish, and from the old country, was his father also, being one of the men who had come over to the court of East Anglia when Ethelwald was made king.

All the way to the door we talked of Denmark, but it was not far. There Berthun came out and greeted the earl in court fashion, and I thought that I was done with, because the grooms had run to take the great bay horse as they heard the trampling. But, as it happened, I was wanted.

Ragnar went in, saying to me that he would find me out again presently; and I saw him walk across the great hall to the hearth, and stand there while Berthun went to the king’s presence to tell him of the new arrival. Then I stood for a minute to look at the horse, for the grooms had had no orders to take him away; and mindful of Eglaf’s word to me, I was going to tell them to do so, and to see it done, when Berthun came hurriedly and called me.

“Master Housecarl,” he said rather breathlessly, “by the king’s order you are to come within the hall and guard the doorway.”

I shouldered my spear and followed him, and as we were out of hearing of the grooms I said that the captain had ordered me to take the horse to the stables.

“I will see to that,” he said. “Now you are to bide at the door while the king speaks with Earl Ragnar, for there will be none else present. Let no one pass in without the king’s leave.”

We passed through the great door as he said that, and he closed it after him. Ragnar was yet standing near the high seat, and turned as he heard the sound, and smiled when he saw me. Berthun went quickly away through a side entrance, and the hail was empty save for us two. The midday meal was over an hour since, and the long tables had been cleared away, so that the place seemed desolate to me, as I had only seen it before when I sat with the other men at the cross tables for meals. It was not so good a hall as was Jarl Sigurd’s in Denmark, for it was not rich with carving and colour as was his, and the arms on the wall were few, and the hangings might have been brighter and better in a king’s place.

“Our king does not seem to keep much state,” Ragnar said, looking round as I was looking, and we both laughed.

Then the door on the high place opened, and the king came in, soberly dressed, and with a smile on his face which seemed to me to have been made on purpose for this greeting, for he mostly looked sour enough. Nor did it seem that his eyes had any pleasure in them.

“Welcome, kinsman,” he said, seeming hearty enough, however; “I had looked for you before this. What news from our good town of Norwich?”

He held out his hand to Ragnar, who took it frankly, and his strong grip twisted the king’s set smile into a grin of pain for a moment.

“All was well there three weeks ago when I left there to go to London. Now, I have ridden on to say that the Lady Goldberga is not far hence, so that her coming may be prepared for.”

Now, as the earl said this, the king’s smile went from his face, and black enough he looked for a moment. The look passed quickly, and the smile came back, but it seemed hard to keep it up.

“Why, that is well,” he said; “so you fell in with her on the way.”

“I have attended her from London,” answered the earl, looking steadfastly at Alsi, “and it was as well that I did so, as it happened.”

“What has been amiss?” asked the king sharply, and trying to look troubled. He let the smile go now altogether.

“Your henchman, Griffin the Welshman, had no guard with her that was fitting for our princess,” Ragnar said. “He had but twenty men, and these not of the best. It is in my mind also that I should have been told of this journey, for I am surely the right man to have guarded my queen who is to be.”

At that Alsi’s face went ashy pale, and I did not rightly know why at the time, but it seemed more in anger than aught else. But he had to make some answer.

“We sent a messenger to you,” he said hastily; “I cannot tell why he did not reach you.”

“He must have come too late, and after I had heard of this from others; so I had already gone to meet the princess. I am glad that I was sent for, and it may pass. Well, it is lucky that I was in time, for we were attacked on the road, and but for my men there would have been trouble.”

Then Alsi broke into wrath, which was real enough.

“This passes all. Where and by whom were you attacked? and why should any fall on the party?”

“Five miles on the other side of Ancaster town, where the Ermin Street runs among woods, we were fallen on, but who the men were I cannot say. Why they should fall on us seems plain enough, seeing that the ransom of a princess is likely to be a great sum.”

“Was it a sharp fight?”

“It was not,” answered Ragnar, “for it seemed to me that the men looked only to find your Welsh thane Griffin and his men. When they saw my Norfolk housecarls, they waited no longer, and we only rode down one or two of them. But I have somewhat against this Griffin, for he helped me not at all. Until this day he and his men had ridden fairly with us, but by the time this attack came they were half a mile behind us.”

“Do you mean to say that you think Griffin in league with these—outlaws, as one may suppose them?” said Alsi, with wrath and more else written in twitching mouth and crafty eyes.

“I would not have said that,” Ragnar answered, looking in some surprise at the king, “it had never come into my head. But I will say that as the Ermin Street is straight as an arrow, and he was in full sight of us, he might have spurred his horses to our help, whereas he never quickened his pace till he saw that the outlaws, or whoever they were, had gone. I put this as a complaint to you.”

“These men seem to have scared you, at least,” sneered the king.

Ragnar flushed deeply.

“For the princess—yes. It is not fitting that a man who is in charge of so precious a lady should hold back in danger, even of the least seeming, as did Griffin. And I told him so.”

Now I thought that Alsi would have been as angry with Griffin as was the earl, and that he would add that he also would speak his mind to him, hut instead of that he went off in another way.

“It was a pity that a pleasant journey with a fair companion was thus broken in upon. But it was doubtless pleasant that the lady should see that her kinsman was not unwilling to draw sword for her. A pretty little jest this, got up between Griffin and yourself, and such as a young man may be forgiven for playing. I shall hear Goldberga complain of honest Griffin presently, and now I shall know how to answer her. Ay, I will promise him the like talking to that you gave him, and then we three will laugh over it all together.”

And with that the king broke into a cackle of laughter, catching hold of the earl’s arm in his glee. And I never saw any man look so altogether bewildered as did Ragnar.

“Little jest was there in the matter, lord king, let me tell you,” he said, trying to draw his arm away.

“Nay, I am not angry with you, kinsman; indeed, I am not. We have been young and eager that bright eyes should see our valour ourselves ere now,” and he shook his finger at the earl gaily. “I only wonder that you induced that fiery Welshman to take a rating in the hearing of the princess quietly.”

“What I had to say to him I said apart. I will not say that he did take it quietly.”

“Meaning—that you had a good laugh over it;” and Alsi shook the earl’s arm as in glee. “There now, you have made a clean breast, and I am not one to spoil sport. Go and meet Goldberga at the gates, and bring her to me in state, and you shall be lodged here, if you will. Quite right of you to tell me this, or Griffin would have been in trouble. But I must not have the lady scared again, mind you.”

He turned quickly away, then, with a sort of stifled laugh, as if he wanted to get away to enjoy a good jest, and left Ragnar staring speechless at him as he crossed the high place and went through the private door.

Then the earl turned to me, “By Loki, fellow countryman, there is somewhat wrong here. What does he mean by feigning to think the whole affair a jest? It won’t be much of a jest if Griffin and I slay one another tomorrow, as we mean to do, because of what was not done, and what was said about it.”

“It has seemed to me, jarl,” I said plainly, “that all this is more like a jest between the king and Griffin.”

“Call it a jest, as that is loyal, at least. But I think that you are right. If Goldberga had been carried off—Come, we shall be saying too much in these walls.”

I had only been told to wait while the king and earl spoke together, and so I opened the door and followed him out. The horse was yet there waiting for him, and it was plain that the king had not meant him to stay.

“Bid the grooms lead the horse after us, and we will go to your captain. Then you shall take me to one of my friends, for you will know where their houses are.”

But at that moment a man from the palace ran after us, bringing an order from the king that I was to go back to him. So Ragnar bade me farewell.

“Come to me tonight at the gatehouse,” he said. “I will speak to the captain to let you off duty.”

“Say nothing to him, jarl, for it is needless. I am only with him for a time, and am my own master. I have no turn on watch tonight, and so am free.”

So I went back, and found the king in the hall again, and he was still smiling. If he had looked me straight in the face, I suppose that he might have seen that I was not a man to whom he was used, but he did not. He seemed not to wish to do so.

“So, good fellow,” he said, “you have heard a pleasant jest of our young kinsman’s contriving, but I will that you say nothing of it. It is a pity to take a good guardroom story from you, however, without some recompense, and therefore—”

With that he put a little bag into my hand, and it was heavy. I said nothing, but bowed in the English way, and he went on, “You understand; no word is to be said of what you have heard unless I bid you repeat it. That I may have to do, lest it is said that Griffin the thane is ‘nidring’[^[9]] by any of his enemies. You know all the story—how the earl and he planned a sham attack on the princess’s party, that Ragnar might show his valour, which, of course, he could not do if Griffin was there. Therefore the thane held back. But maybe you heard all, and understood it.”

“I heard all, lord king, and I will say naught.”

The king waved his hand in sign that I was dismissed, and I bowed and went. There were five rings of gold in the bag, worth about the whole year’s wage of a courtman, and I thought that for keeping a jest to myself that was good pay indeed. There must be more behind that business, as it had seemed to me already.

Now, as I crossed the green within the old walls on my way to the gate, it happened that Havelok came back from the town, and as he came I heard him whistling softly to himself a strange wild call, as it were, of a hunting horn, very sweet, and one that I had never heard before.

“Ho, brother!” I said, for there was no one near us. “What is that call you are whistling?”

He started and looked up at me suddenly, and I saw that his trouble was on him again.

“In my dream,” he said slowly, “there is a man on a great horse, and he wears such bracelets as Ragnar of Norwich, and he winds his horn with that call, and I run to him; and then I myself am on the horse, and I go to the stables, and after that there is nothing but the call that I hear. Now it has gone again.”

And his hand went up in the way that made me sad to see.

“It will come back by-and-by. Trouble not about it.”

“I would that we were back in Grimsby,” he said, with a great sigh. “This is a place of shadows. Ghosts are these of days that I think can never have been.”

“Well,” said I, wanting to take him out of himself, “this is no ghost, at all events. I would that one of our brothers would come from home that I might send it to them in Grimsby. We do not need it.”

So I showed him the gold, and he wondered at it, and laughed, saying that the housecarls had the best place after all. And so he went on, and I back to the gate.

Surely he minded at last the days when Gunnar his father had ridden home to the gate, as the Danish earl had ridden even now, and had called his son to him with that call. It was all coming back, as one thing or another brought it to his mind; and I wondered what should be when he knew that the dream was the truth. For what should Havelok, foster-son of the fisher, do against a king who for twelve long years had held his throne? And who in all the old land would believe that he was indeed the son of the lost king? Better, it seemed to me, that this had not happened, and that he had been yet the happy, careless, well-loved son of Grim, with no thought of aught higher than the good of the folk he knew.

When I got back to the gate, we were marched down the town, that we might be ready to receive the princess; and as I went through the market, I saw one of the porters whom I knew, and I beckoned to him, so that he came alongside me in the ranks, and I asked him if he would go to Grimsby for me for a silver penny. He would do it gladly; and so I sent him with word to Arngeir that I needed one of them here to take a gift that I had for them. I would meet whoever came at the widow’s house, and I set a time when I would look for them. I thought it was well that the king’s gold should not be wasted, even for a day’s use, if I could help it. And I wearied to see one of the brothers, and hear all that was going on.

[CHAPTER XI.
THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS.]

There is no need for me to tell aught of the entry of the Lady Goldberga into the town, for anyone may know how the people cheered her, and how the party were met by the Norfolk thanes and many others, and so rode on up the hill to the palace. What the princess was like I hardly noticed at that time, for she was closely hooded, and her maidens were round her. And I had something else to think of; for foremost, and richly dressed, with a gold chain round his neck, rode a man whose strange way of carrying his head caught my eye at once, so that I looked more than a second time at him.

And at last I knew him. It was that man of ours whose neck had been twisted by the way in which he had been hauled on board at the time of the wreck, and had afterwards gone to Ethelwald’s court. One would say that this Mord had prospered exceedingly, for he was plainly a man of some consequence in the princess’s household. He did not know me, though it happened that he looked right at me for a moment; but I did not expect him to do so after twelve years, seeing that I was but a boy when we parted. I thought that I would seek him presently.

Then I saw Griffin, the Welsh thane, and I did not like the looks of him at all. He was a black-haired man, clean shaven, so that the cruel thinness of his lips was not hidden, and his black eyes were restless, and never stayed anywhere, unless he looked at Ragnar for a moment, and then that was a look of deadly hatred. He wore his armour well, and had a steady seat on his horse; but, if all that I had heard of him was true, his looks did not belie him. Men had much to say of him here, for, being some far-off kin to Alsi’s Welsh mother, he was always about the court, and was hated. He had gone to Dover to fetch the princess before we came here, but it happened that I had once or twice seen him at other times when I was in Lincoln, so that I knew him now.

There was great feasting that night in the king’s hall, as one may suppose, and I sat with the housecarls at the cross tables beyond the fire, and I could see the Lady Goldberga at Alsi’s side. Tired she was with her long journey, and she did not remain long at the table; but I had never seen so wondrously beautiful a lady. Griffin sat next to her on the king’s right hand, for Ragnar was at the king’s left, in the seat of next honour; and I saw that the lady had no love for the Welsh thane. But I also thought that I saw how he would give his all for a kindly glance from her; and if, as Alsi had seemed to hint, Ragnar was a favoured lover, I did not wonder that Griffin had been ready to do him a bad turn. I had rather that the thane was my friend than my foe, for he would be no open enemy.

I left the feast when the first change of guard went out, for I saw that the ale cup was passing faster than we Danes think fitting, being less given to it than the English. And when the guard was set I waited alone in the guardroom of the old gate, for Eglaf was yet at the hall, and would be there all night maybe. And presently Earl Ragnar came in and sat down with me.

He was silent for a while, and I waited for him to speak, until he looked up at me with a little laugh, and said, “I told you that I had to fight Griffin tomorrow?”

“You did, earl. Is that matter settled otherwise?”

“Not at all,” he answered. “I believe now that he was acting under orders, but I have said things to him which he cannot pass over. I called him ‘nidring’ to his face, and that I still mean; for though I thought of cowardice at the time, he is none the less so if he has plotted against the princess. So naught but the sword will end the feud.”

He pondered for some moments, and then went on, “It is a bad business; for if I slay Griffin, he is the king’s favourite; and if he slays me, the Norfolk thanes will have somewhat to say. And all is bad for the Lady Goldberga, who needs all the friends that she has, for in either case there will be trouble between the two kingdoms that Alsi holds just now.”

“If Griffin is slain,” I said, “I think that the lady has one trouble out of the way.”

“Ay; and the king will make out, as you heard him do even now, that I am looking that way myself. It is not so, for I will say to you at once that to me there is but one lady in all the world, and she is in Norfolk at this time. Now I am going to ask you something that is a favour.”

I thought that he would give me some message for this lady, in case he fell; but he had more to ask than that. Nothing more or less than that I should be his second in the fight, because I was a fellow countryman, while to ask an East Anglian thane would he to make things harder yet for Goldberga.

“I am no thane, earl,” I said plainly. “This is an honour that is over high for me.”

“It seems that you own a town, for I asked Eglaf just now,” he answered; “and that is enough surely to give you thane’s rank in a matter like this. But that is neither here nor there; it is as Dane to Dane that I ask you. If I could find another of us I would ask him also, that you might not have to stand alone. I am asking you to break the law that bids the keeping of the peace at the time of the meeting of the Witan.”

“That is no matter,” I said. “If I have to fly, it will be with you as victor; and if it is but a matter of a fine, I have had that from the king today which will surely pay it.”

And I told him of the gift for silence, whereat he laughed heartily, and then said that the secret was more worth than he thought. This looked very bad, and like proof that the king was at the bottom of the whole business.

Now I had been thinking, and it seemed better that there should be two witnesses of the fight on our side, and I thought that Havelok was the man who would make the second. So I told Ragnar that I could find another Dane who was at least as worthy as I, and he was well pleased. Then he told me where the meeting was to be, and where we should meet him just before daylight; and so he went back to the hall, where the lights were yet burning redly, and the songs were wilder than ever.

And I found Havelok, and told him of the fight that was to be, and asked him to come with us. His arms were at the widow’s, and he could get them without any noticing him.

There is no need to say that he was ready as I to help Ragnar, and so we spoke of time and place, and parted for the night.

Very early came Havelok to the house, for I lodged at the widow’s when I was not on night duty; and we armed ourselves, and then came Ragnar. He greeted me first, and then looked at Havelok in amaze, as it seemed, and then bowed a little, and asked me to make my friend known to him.

“If you are the friend of whom Radbard has told me, I think that I am fortunate in having come to him.”

“I am his brother, lord earl,” answered Havelok, “and I am at your service.”

Ragnar looked from one of us to the other, and then smiled.

“A brother Dane and a brother in arms, truly,” he said. “Well, that is all that I need ask, except your name, as I am to be another brother of the same sort.”

Then Havelok looked at me, and I nodded. I knew what he meant; but it was not right that the earl should not know who he was.

“Men call me Curan here, lord earl, and that I must be to you hereafter. But I am Havelok of Grimsby, son of Grim.”

In a moment I saw that the earl knew more of that name than I had deemed possible; and then I minded Mord, the wry-necked, who was the chamberlain now. But Ragnar said nothing beyond that he would remember the request, and that he was well seconded. And then we went out into the grey morning, and without recrossing the bridge, away to the level meadows on the south of the river, far from any roadway.

“There is not an island in the stream,” said Ragnar, “or I should have wanted the old northern holmgang battle. I doubt if we could even get these Welshmen to peg out the lists.”

“That we must see to,” I said. “We will have all things fair in some way.”

Half a mile from the town we came to what they call a carr—a woody rise in the level marsh—and on the skirts of this two men waited us. They were the seconds of Griffin, Welsh or half Welsh both of them by their looks, and both were well armed. Their greeting was courteous enough, and they led us by a little track into the heart of the thickets, and there was a wide and level clearing, most fit for a fight, in which waited Griffin himself.

Now I had never taken any part in a fight before, and I did not rightly know what I had to do to begin with. However, one of the other side seemed to be well up in the matter, and at once he came to me and Havelok and took us aside.

“Here is a little trouble,” he said: “our men have said nothing of what weapons they will use.”

“I take it,” said Havelok at once, “that they meant to use those which were most handy to them, therefore.”

The Welshman stared, and answered rather stiffly, “This is not a matter of chance medley, young sir, but an ordered affair. But doubtless this is the first time you have been in this case, and do not know the rules. Let me tell you, therefore, that your earl, being the challenged man, has choice of weapons.

“Why, then,” answered Havelok, “it seems to me that if we say as I have already said, it is fair on our part. For it is certain that the earl will want to use the axe, and your man is about half his weight, so that would be uneven.”

“As the challenged man, the earl is entitled to any advantage in weapons.”

“He needs none. Let us fight fairly or not at all. The earl takes the axe.—What say you, Radbard? Griffin takes what he likes.”

“You keep to the axe after all, and yet say that it gives an advantage.”

“Axe against axe it does, but if your man chooses to take a twenty-foot spear and keep out of its way, we do not object. We give him his own choice.”

Then the other second said frankly, “This is generous, Cadwal. No more need be said. But this young thane has not yet asked his earl whether it will suit him.”

“Faith, no,” said Havelok, laughing; “I was thinking what I should like myself, and nothing at all of the earl.”

So I went across to Ragnar, who was waiting patiently at one end of the clearing, while Griffin was pacing with uneven steps backward and forward at the other, and I told him what the question was.

“I thought it would be a matter of swords,” he said, “but I am Dane enough to like the axe best. Settle it as you will. Of course he knows naught of axe play, so that you are right in not pressing it on him. He is a light man, and active, and maybe will be glad not even to try sword to sword; for look at the sort of bodkin he is wearing.”

The earl and we had the northern long sword, of course; but when I looked I saw that the Welsh had short, straight, and heavy weapons of about half the length of ours, and so even sword to sword seemed hard on the lighter man; wherein I was wrong, as I had yet to learn.

I went back, therefore, and told the others.

“The earl takes the axe, and the thane has his choice, as we have said.”

“We have to thank you,” said the other second, while Cadwal only laughed a short laugh, and bade us choose the ground with them.

There was no difficulty about that, for the light was clear and bright, and though the sun was up, the trees bid any bright rays that might be in the eyes of the fighters. However, we set them across the light, so that all there was might be even; and then we agreed that if one was forced back to the edge of the clearing he was to be held beaten, as if we had been on an island. It was nearly as good, for the shore of trees and brushwood was very plain and sharp.

Now Ragnar unslung his round shield from his shoulders, and took his axe from me, for I had carried it for him, and his face was quiet and steady, as the face of one should be who has a deed to do that must be seen through to the end. But Griffin and his men talked quickly in their own tongue, and I had to tell them that we understood it well enough. Then they looked at each other, and were silent suddenly. I wondered what they, were about to say, for it seemed that my warning came just in time for them.

Griffin took a shield from the thane they called Cadwal, and it was square—a shape that I had not seen before in use, though Witlaf had one like it on the wall at Stallingborough. He said that it had been won from a chief by his forefathers when the English first came into the land, and that it was the old Roman shape. It seemed unhandy to me, but I had no time to think of it for a moment, for now Cadwal had a last question.

“Is this fight to be to the death?”

“No,” I answered; “else were the rule we made about the boundary of no use.”

Then Griffin cried in a sort of choked voice, “It shall be to the death.”

But I said nothing, and the other second, with Cadwal, shook his head.

Ragnar made no sign, but Cadwal said to Havelok, “You were foremost in the matter just now. What say you?”

“Rules are rules, and what my comrade says is right. If the first blow slays, we cannot help it, but there shall be no second wound. The man who is first struck is defeated.”

“I will not have it so,” said Griffin.

“Well, then, thane, after you have wounded the earl you will have to reckon with me, if you must slay someone.”

Griffin looked at the towering form of my brother and made no answer, and the other second told him that it was right. There was naught but an angry word or two to be atoned for. So there was an end, and Ragnar went on guard. Griffin made ready also, and at once it was plain that here was no uneven match after all.

Both of them wore ring mail of the best. We had set the two six paces apart, and they must step forward to get within striking distance. At once Griffin seemed to grow smaller, for he crouched down as a cat that is going to spring, and raised his shield before him, so that from where I stood behind Ragnar I could only see his black glittering eyes and round helm above its edge. And his right arm was drawn back, so that only the point of his heavy leaf-bladed sword was to be seen glancing from the right edge steadily. And now his eyes were steady as the sword point, which was no brighter than they. If once he got inside the sweep of the great axe it would be bad for Ragnar.

One step forward went the earl, shield up and axe balanced, but Griffin never moved. Then Ragnar leapt forward and struck out, but I could see that it was a feint, and he recovered at once. Griffin’s shield had gone up in a moment above his head, and in a moment it was back in its place, and over it his eyes glared as before, unwavering. And then, like a wildcat, he sprang at Ragnar, making no sweeping blow with his sword, but thrusting with straight arm, so that the whole weight of his flying body was behind the point. Ragnar struck out, but the square shield was overhead to stay the blow, and full on the round Danish buckler the point of the short sword rang, for the earl was ready to meet it.

In a moment the Welshman was back in his crouching guard, leaving a great ragged hole in the shield whence he had wrenched his weapon point in a way that told of a wrist turn that had been long practised. Ragnar had needed no leech, had his quick eye not saved him from that thrust.

Then for a breathing space the two watched each other, while we held our breath, motionless. And then Griffin slowly began to circle round his foe, still crouching.

Then, like a thunderbolt, Ragnar’s axe swept down on the thane, and neither shield nor helm would have been of avail had that blow gone home. Back leapt Griffin, and the axe shore the edge only of his shield; and then, shield aloft and point foremost, he flew on the earl before the axe had recovered from its swing, and I surely thought that the end had come, for the earl’s shield was lowered, and his face was unguarded.

But that was what he looked for. Up and forward flew the round shield, catching the thane’s straightened arm along its whole length, and then, as sword and arm were dashed upwards, smiting him fairly in the face; and, like a stone, the Welshman was hurled from it, and fell backward in a heap on the grass three paces away. It seemed to me that he was off his feet in his spring as the shield smote him.

There he lay, and Havelok strode forward and stood between the two, with his face to Griffin, for Ragnar had dropped his axe to rest when his foe fell.

“No blood drawn,” said my brother, “but no more fighting can there be. The man’s arm is out.”

And so it was, for the mighty heave that turned the thrust had ended Griffin’s fighting for a long day. But he did not think so.

The sweat was standing on his face in great beads from the pain, but he got up and shifted his sword to his left hand.

“It is to the death,” he cried; “I can fight as well with the left. Stand aside.”

“An it had been so, you were a dead man now,” said Havelok, “for the earl held his hand where he might have slain. If he had chosen, you might have felt his axe before you touched the ground.”

Thereat, without warning other than a snarl of “Your own saying,” Griffin leapt at my brother fiercely, only to meet a swing of his axe that sent his sword flying from his hand. And that was deft of Havelok, for there is nothing more hard to meet than a left-handed attack at any time, and this seemed unlooked for.

“Well, I did say somewhat of this sort,” said Havelok; “but it was lucky that I had not forgotten it.”

Then he took the thane by the waist and left arm and set him down gently; and after that all the fury went from him, and he grew pale with the pain of the arm that was hurt. But both I and the Welshmen had shouted to Griffin to hold, all uselessly, so quick had been his onset on his new foe.

Cadwal held his peace, biting his lip, but the other Welshman began to blame Griffin loudly for this.

“Nay,” said Havelok, smiling; “it was my own fault maybe. The thane was overhasty certainly, but one does not think with pain gnawing at one. Let that pass.

“Now, earl, I think that you may say what you have to say that will set things right once more.”

“Can none of us put the arm back first?” I said. “I will try, if none else has done such a thing before, for it will not be the first time.”

“Put it back, if you can,” said Cadwal. “If there is anything to be said, it had better be in some sort of comfort.”

So I put the arm back, for when once the trick is learned there is not, as a rule, much trouble. But Griffin never thanked me. He left that to his seconds, who did so well enough.

Then Ragnar came forward and said gravely, “I was wrong when I called you ‘nidring,’ and I take back the word and ask you to forget it. No man who is that will face the Danish axe as you have faced it, and I will say that the British sword is a thing to be feared.”

But Griffin made no answer, and when Ragnar held out his hand he would not see it.

“Maybe I have not yet made amends,” Ragnar went on. “I will add, therefore, as I know that my words will go no farther, that I am sure that the thing concerning which we quarrelled yesterday was done by you at the orders of another. It was not your own doing, and no thought of cowardice is in my mind now.”

But Griffin never answered; and now he turned his back on the earl, who was plainly grieved, and said no more to him, but turned to us and the two Welshmen.

“I do not think that I can say more. If there is aught that is needed, tell me. We have fought a fair fight, and I have taken back the words that caused it.”

Then said Cadwal, “No more is needed. I did not think that we had met with so generous a foe. If Griffin will say naught, we say this for him. He has no cause for enmity left. And I say also that he has to thank this thane for his life as well as the earl.”

“No thane am I,” said Havelok, “but only Havelok Grimsson of Grimsby. And even that name is set aside for a while, so that I must ask you to forget it. I have seen a good fight, if a short one, and one could not smite a wounded man who forgot himself for a moment.”

There was nothing more to be had from Griffin, for we waited a minute or two in silence to see if he would speak, and then we saluted and left the wood.

The last thing that I saw seemed to be a matter of high words between Griffin and his seconds; and, indeed, if they were telling him what they thought, it is likely that he wished he had been more courteous. It is easy enough for a man who wants a quarrel to have done with one and then start another.

[CHAPTER XII.
IN LINCOLN MARKETPLACE.]

We went quietly back to the town, and there was only one thing that I wished, and that was that Havelok had not had to tell his name twice. Ragnar was full of thanks to us for our help, and said that he would that we would come to Norfolk with him.

“We have a man who knows you also,” he said, “but he has been with our princess for a long time now. He is called Mord, and is her chamberlain. He has often told me how he came by his wry-neck at the time of your shipwreck.”

So he said, and looked at Havelok. But this was a thing that he had not seen, as he was so sick at the time. I said that I remembered Mord well, and would seek him some time in the day.

And as I said this I was thinking that I must find out from Mord whether he knew and had told more than I could of who Havelok was and whence he came to us. It seemed to me that the earl had heard some tale or other, and unless it was from him I could not think from whence.

Now the earl said, “This business has ended better than I could have hoped, and I think that Alsi will not hear of it. Griffin can well account for a slipped shoulder by any sort of fall that he likes to own to, and Alsi would be hardly pleased to hear that he had run the risk of setting all Norfolk against him for nothing after all.”

“There is no doubt that he meant you to know that he does not consider the quarrel done with,” I said. “You have an enemy there.”

“Nothing new, that,” answered Ragnar, laughing. “He thinks that I stand in his way with the princess. I suppose it is common talk that if he wedded her Alsi would still hold the East Anglian kingdom, making him ealdorman, if only I were out of the way. But were I to wed the lady, then it is certain that she would take the crown at once. I do not mean to do so, for then it is likely that three people would be unhappy for the rest of their days. But that would be less wretched for her than to wed Griffin.”

“This is no pleasant strait for the poor lady,” said Havelok grimly. “Do none ask what she herself can wish?”

“That is the trouble,” said the earl, “for she is in Alsi’s hand, and there is some old promise and oath sworn between him and Ethelwald her father that holds him back. Else had she been wedded to Griffin before now.”

Then we came to the widow’s house, and Havelok left his arms there, and we went on to the marketplace. As we crossed the bridge we saw that there was something going forward, for there was a gathering in the wide space, and a shouting and cheering now and then, and even Berthun himself was there looking on and seeming to be highly entertained.

“Here is a crowd that I will not face just now, in my arms,” said the earl; “for this hole in my shield looks bad, not having been there when I went out. Farewell for the time, therefore, and think of what I said about your coming to Norwich with me.”

He turned away therefore, and Havelok looked after him for a moment. The shield hung at his back, plain to be seen.

“It is a hole, for certain,” he said; “but there is no need to show it in that wise.”

So he strode after him.

“By your leave, earl, I will arrange your cloak across the shield, and then you can get it to your armourer without notice.”

“That is well thought of,” answered Ragnar, as Havelok did as he had said. “I do not forget that I think that I owe you my life, though I have said nothing as yet.”

“How is that?”

“Griffin would have flown on me as he did on you, certainly; and it is in my mind that you foresaw it, which I did not. I could not have stayed him.”

“Well I did,” answered my brother; “else had either I or you a hole in us like the one that is well covered now. But I feared what came to pass.”

Ragnar held out his hand, and Havelok took it, and so they parted without more words; but I knew that these two were friends from that time forward, whatever happened.

There were some sports of some sort on hand, when we came to see what all the noise was; and Berthun, seeing us, called Havelok to him.

“I have been looking for you,” he said, with that curious tone of his that always seemed to be asking pardon for his boldness in speaking to my brother; “for here are games at which they need some one to show the way.”

“This is a sport that I have not seen before,” answered Havelok, looking over the heads of the crowd. “I should make a poor hand at it.”

They had been tossing a great fir pole, which was now laid on one side, with its top split from its falls, and they, thanes and freemen in turn, were putting a great stone, so heavy that a matter of a few inches beyond the longest cast yet made would be something to be proud of. Good sport enough it was to see the brawny housecarls heave it from the ground and swing it. But no one could lift it above his knee, so that one may suppose that it flew no great distance at a cast.

“Nay, but the thanes are trying,” Berthun said. “It is open to all to do what they can. One of your porters is best man so far.”

“Well, I will not try to outdo him.”

“I would that you would lift the stone, Curan. That is a thing that I should most like to see.”

“Well then, master, as you bid me, I will try. But do not expect too much.”

The man who had the stone made his cast, which was nothing to speak of; and then the stone lay unclaimed for a time, while all the onlookers waited to see who came forward next. Then Havelok made his way through the crowd, and a silence as of wonder fell on the people; for some knew him, and had heard of his strength, and those who did not stared at him as at a wonder. But the silence did not last long, for the porters who were there set up a sort of shout of delight, and that one who had made the longest cast so far began to tell him how best to heft the stone and swing it.

Then Havelok bent to raise the stone, and the noise hushed again. I saw his mighty limbs harden and knot under the strain, and up to his knee he heaved it, and to his middle, and yet higher, to his chest, while we all held our breaths, and then with a mighty lift it was at his shoulder, and he poised it, and swung as one who balances for a moment, and then hurled it from him. Then was a shout that Alsi might have heard in his hilltop palace, for full four paces beyond the strong porter’s cast it flew, lighting with a mighty crash, and bedding itself in the ground where it lit. And I saw the young thanes with wide eyes looking at my brother, and from beside me Berthun the cook fairly roared with delight.

And then from across the space between the two lines of onlookers I saw a man in a fisher’s dress that caught my eye. It was Withelm, and we nodded to each other, well pleased.

Now there seemed to be a strife as to who should get nearest to Havelok, for men crowded to pat him and to look up at him, and that pleased him not at all. One came and bade him take the silver pennies that the thanes had set out for the prize, but he shook his head and smiled.

“I threw the thing because I was bidden, and not for any prize,” he said. “I would have it given to the porter who fairly won it.”

Then he elbowed his way to Berthun, and said, “let us go, master; we have stayed here too long already.”

“As it pleases you,” the steward said; and Havelok waved his hand to me, and they went their way.

He had not seen Withelm, and I was glad, for I wanted to speak to him alone first.

Now men began to ask who this was, and many voices answered, while the porter went to claim the prize from the thane who held it.

Two silver pennies the thane gave him, and said, “This seems to be a friend of yours, and it was good to hear you try to help him without acrimony. Not that he needed any hints from any one, however. Who is he?”

“Men call him Curan, that being the name he gives himself; but he came as a stranger to the place, and none know from whence, unless Berthun the cook may do so. Surely he is a friend of mine, for he shook me once, and that shaking made an honest man of me. He himself taught me what fair play is, at that same time.”

So said the porter, and laughed, and the thane joined him.

“Well, he has made a sort of name for himself as a wonder, certainly, now. I think that this cast of his will be told of every time men lift a stone here in Lincoln,” said the thane.

They left the stone where he had set it, and any one may see it there to this day, and there I suppose it will be for a wonder while Havelok’s name is remembered.

Then they began wrestling and the like, and I left the crowd and went to Withelm, going afterwards to the widow’s. I was not yet wanted by Eglaf for any housecarl duty.

“I sent a man to Grimsby yesterday,” I said; “but you must have passed him on the way somewhere, for he could not have started soon enough to take you a message before you left.”

“I met him on the road last night, for I myself thought it time to come and see how you two fared. I bided at Cabourn for the night, and your messenger came on with me.”

Then he told me that all were well at Grimsby; for fish came now and then and kept the famine from the town, though there were none to send elsewhere; and it was well that we had left, though they all missed us sorely.

Then we began to talk of the doings here; and at last I spoke of Havelok’s trouble, as one may well call it, telling him also of the strange dream with which it all began.

“All this is strange,” he said thoughtfully; “but if Havelok our brother is indeed a king’s son, it is only what he is like in all his ways. Wise was our father Grim, and I mind how he seemed always to be careful of him in every way, and good reason must he have had not to say what he knew. We will not ask aught until the time of which Arngeir knows has come. Nor can we say aught to Havelok, though he is troubled, for we know nothing. As for the dream, that is part of it all, and it is a portent, as I think.”

“Did I know the man who could read it, I would go to him and tell him it.”

“There is one man who can read dreams well,” Withelm answered, flushing a little, “but I do not know if you would care to seek him. I stayed with him last night, and he is on his way even now to Lincoln, driven by the famine. I mean the old British priest David, who has his little hut and chapel in the Cabourn woods. His people have no more to give him.”

I knew that Withelm thought much of this old man of late, and I was not surprised to hear him speak of him now. All knew his wisdom, and the marsh folk were wont to seek him when they were in any trouble or difficulty. But I did not care to go to him, for he seemed to belong to the thralls, as one might say.

“Well, if he comes here, no doubt you will know where to find him if we need him,” I said. “Bide with us for a few days at least, for here is plenty, and there is much going on.”

So we went into the town, and then to the palace, and found Havelok, and after that I had to go to the gate on guard. And what these two did I cannot say, but, at all events, there is nothing worth telling of.

Now, however, I have to tell things that I did not see or hear myself, and therefore I would have it understood that I heard all from those who took some part or other in the matter, and so know all well.

I have not said much of the meetings of the Witan, for I had naught more to do with them than to guard the doors of the hall where they met now and then; but since the princess and Ragnar came they seem to have somewhat to do with the story, as will be seen.

On this day one of the Norfolk thanes asked in full meeting what plans the king had for his ward Goldberga, and her coming into her kingdom, saying that she, being eighteen years of age, was old enough to take her place.

Now Alsi had thought of this beforehand, and was ready at once.

“It is a matter of concern to us always,” he said, “and much have I thought thereof. It is full time that she took her father’s place with the consent of the Witan, which is needed.”

He looked round us for reply to this, and at once the Norfolk thanes said, “We will have Goldberga for our queen, as was the will of Ethelwald.”

“That,” said Alsi, “is as I thought. I needed only to hear it said openly. Now, therefore, it remains but to speak of one other thing and that is a weighty one. It was her father’s will and I swore to carry it out, that she should be wedded to the most goodly and mightiest man in the realm. It seems to me that on her marriage hangs all the wealth of her kingdom; and ill it would be if, after she took the throne, she took to herself one who made himself an evil adviser. I would say that it were better to see her married first, for it does not follow that you would choose to have the man whom I thought fitting to be over you, as he certainly would be.”

Now all this was so straightforward in all seeming that none of the thanes could be aught but pleased. Moreover, it took away a fear that they had had lest Griffin was to be the man. None could say that he fulfilled the conditions of the will of Ethelwald. The spokesman said, therefore, that it was well set before them, and that it was best to wait, saying at the end, “For, after all, we might have to change our minds concerning the princess, if with her we must take a man who will prove a burden or tyrant to us all.”

Then they asked the king to find a good husband for the princess as soon as might be, so that he was not against her liking.

“Well,” said Alsi, “it is a hard task for a man who has no wife to help him; but we will trust to the good sense of my niece. Now, I had thought of Ragnar of Norwich; but it is in my mind that the old laws of near kin are somewhat against this.”

I suppose that he had no intention of letting the earl marry the princess; but this was policy, as it might please the thanes. However, the matter of kinship did not please some, and that was all that he needed, for there was excuse then for him if he forbade that match, which was the last he wanted.

Ragnar sat in his place and heard all this, and he wished himself back at Norwich.

So there the matter ended, and that was the last sitting of the Witan. There was to be a great breaking-up feast that night before the thanes scattered to their homes.

Now while this was going on I ended my spell of duty, and bethought me of Mord the chamberlain, and so went to Berthun and asked for him. He said that if I had any special business with Mord I might see him; and I said, truly enough, that my errand was special, having to do with friends of his; so it was not long before they took me to him. He was in a long room that was built on the side of the great hall, as it were, and I could hear the murmur of the voices of those who spoke at the Witan while I waited.

Now Mord was not so much changed as I, and at first he did not know me at all.

“Well, master housecarl, what may your message be, and from whom is it?” he said, without more than a glance at me.

“Why, there are some old friends of yours who are anxious to know if you have forgotten the feeling of a halter round your neck,” I said in good Danish.

Then, after one look, he knew me at once, and ran to me, and took my hand, and almost kissed me in his pleasure, for since I could handle an oar he had known me, and had taught me how to do that, moreover.

Then he called for wine and food; and we sat down together and had a long talk of the old days, and of how we had fared after he left, and of all else that came uppermost. And sorely he grieved at my father’s death, and at the trouble that was on us. The famine had not been so sore in the south, and pestilence had not been at all.

As for himself, he had been courtman, as we call the housecarls, at first, and so had risen to be chamberlain to the king, and now to the princess, and had been with her everywhere that Alsi had sent her since her father died.

“It was a good day for me, and wise was Grim when he bade me go to Ethelwald to seek service,” he said; “yet I would that I had seen him once more. I have never been to this place before, else I should have sought him.”

Now I was going to ask him about Havelok, but hardly knew how to begin. He saved me the trouble however, by speaking first.

“Who were the lady and the boy we had on board when we came to England?” he said. “I never heard, and maybe it was as well that I did not.”

“My father never told me. But why do you think that it was well not to know?”

“Because I am sure that Grim had good reason for not telling. Before I had been a year at Norwich there came a ship from Denmark into the river, and soon men told me that her master was asking for news of one Grim, a merchant, who was lost. So I saw him, not saying who I was or that I had anything to do with Grim; and then I found that it was not so much of the master that he wanted news as of the boy we had with us. He did not ask of the lady at all, and I was sure that this was the man who came and spoke to Grim just as we were sailing, if you remember. So then it came to me that we knew nothing of the coming on board of these two, only learning of their presence when we were far at sea. And now, if Hodulf troubled himself so much about this boy, there must be something that he was not meant to know about his flight, for he must be of some note. Did I not know that the king’s son was in his hands at that time, I should have thought that our passenger was he. However, I told him of the shipwreck as of a thing that I had seen, saying that Grim and his family and a few men only had been saved; and I told him also that I had heard that he had lost some folk in an attack by Vikings. With that he seemed well satisfied, and I heard no more of him. I have wondered ever since who the boy was, and if he was yet alive. I mind that he was like to die when he came ashore.”

Then I laughed, and said that he would hear of him soon enough, for all the town was talking of him; and he guessed whom I meant, for he had heard of the cook’s mighty man.

Now I said no more but this:

“My father kept this matter secret all these years, and with reason, as we have seen; and so, while he is here, we call this foster-brother of mine Curan, until the time comes when his name may he known. Maybe it will be best for you not to say much of your knowledge of him. What does Earl Ragnar know of our wreck? For he told me that you knew me.”

“I told him all about it at one time or another,” Mord answered. “He always wanted to hear of Denmark.”

So that was all that the chamberlain knew; but it was plain to me that the earl had put two and two together when he heard Havelok’s name, and had remembered that this was also the name of Gunnar’s son. Afterwards I found that Mord had heard from Denmark that Hodulf was said to have made away with Havelok, but he never remembered that at this time. Ragnar knew this, and did remember it.

Pleasant it was to talk of old days with an old friend thus, and the time went quickly. Then Mord must go to his mistress and I to my place, and so we parted for the time. But my last doubt of who Havelok my brother might be was gone. I was sure that he was the son of Gunnar the king.

[CHAPTER XIII.
THE WITAN’S FEASTING.]

Now I have to tell of a strange thing that happened in the night that was just past, the first that the Lady Goldberga had spent here in Lincoln for many a year, for on that happening hangs a great deal, and it will make clear what I myself saw presently at the breaking-up feast of the Witan. That puzzled me mightily at the time, as it did many at the feast, but I see no reason why it should not be told at once.

Now I have said that Goldberga left the hall early overnight, being wearied with the journey, and having the remembrance of the attack on her party so near to Lincoln to trouble her also. Not much cause to love her uncle Alsi had she; though perhaps, also, not much to make her hate him, except that he had kept her so far away from her own people of late, in a sort of honourable captivity. Now it was plain to her that had it not been for the presence of Ragnar and his men, her guard would not have been able to drive off the attackers; and the strange way in which Griffin had held back had been too plain for her not to notice. Already she feared him, and it seemed that he might have plotted her carrying off thus. That Alsi might have had a hand in the matter did not come into her mind, as it did into the minds of others, for she knew little of him, thinking him honest if not very pleasant in his ways, else had not her father made him her guardian.

I will say now that in the attack he did have a hand. Many a long year afterward it all came out in some way. He dared not give his niece to Griffin openly, but he wished to do so, as then he would have an under-king in East Anglia of his own choosing. Sorely against the grain with him was it that he should have to give up those fair lands to this girl, who would hold the throne by her own right, and not at all under him. So he and Griffin had plotted thus, and only Ragnar’s presence had spoilt the plan, though Griffin had tried to save it by holding back. But I must say also that up to this time none had had aught to say against Alsi as a ruler, though he was over close, and not at all hearty in his ways at home. But now, for the sake of the kingdom, he had begun to plot; and this plan having come to naught, he must make others, as will be seen. I do not think that this planning to keep Ethelwald’s kingdom from his daughter was anything fresh to Alsi, but the time for action had come now.

He had made ready by keeping the fair princess far away, and there were none who could speak of her goodness, or, indeed, had heard much of her since she was a child. Therefore, as men were content enough with him, none would trouble much if the princess came not to the throne, given good reason why she should not do so. And the very best reason would be that which Alsi had given at the Witan—if her husband was not fit to be king.

It is possible that Goldberga knew that her marriage would be talked of at this Witan: but I do not think that she troubled herself much about it, not by any means intending to be married against her will. I have heard that so ran the will of Ethelwald, that she was to have choice to some extent. However that may be, with so many thoughts to trouble her she went to rest, and her sleep was not easy until the morning was near, and then came quiet.

But presently, in the grey of the dawn, she woke, and called her old nurse, who was in the chamber with her; and when she came she told her that she had had a strange vision or dream, so real that she did not know which it was. And what it portended she could not say, for it was wonderful altogether, and surely was good.

“I thought that a voice wakened me, calling me to look on somewhat; and so I rose as I was bidden, and saw before me the most mighty and comeliest man that could be thought of. Kinglike he was, though he had no crown and was meanly clad, without brooch or bracelet that a king should wear. But the wonder was that from his mouth came a bright shaft of flame, as it were of a sunbeam, that lighted all the place, and on his shoulder shone a cross of burning light as of red-hot gold, and I knew that it was the mark of a mighty king.

“Then I heard the voice again, and I turned, and saw that it was an angel who spoke to me, and his face was bright and kind.

“‘Fear not, Goldberga,’ he said, ‘for this is your husband that shall be. King’s son and heir is he, as that token of the fiery cross shows. More, also, it will betoken—that he shall reign in England and in Denmark, a great king and mighty. And this you shall see, and with him shall you reign as queen and well-loved lady.’

“So the voice ceased, and the angel was gone, and when I looked up there was naught but the growing dawn across yon window, and the voice of the thrush that sings outside.”

Now the old nurse pondered over the dream for a while without speaking, for she could not see what it might mean at first.

But at last she said, “It is a good dream surely, because of the angel that spoke; but there seems only one way in which it can come to pass. A prince must come for you from Denmark, for there he would reign by his own right, and here he would do so by yours. Yet I have heard that the Danish kings are most terrible heathen, worse than the Saxon kin, of whom we know the worst now. Maybe that is why the angel told you to have no fear. I mind Gunnar Kirkeban, and what he wrought on the churches and Christian folk in Wales—in Gower on the Severn Sea, and on the holy Dee—when I was young.”

For both Goldberga and this old nurse of hers were Christian, as had been Orwenna, Ethelwald’s wife, her mother. It had been a great day for them when the King of Kent had brought over his fair wife, Bertha, from France, for she, too, was Christian, and had restored the ancient church in the very castle where Goldberga was kept.

Now the princess went to sleep again, and woke refreshed; but all day long the memory of the dream and of him whom she saw in it bided with her, until it was time for her to go to the great hall for the feast of the Witan.

Now it happened that on this night I must be one of the two housecarls who should stand, torch in hand, behind the king. It was a place that none of the men cared for much, since they saw their comrades feasting at the end of the room, while they must bide hungry till the end, and mind that no sparks from the flaring pine fell on the guests, moreover. Eglaf would have excused me this had I wished; but I would take my turn with the rest, and maybe did not mind losing the best of the feast so much as the others. There were some three hundred guests at that feast, and it was a wondrous fair sight to me as I stood on the high place and saw them gather. The long table behind which I was ran right across the dais, rich with gold and silver and glass work: and below this, all down the hall, ran long tables again, set lengthwise, that none might have their backs to the king. And at the end of the hall, crosswise, were the tables for the housecarls, and the men of the house, and of the thanes who were guests. And as the housecarls came in they hung their shields and weapons on the walls in order, so that they flashed bright from above the hangings that Berthun and his men had set up afresh and more gaily than I had seen yet in this place.

There was a fire on the great hearth in the midst of the hall; but as it was high summer, only a little one, and over it were no cauldrons, as there would have been in the winter. Berthun was doing his cookery elsewhere. But between the tables were spaces where his thralls and the women could pass as they bore round the food and drink. And backwards and forwards among them went Berthun until the very last, anxious and important, seeing that all was right, and showing one guest after another to their places. No light matter was that either, for to set a thane in too low a place for his rank was likely to be a cause of strife and complaint. Also he must know if there were old feuds still remembered, lest he should set deadly enemies side by side. I did not envy him, by any means.

When it seemed that there were few more guests to come, and only half a dozen seats were vacant on the high place, Berthun passed into the room beyond the hall, and at once a hush fell on the noisy folk, who had been talking to one another as though they had never met before. The gleemen tuned their harps, and I and my comrade lit our torches from those already burning on the wall, and stood ready, for the king was coming.

Out of the door backed Berthun with many bows, and loud sang the gleemen, while all in the hall stood up at once; and then came Alsi, leading the princess, first; and then Ragnar, with the wife of some great noble; and after him that noble and another lady; but Griffin was not there. Bright looked Goldberga in her blue dress, with wondrous jewels on arm and neck, and maybe the brighter for the absence of the Welsh thane, as I thought.

So they sat as last night, save that the noble who had come next to Ragnar was in Griffin’s place; and therefore I stood behind the king and the princess, with the light of my torch falling between the two.

Now they were set, and at once Berthun bore a great beaker of wine to the king, and all down the hall ran his men with the pitchers of wine and mead and ale, and with them the women of the household and the wives of the courtmen, filling every drinking horn for the welcome cup.

Then the gleemen hushed their song, and Alsi stood up with the gold-rimmed horn of the king in his hand, and high he raised it, and cried, “Waeshael!”

And all the guests rose up, cup in hand, with a wonderful flashing of the glorious English jewels, and cried with one voice, “Drinc hael, Cyning!”

Then all sat them down, and at once came Berthun’s men with the laden spits and the cauldrons, and first they served the high table, kneeling on the dais steps while each noble helped himself and the lady next him with what he would. And then down the hall the feast began, and for a time befell a silence—the silence of hungry folk who have before them a good reason for not saying much for a little while.

I looked for Havelok among Berthun’s men, but he was not there. Nor was he at the lower cross tables with the other people of the palace. But Withelm was there, for Eglaf had seen him with me not an hour ago, and had bidden him come, as a stranger from far off. There were a few other strangers there also, as one might suppose, for the king’s hall must be open at these times.

Now I looked on all this, and it pleased me; and then I began to hear the talk of those at the high table, and that was pleasant also. First I heard that Griffin had fallen off his horse, and had put his arm out. Whereon one said that he only needed one hand to feed with, and marvelled that so small a hurt kept him away from so pleasant a place as was his.

“It seems that he fell on his face,” answered a thane who had seen him. “He is not as handsome as he was last night. That is what keeps him away. Some passerby put his arm in straightway.”

At that I almost laughed, but kept a face wooden as that of our old statue of Thor, for Eglaf had warned me that I was but a torch, as it were, unless by any chance I was spoken to. But Ragnar glanced my way with a half smile. Presently they began to talk of the stone putting, and of the mighty man who had come with Berthun, and I saw several looking idly down the hall to see if they could spy him. One of the thanes on the high seat, at the end, was he who had held the prizes at these sports.

Now it seemed that Alsi had not heard of this before; and when he had been told all about it, he said that he did not know that he had any man who was strong enough to make such a cast as they spoke of, though Eglaf had picked up a big man somewhere lately, whom he had noticed at the hall end once or twice.

Then he ran his eyes over the tables, for now the women folk had sat down among the men, and one could see everywhere. But he did not see the man he meant, and so turned sharply on us two housecarls behind him.

“Here he is,” he said, laughing and looking at me. “Were you the mighty stone putter they make such a talk of?”

“I am not, lord,” I said, somewhat out of countenance, because every one looked at me together. It had never seemed to me that I was so big before; perhaps because I was used to Havelok, and to Raven, who was nigh as tall as myself, and maybe a bit broader.

“Why, then, who was he?” said the king. “We must ask Berthun, unless anyone can see him in the hall.”

Then the thane of the prizes said, “He is not here, lord; for little trouble would there be in seeing him, if he were, seeing that he is a full head and shoulders over even this housecarl of yours.”

Now the princess had turned to look at me, and she saw that I was abashed, and so she smiled at me pleasantly, as much as to say that she was a little sorry for me, and turned away. Then thought I that if ever the princess needed one to fight for her, even to death, I would do so for the sake of that smile and the thought for a rough housecarl that was behind it.

Now came Berthun with more wine, before the matter of the stone was forgotten in other talk, and the king said, “It seems that you have found a new man, steward, for all are talking of him. I mean the man who is said to have thrown a big stone certain miles, or somewhat like it, from all accounts. Where is he?”

“He is my new porter,” answered Berthun, with much pride; “but he is not in the hail, for he does not like to hear much of himself, being quiet in his ways, although so strong.”

“Here is a marvel,” laughed Alsi, “and by-and-by we must see him. I wonder that Eglaf let you have him.”

Now Eglaf sat at the head of the nearest of the lower tables, and all in hearing of the king were of course listening by this time. So he said, “The man had his choice, and chose the heavier place, if you will believe me, lord. It is terrible to see how Berthun loads him at times; so that I may get him yet.”

Then all laughed at the steward, whose face grew red; but he had to laugh also, because the jest pleased the king. He went away quickly; and one told Eglaf that he had better eat no more, else would he run risk of somewhat deadly at the cook’s hands. But those two were old friends, as has been seen, and they were ever seeking jests at each other’s expense.

Now the talk drifted away to other things, and I hoped that Havelok had been forgotten, for no more than I would he like being stared at. The feast went on, and twice I had to take new torches, but Berthun saw that I had wine, if I could not eat as yet. Then had men finished eating, and the tables were cleared, and the singing began, very pleasant to hearken. Not only the gleemen sang, but the harp went round, and all who could did so. Well do the Lindsey folk sing, after their own manner, three men at a time, in a gladsome way, with well-matched voices, and that for just long enough to be pleasant.

So the harp went its way down the hall, and the great folk fell to talk again; and at last one said, so that Alsi heard him, “Why, we have not seen the strong man yet. Strange that he is not feasting with the rest.”