Havelok the Dane Part 7

"I have heard," my father said, "that men in our case have thrown overboard the high-seat pillars, and have followed them to sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 ash.o.r.e yet, nor will be so long as the tide takes that current along sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sing 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 ash.o.r.e to prevent the ship from going out with the ebb, and with one I swam ash.o.r.e. 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 c.o.c.k, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 Norns7 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 ash.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 sh.o.r.e, 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.