Thorstein of the mere : A saga of the Northmen in Lakeland

By W. G. Collingwood

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Title: Thorstein of the mere
        A saga of the Northmen in Lakeland

Author: W. G. Collingwood


        
Release date: July 18, 2026 [eBook #79129]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Edward Arnold, 1895

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79129

Credits: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THORSTEIN OF THE MERE ***




THORSTEIN OF THE MERE: A SAGA OF THE NORTHMEN IN LAKELAND.




[Illustration: Thorstein finds Thurston-water.]




[Illustration]

                       THORSTEIN OF THE MERE: A SAGA
                       OF THE NORTHMEN IN LAKELAND:
                           BY W. G. COLLINGWOOD.

                          LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD,
                      Publisher to the India Office.

                        T. WILSON, PRINTER, KENDAL.
                                   1895.

                         (_All rights reserved._)




TO R. C.


    Thorstein is yours. You’ve made him yours
    By masterful appropriation:
    As long as right of might endures
    I dare no other dedication,
    Whatever name allures.

    You’ve seized my copy and revise,
    Absorbed the proofs, devoured the pages,
    Retold the tale in travesties,
    And sketched and played the personages
    In many a quaint disguise.

    Thanks, Robin: for the wide world o’er
    A writer asks no finer flattery,
    No kinder fate of all in store,
    Than Five-years-old’s assault and battery
    Demanding more and more.

    But now to risk the wider test.
    Of one applauding hand I’m certain,—
    Let doubts and fears go unconfessed.
    So stop the fiddle,—lift the curtain,—
    And, puppets, play your best.




[Illustration: GREENODD ON THE LEVEN]




HERE BEGINS THE STORY OF THORSTEIN OF THE MERE.




CHAPTER I.

THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN.


There was a man called Swein, who came into our country once upon a time,
and built a house at Greenodd on the Leven. His father Biorn had been a
landholder in Norway, ploughing his own acres, and living in health and
wealth, until King Harald Fairhair fell upon the people, and fought with
them and made himself lord and master. Then, it is well known, good men
of the old sort, who could not abide to see new laws made and old laws
undone, took to their ships and sailed away west. Some of them landed in
Iceland; some went to Orkney, and others wandered about the coasts of the
Irish Sea to find a home; and wherever they could get shelter and safety,
there they settled.

Biorn, with his people and his young child Swein, came to the South
Isles, as they called them then,—the Western Isles we call them nowadays.
He lived as best he might, and died at last in battle, when Harald swept
the vikings from out of the seas between Lewis and Man. But Swein found
friends and plenty of work; for there was always farming to do in spring
and fighting in summer; and in the end he wedded well, and sat down under
Bardi Ottarson, who was then the chief among the Northmen in the Isle of
Man. For by this time Ketel Flatnose and his folk were gone to Iceland,
and the good King Orry was not yet come therefrom.

Unna was wife to Swein Biornson. She was the child of a viking akin to
Olaf the White, the great King of Dublin, and her mother was Irish.
Unna was a notable dame, and Swein was the sort of man who could serve
his friends; so that they were both well thought of in the island, and
hoped for a safe home there. But before long came Ragnwald the Dane,
of the sons of Ivar, he that was king in Waterford for a little while
afterwards; and he killed Bardi and most of his people in a sea-fight.

Then Swein fled out of the battle hastily, and took his wife and whatever
he could lay hands on, and steered for the far-away blue fells that
showed under the morning sun, over against the Manx fells. For he knew
that some of his kinsfolk had already found lodging on the coasts of
Galloway and Cumberland and Wales, where the land was no man’s land at
that time; and creeks and firths among the hills gave them sheltered
hiding places, well out of sight when great fleets swept the high seas
and ravaged the open shore.

When Black Comb grew tall on the skyline, arose a stormy north-easter,
and drove him down the Cumberland coast, until he made Furness, the great
foreland in the bay of Morecambe. When the wind fell, the tide flowed,
and carried him up a broad firth like a gate into the hills. Upward he
drifted, spying on all sides for a good landing spot; and try as he
might to the shoreward, he ran upon sand, and never came nigh the soil.
But in a while he turned round a green point, high and rocky and covered
with trees, standing out into the deep channel. Behind it was a green
field, even with the water, snug and sheltered among hanging woods. A
great beck flowed through the field to meet the broad firth. There were
no people to be seen, nor smoke of houses, nor cattle about in the good
lea-land. And the channel of the river at last came in-shore. So he
stayed there, and called that green point in his language _Græn Oddi_,
and Greenodd it is called to this day.




CHAPTER II.

THE HOMESTEAD AT GREENODD.


Once upon an afternoon in summer time it was that our story begins; and
so long ago that we may live perhaps to call it a thousand years since.
Swein and his people had not been ten winters yet at Greenodd; but they
had built a good house, and cleared land to farm it, and made the place
look something like home.

So one afternoon before summer was over, Unna sat rocking her baby
Thorstein to sleep, and sewing as she stirred the cradle with her foot,
and singing as she sewed. She wore a long gown of ruddy colour, long
sleeved; with a kerchief round her neck, and a housewife’s apron; but
because she was of high birth, she had a gold band like a crown round her
head, and her yellow hair was tucked around it and fell away unbraided
from under a high white cap. A silken pocket hung from her belt, and on
her finger was a gold ring; but her jewels for the most part were locked
away in a kist, against high-days and holidays. For this was a working
day, and every one was busy.

Most folk were out of doors that time of year; only the mother was at
home, minding the baby after her morning’s turn round the farm; and to
keep her company, an old nurse who, being a brisk body, was putting in
a spell of work at a standing loom of the ancient make. She threw the
shuttle slowly, and combed up the web but slackly, for the afternoon was
warm, and the sun outside beat upon the roof of the house and made it
hot. For the house was like one of our barns with its rafters and beams
unceiled: and though it was heavily thatched, the air was hot within.
It was somewhat gloomy too, in spite of the bright sheen that lay on
field and fell. Though door and porch door stood open, the rest of the
place was lit only by windows that stood high up near the roof, in a
row on either side of the long hall: and they were filled with bladder,
which kept out the sun. One spot there was which had been burst by the
stone-throwing of the boys, and not mended yet for want of hands in this
busy summer-time. Through the hole a ray of sunlight shot across the
hall, and caught on the chain of the hanging lamp, and lit up the thin
smoke that rose in the midst. For the hearth fire was never let out if
they could help. Even in summer it was needed morning and evening for
their cooking, and bad to kindle from fire-stones and rotten sticks. So
as wood and peat were plentiful, it was smothered between whiles just to
keep it alight, and thus went on from year’s end to year’s end.

The hearth was in the middle of the floor, then-a-days, raised a little
and paved with cobbles set in sammel clay. One could sit round it, as you
can still at a fire-spot in a farm-house of the right old sort. And grand
times they had of winter’s evenings with their great chat fires, or else
logs of which one end was out at the door while the other was blazing
under the black pot. There folk would sit working and tale-telling, and
watching acorns and crab apples roast, and the boiling of their porridge
in that same great pot that hung by an iron crook and a chain from the
house-beam overhead, the “rannal balk” as our folk, the Northmen’s
children, call it still.

Up through the gloom and the little space of sun went the thin blue
smoke, like a stripe of rain out of April clouds. Half way to the roof it
was met by the chimney flue, that hung down likest of ought to a great
bell hanging from the roof tree, narrow at the top and covered like a
belfry with a flagstone laid flat upon pillars, but opening out beneath
and crossed by the house-beam. And in this luffer or chimney hung the
last hams and smoked meat of the year before. For at the back end of the
year they always hung their flesh meat against the winter, and Unna was
too wise a house-wife to let them eat all up before the next store was
laid in, however plentiful the season might be.

You must know this “firehouse” (as we still say) was the main hall and
living room of the homestead. Bed-chambers there were alongside of it
behind the wall, and out-buildings; not to say lofts among the beams,
and an earth-house or cellar dug out under the floor at one end of the
hall. But the firehouse was the House, as one may say; and in a homely
spot like this backwood bigging at Greenodd a thousand years since,
everything went forward in the firehouse; cooking and eating, work and
play, business and pleasure. This was their hearth and home.

At one corner were its door and porch opening upon the garth, and at
the opposite corner there was another door: and at the back part were
out-buildings rising sharply up the hill behind. At the ends of the hall
under the gables were great arks and kists against the wall, and at one
end the aforesaid loom: but along the side were hung the men’s weapons,
spears and shields and coats of mail, and their hunting and fishing
tackle, well out of the way in a row beneath the row of windows, and over
long benches that lined the hall on either hand.

In the middle of the benches were two high seats, one on this side and
one on that over against it. They were like the great elbow-chairs or
settles you see in old farm-houses; roomy enough for three, carved on
their high backs, and with carved heads to their posts in front. The
children had a tale that one head was father and one was mother: older
folk would say the figures stood for Odin and Freya. Anyway they were
something more than just ornaments; they gave a holiness to the place,
and made the high seat of the master as it were a kind of temple-stall.

Before the benches on one side of the hall stood a long table, all of
oak, like the seats and the wainscotting and the rest, brown already with
age and bright with rubbing: but on the other side the tables had been
taken off their trestles and laid up to make more room, and because half
their men were abroad with Swein at sea. On this side sat Unna in her own
high seat with the cradle at her feet, and before her the hearth with its
thin smoke going up, and the sun-ray striking through it, and blazing in
the fern that was strewed on the floor. And when the sun-spot crept upon
the cradle she stooped down and moved it a little backwards, so that the
bright light should not wake the baby. And when he stirred she pushed
the cradle with her foot and sang again while she sewed at his shirt.
And the loom went clattering on with the steady noise that is good for
babies’ slumber. Nothing else was heard, except the birds singing in the
green-wood around, and far-away clamour of people working in the fields.

When the baby was sound asleep again, Unna rose, and walked softly to see
where his brothers might be: and her gown trained on the ferny floor.
She stood in the porch and called, but not too loudly, “Ho! Orm! Hundi!
where are you? what are you doing?”

But they were off. And so she sat down again and sewed till her eyelids
were heavy with the warmth and the dimness of the place.

“Eh, barn,” she said, “what makes one so drowsy? sleep by day and starve
at night, they used to say.”

“Most like a stranger is coming,” said the old woman from the loom.

For it was thought that a man’s fetch went before and brought slumber.

“Few strangers here but bad ones,” said Unna.

“May be it’s the master and the men.”

“Why, they are gone but these three weeks, and who knows when they may
come back, and how? And it’s weary waiting, and a deal on one’s hands:
let alone the chances of raid and robbery.”

“What, there’s Raud thy brother and all,” said the old woman sharply.
“And folk must live. It would be ill liked if the master never brought
home an armful of finery, or another hand or so for the farm, or a barrel
of somewhat sharper than we can brew.”

“Aye, its a lone spot: not that I complain: for Raud is a handy lad. It
will be a bad day when he takes land up-bank, as he talks of doing.”

“Nay, never heed his talk. He must light on some one fit first,” answered
the weaver: “and how will he do that hereaway, I’d like to know? As for
thy man, and my man, and the rest, they are men, with hands to their
elbows and heads on their shoulders.”

“Or had, you may say, to start with,” said Unna with a sigh.

“Heads, aye, and know their ways about. Look at my old man. These forty
winters he has come back to me the same as ever.”

“Aye, he has a cat’s life, has old Toli.”

“Not so old as that comes to, neither,” said the crone. “And thankful we
should be for our good men and for a good roof over us. Eh, child, when I
think on all we have come through.”

“No fells, no dales,” said she: “no loom, no clatter;” but she hastened
to add “I am out of sorts to-day. There’s overmuch to be done before they
come, to redd all up for the back end. There’s yon window now. I wonder
if the ladder is handy. One might do it oneself sooner than bide for
those lazy carles.” And she got up and walked uneasily to the door again.

“Nay barn, let it be: its none of thy job,” said the old woman; muttering
to her loom, for there was nobody else to hear. “The mistress is queer
and fidgetty to-day. One might think somewhat was going to happen.”

But the ladder was up against a rick in the distance, and men were on it,
thatching and shouting. Over the water, and all round, wooded hills shook
in the heat-haze. Unna shaded her eyes and looked once more for Orm and
Hundi, but nought she spied. She came back and sat on a stool against her
high-seat, and tried to sew. But the sun-spot crept on to her lap, like
some little wounded animal, dragging itself painfully to refuge there.
It shone through her work, and through her fingers, so that they seemed
blood-red: and it dived into the red stone in her ring, and made it
redder than blood: and it burned on the gold like the whole sun itself, a
blaze of mystery, a dream of glory.

Clitter-clatter went on the loom. “Poor soul,” said the old woman: “best
thing she can do”—as she saw Unna’s tired head sink back against the
post of the high-seat, and her long white throat slide out of the white
neckerchief, and her chin heaved up, like a blown wild rose leaf, warm in
the reflected sunshine.

Then in the stillness the sun-spot dragged itself off her hand and off
her lap, and tumbled to the floor again in one roundel, just like a
bubble that gathers itself together in the dark pool under a waterfall,
out of the shattering of the spray: a dream of death.

Clitter-clatter went on the loom nevertheless: and the birds sang still
in the green world outside. The mother’s dreams were soft and sweet, of
life’s love, and life’s labour, that never fail nor come to bitterness;
for these regard not glory, and fear not death.




CHAPTER III.

SWEIN’S HOME-COMING.


Now we leave Mistress Unna and baby Thorstein asleep, to tell about
Orm and Hundi and how they floated boats. Those boys had run off to
the work-shop where smithying was done, and found a heap of chips and
shavings, and made each of them a boat, with a thin shaving for a sail:
and of course they must away to the beck, as nobody was there to shout
after them. So they ran over the cobble-paved garth between the byres,
and out at the gate of the turf wall that stood round about the “town.”
Then they were at the boat-landing, among planks and rollers, ropes and
chains, and the delicious smell of tar that hung about the boat building
sheds, and reeked in the hot sunshine.

The shore was steep, and shelving into a dub just there: so they ran
down-bank towards the flats that open out below the point. Under the
crags and fir-trees of the nab they had to scramble over rocks and
stones, and to splash through salt pools left by the outgoing tide: but
soon they came to a stretch of rippled sand between fell and firth, and
waded a beck that flowed from the woods and wound northward along their
edge to join the Leven.

“Ha!” said Orm, “now we are on my fairy island. It is all gold, and yon
side the beck runs down, and yon side the beck runs up. Now we are on my
holm, and I will fight thee for thy boat.”

For it was a custom among these Northmen when two had a quarrel to go
upon an island and fight it out. So Orm beat Hundi, and ran off with both
the boats and pushed them from the shore until they sailed down-bank
with the tide. There was no one to cry for, so Hundi held his peace: he
brushed his eyes with his hand and pattered on, his bare feet crisping
the soppy sand ripples, and leaving their prints in a chain of little
tarns. And when he came to the next bend in the river, lo and behold his
own boat came straight to shore and into his hands, while the boat that
Orm had made was rocking in mid-channel with its sail draggled in the
water. Orm began to throw handfuls of sand over it, to draw it in: and
while they were intent upon this job and keeping no look out, suddenly
they heard shouts not far off, and the clash of oars, and a great craft
swung round into that reach and bore straight down upon the chip boat.
A moment they stood dumfoundered, and then turned and ran for the woods
like young rabbits. For in those days it was no idle threat when mothers
said to truant boys, “Mind you don’t go out of sight, for fear a man
catches you.”

But just when the throb began to beat very hard in their throats, and
they were stopped by the steep crumbling banks of the little beck that
bounded the holm, they heard, like a shepherd calling sheep, “Ho, Orm!
ho, Hundi! ho!” and they turned and looked: and then looked at one
another with bright eyes and panting too much to laugh. They set off
running back to the ship, which they knew well enough now. The rowers
had easied and brought her close to the edge of the sandbank: and that
could well be done, for she drew very little water and was nigh flat
bottomed. Swein, with a brown square face, and bushy fair beard, and
bright blue eyes laughing out of the locks of his tawny hair, came
wading ashore. He caught up one child under each arm, waded out again,
and hoisted them to hands aboard. Then catching at the gunwale near the
steering oar, he raised himself half-length and vaulted over. The water
dripped from his gartered hose and blue kirtle skirts: for his mail-coat
was doffed, and he wore only a belted kirtle or blouse over his white
linen sark.

“Eh, father, mother will snape thee for forgetting of thyself in a mess!”
said Hundi compassionately. “But never heed her: I’ll say it was to fetch
us aboard.”

“But my dragon is wrecked,” grumbled Orm.

“And is that all you have to say to your old father when he comes home?”

“Nay,” said Orm looking round coolly, “What have ye brought me?”

“No great things, barn, this trip,” said Swein, with half a smile, as he
took the steering oar. “Now then, lads, all’s well, by this token. The
barns say little, but there is enough of it, and enow of them. Forward
all now: a spurt to finish our day’s work. Lift her! here she goes. Lift
her!”

A dozen of long blades, six aside, with a couple of men at each, churned
the sandy shallows, as the boat swept round the curve and up stream. Long
in the keel and low in the board she was, with swinging curves at stem
and stern rising swan-like to the figure-head and the carved stern-post.
But the ugly mask of a spitfire dragon was taken off the bows, now that
they were so near home; for it was a belief among these people that
the land-wights, the good fairies and useful brownies, would be scared
by such a sight, or at least take it in dudgeon, and depart. So the
figure-head had a good face for home waters, and a hideous one to put on
when they got out to sea and to work among strangers. The gunwales were
notched into dog-tooth markings and what old wives call box-pattern in
their quiltings. The strong upstanding tholes were curiously carved with
knots and worm-twists. Great oars were lashed to these tholes and the
rowers stood to their work and pushed the handles. There was a step for a
mast forward, but the mast and yard were lying along the gangway that ran
between the ranks of rowers, from the decked forecastle to the quarter
deck; and the sail, useless to-day, was wrapped about the spars. There
was little else to be seen: the few bales or chests she might carry were
stowed below, and her decks were clear, as if at any moment she might
meet with an enemy. Over the gunwale hung the men’s shields, a dozen
aside, each by its strap from its own pin, and ready to be caught up in
the twinkling of an eye. Black and gold they were painted for the most
part, and if one was more black then the next was more golden, so they
made a fine show from without.

Every man aboard was a sturdy fellow, who would go through with it,
whatever he took in hand; bronzed with the sun and great-thewed with
downright hard work. Some of them were Swein’s own Northmen from the Isle
of Man, old comrades and followers of former days: some were Welsh of the
country, his bought servants; but trusty men under a good leader. They
were all his house-mates, or lived in cots of their own hard by.

So now that they were near home they laid to with a will. The children
played helping father with the steering sweep, which knocked them over
every time it was put up or down. Swein gave the stroke, faster and
faster as the landing place came in sight, with his “Lift her!” and they
made her spin up the last reach. Round she went, and half-way up the bank
ploughing the sand. Orm and Hundi tumbled on the deck laughing. Then out
men leapt, and ran her up on her rollers above high-water mark, as they
were used with these light flat-bottomed craft. The easier it was, for
by now they were spied and recognised from the fields, and a dozen farm
servants had run down to lend a hand.

You may be sure it was merry-night that evening at Greenodd, and Unna was
wide awake and bustling to made amends for her laziness, as she called
it. The servant lasses had a busy time, with the fire to stoke, and the
supper to cook, and the tables to set. Meanwhile the men went to their
bath in the bath-house, and shifted their sea-clothes. Long before the
sun sank behind the high fell at the back of the house they were sitting
at meat, cooled and ravenous, on the long hall-benches, behind heaps of
barley cake and haver-bread, and dried fish; great bowls of broth and
porridge into which many spoons were dipped at once: and platters of
butter and cheese and curds, and trenches piled with steaks, which they
ate with their sheath-knives: and it may be said for them that if some
eat foully with forks, others, to the manner bred, can eat fairly with
fingers. As to drinking, the lasses had their work in running to and
fro with ale and buttermilk, to slocken thirsty men who had rowed from
Carnforth since breakfast on a broiling hot day.




CHAPTER IV.

ON THE HOWE.


Swein was in his own high seat, and while the din lasted ate like
another, looking now and then but shyly through the hearth-smoke at Unn
over against him. At last “Eat, Unna!” he cried, “and take thy supper.
One would think I was a merman, and stared at for a show. Sup thy
porridge, lass, and be hearty.”

“I have supped,” she said, “and supped well.”

“Supped with her eyes,” said old Toli, for here he was, holding out his
empty horn. “A dry supper, but a big one.”

“I’ve seen her eat nought,” said Swein. “What has she supped on?”

“Thee,” said Toli. “Eh, Mistress?”

But Unna, though she was used to the uncourtly ways of her own folk and
could laugh at a rough jest, was less at ease than she had hoped to be.
When the meal began, she had looked lovingly across at her man, making
out his features one by one through the dimness and the smoke, watching
for the open smile that he was used to give her, on such nights as these
of home-coming, when his first hunger was stayed and the feasting was
forward: the free smile and friendly nod that signalled all’s well. But
this time it was long in coming: and she got only the half glances and
the rough and puzzling “Eat, child.” Her eyes filled with tears, and
her mind flew to chances of mishap. There were all the men back, and no
wounds to be seen: the ship was safe: what could it be? Some woman in the
case. What else? And her quick wit, wrong for once, revealed to her, like
a lightning flash, a whole story of dismay.

Men were fed by now, and they drank healths, first to Odin for the
kinsfolk, and then to Niord and Frey for peace and plenty. When they were
come to the cup for Bragi—he was the god of talking and of tale-telling
and song,—it was Swein’s old use and wont to begin the story of his
doings and travellings since the last farewell, and to hold them all till
midnight wrapt in the tale. This time he put down the horn untasted: and
when they waited for him in wonder, suddenly hushed, he thrust the table
from him, and went forth.

Unna looked at Raud her brother who sat by her, signing with her eyes as
much as to say “What now?” and the sign he gave her was a nod toward the
door.

“Aye, mistress,” said Toli, “till him, and wheedle him back. To think of
folk leaving good ale for an idle whim.”

“What then?” she said, flashing back at him, while Raud made room for her.

“Nought that matters: nay, never ask me.”

With a beating heart she went through the porch, and her knees trembled
as she passed. Swein was going slowly through the gate, slackening his
pace, though he neither turned nor looked; but yet it seemed as if he
wanted to be overtaken.

There is a steep path up the cliffs a little to the seaward of the
houses, mounting rapidly at first over the crags by rude steps in the
rock, and then through the great rough stems of ancient fir-trees, and
between thickets of blackberry-brambles, until it comes out upon a clear
space on the top. It is not so far that one need halt to take breath by
the way, and yet lofty enough for the eye to sweep north, south, east and
west, down the firth and up the valley, and across to the far-away fells.

This was Swein’s howe, where he went daily and often-times a day, to
watch the bright line of the sea, if by chance a sail might be made
out, friend or foe or merchant vessel cruising round the coast. There
also he could overlook his land; for the acres of oats and barley and
the hay-fields lay close beneath, around the mouth of Crake. His own
summer pastures were on the fells hard by, and his swine fed in the
woods around. He could see what was doing, and what was left undone,
from that howe: count men and beasts, and hear the sounds of work going
on in smithy or shed. Here he would take counsel with himself about new
dealings with this man and that, and lay his plans and dream over his
enterprises. And when there was trouble or when things went askew, it
was on this howe that he sat to wrestle with his thoughts. And it was
his mind when he should be dead to be buried there and look out from his
grave upon his children and his home, and the kind land that had given
him a resting-place from his wanderings.

He sat down upon the turf seat on the top, and Unna, who had tripped
lightly after him, sat down alongside. He rested both elbows on his knees
as one ashamed to speak, but moved not away. What can it be? was her
thought.

For now the sun was set in the gold half of the sky, and the other half
was clear pansy coloured, with a round moon rising through the fringe of
dusky woods. Below them the tide was flowing in, and the wash of it was
heard in the stillness: the great rings and bows of the river in front
swung about and along over the silvery flats, like the track of a skater
on ice. And against the northern glow far away, sharp violet ridges of
distant mountain stood around them, serene, above the tumbling forest and
rich promontories of Crake and Leven.

Then she slid her arm over his shoulder, and her fingers twitched at the
brooch that fastened his cloak; and it seemed that he was her man still.
The moon had disentangled itself at last, and began to glimmer on the
tide ripple. “Twilight brings talk,” thought Unna, and waited for him to
begin.




CHAPTER V.

THE KINGS’ MOTE.


“Well, wife,” said Swein at last, “I am trapped, seemingly. It is stand
and deliver, is it? What, there is nothing so dreadful after all, turn
and turn it over as one may. But that is yet to be judged: I suppose I
must put my case, and tell my story.

“How we set off I need not tell. We came to Carnforth, and there we met
most of our neighbours from the country-side. There was Arnold and his
people from Arnoldsby in Dunnerdale: there were Raven and Ulfar from this
side of Furness: Ulf and Sigurd the priest from up the Kent; and Arni
was there on the spot, for he lives hard by, and it was his folk looked
after the ships of us that came by water; and other friends from over
the sands. We took counsel together, and agreed that being summoned to
this meeting, be it peace or war, we should go: but that we should keep
together and make one band, for it is ill dealing with folk that are
neither kith nor kin.

“Thou knowest, Unna, that we reckoned this bit of land was no man’s land
until we came and took it. Northward beyond the fells the Welsh hold
themselves under the rule of Donal the Strathclyde king: but never did
I hear of his coming into these parts or having a power on Morecambe
coasts. Across there in Cartmel they say they belong to the minster
priests in York, and be no king’s men at all: and beyond that again, if
Ragnar Lodbrog’s sons did ever take the land, neither Angle nor Dane in
Kentdale or Lunesdale has paid shot to York for many a year: and this
Sigurd upholds, and he is a man that listens to old folk’s tales; and a
wise man, if it be wise nowadays to redden the altar as men used, and to
build a holy place for Thor, as he has done, up the Kent, at the spot we
call Sigurd’s hörg.

“‘Fifty years ago, after Halfdan sacked Carlisle and laid all these parts
under him, and began to settle them from the eastward, and had his king’s
seat near Ulfar’s town, then, I grant you,’ says Sigurd, ‘this would be
in the Danelaw: but now that king Halfdan is dead and all the kings that
came after him down to Guthred, and there is no law in York, but only
these rascally bearsarks of Danes sacking and slaying up and down, why,
look you, we owe them nothing, and need but keep together,’ says he, ‘to
be our own men like the Icelanders.’ And this talk we held to be but fair
and good, and took hands all round upon it.

“So we got horses at the bank where the old road meets the sands, and
came to a burg called Lancaster where we had to meet the main part of the
host from the north. The burgers gave us what we wanted with little ado:
a handful of chapmen and cowpers who trade with travellers on the great
highway. But I thought they grinned a little when we talked of going
against the Saxons.

“Well, in a day or so there is a great trumpetting and booming, and up
comes Constantine the Scots’ king, and his brother Donal of Strathclyde,
and among them Ketel and others of our own men from Cumberland, and some
from Galloway: and it was hail fellow with many an old friend.

“‘It seems we are but short-handed,’ said Sigurd: ‘or is the Saxon king
of less account than we reckon for?’

“With that they laughed outright, and the cat came out of the bag, tail
and all: for they told us flatly that there was no fighting to be thought
of: but only a great meeting of all the people in Britain under their
kings and earls.

“‘And pray what king do you reckon us to be under?’ said I to Ketel.

“‘Well,’ said Ketel, ‘Donal flatters himself because I have taken up my
abode in his borders, that I am his man. I remember well, when I met him
first, what a wagging of beards there was. Some were for hunting us out,
at which the old whiteheads turned pale, though I made as if I understood
none of their _dim saisnaeg_. By and by the whitest beard of all made a
terrible long-winded speech, setting forth how, if they turned us out,
there would be swarms more of us revenging ourselves upon them: and how
there was land enough and to spare on the holms and flats by Dundraw: and
how, when we Northmen were let alone we were decent merchants, buying
goods and servants. He said we always had plenty of money and brought
trade to the country-side: and he wound up in a flowery way, I could
understand him well:—Look you, says he, waving his old skinny arms about.
These white strangers (for they call us white, and the Danes black, and
right they are to my thinking) these strangers, says he, will be a soft
bolster to our heads. When hard knocks come, they will get them, and we
shall feel the less.—So they blethered and clattered like crows, and in
the end let us be: and here we are!’

“‘Well, Ketel Bolster,’ said I—eh, how they did laugh—‘if Donal suits
thee for lord and master, he suits not me.’ At which Ketel would at me,
and I would have beaten him well, only they stood in and stopped us.

“Next day we trotted along the great high road. It’s a strange thing,
Unna, that folk ever took the trouble to heap hard stones together for
nought but to walk on. But there it goes up hill and down dale, through
bog and brink; and everly built with cobbles, for all the world like a
great long hearth spot, and as straight as an arrow-flight from day’s
end to day’s end. They told me it was folk from Romeburg that built it:
though what they could have done it for, I know nought: unless it were
a priest’s trick to mark out the Church gate. Anyhow it was hard riding
clitter-clatter on the cobbles all day long: I had rather have galloped
over the green grass: but keep together was the word, for there were but
few of us, and with such a pack of Welsh and Scots before and behind, one
never knows what may happen.

“The next night we harboured at a spot they called Ribblechester, and the
next at Manchester, which is a pretty place, and one would have thought
a strong work enough to hold against any comers: but the Saxons took it
last summer from those lubberly Danes. I fell in talk with the goodman
where they lodged us, and it seemed that not only they in Manchester,
but all the Danelaw, had got a thorough fright of the Marchmen and the
Saxons, and they were hastening to this meeting like thralls to supper,
each afraid to be last man in.

“‘And who are _they_?’ say I.

“‘Why,’ says he, ‘everybody of account, but in especial the new kings of
York.’

“‘New kings?’ say I.

“‘Aye,’ says he: ‘Sigtrygg and Ragnwald Ivarson.’

“‘What!’ say I; ‘Sigtrygg I knew was bearsarking up and down in those
parts,—no king, and not at York: but Ragnwald, the rascal, he was at
Waterford but a while since: what is he doing here?’

“‘Why,’ says he, ‘where in the round world is thy den, man or mountain
bear?’

“‘Softly,’ say I: ‘Swain is my name and Bear’s son is my breeding.
Swain’s fist or bear’s paw, which wilt have?’

“‘No offence, guest,’ says he: ‘But I thought every one knew that
Ragnwald was kicked out of Waterford—’

“‘Well done!’ say I.

“‘And killed the old king’s earls but a few months since, and marched
into York.’

“‘Marched into hell!’ said I.

“‘No such thing: the tale was that he died three years ago; but there he
is, and thou wilt see him at the king’s mote, for he will be there to
make his peace with Eadward and be confirmed in his kingdom.’

“‘He shall see me,’ said I, ‘and get more peace than he wots of.’

“For Unna, never a day passes but I think of that fight off Man, and our
good Bardi’s ship going down with the Dane’s iron beak through her ribs.

“Well, this last day we rode over fells they called Peak to Bakewell,
and if it was forecast at Manchester, here was sooth. Hardly were we
within sight of the place, but a flock of horsemen comes spurring out
to meet us, and after some parley makes a lane for us to pass through,
one by one, like sheep counted into a fold: and of each a jack-in-office
asks name and nation and so forth before he may go his ways. And when we
come among the houses, which were as thick as trees in a wood, we must
halt till we are told off to our lodgings: and there we must bide till
it please my lord the Saxon king to see us. Not but that we were well
bestowed for bed and board: and to see the sights was something. Houses,
I say, for ever, and nigh upon all of them new built or even in the
building. Strangers from all parts of the land; why, from all the round
world it seemed. And all day and every day market in the lanes and open
places, and wares to be bought the like of which I never saw, not even on
Dublin strand when the fleet comes in. What little I had of silver in my
bag soon went: but it passed the time to chaffer and turn the wares over.
I got a bit of a scarf: the cowper said it came from Micklegarth and
maybe beyond: even he was all the way from Londonburg. I paid a pretty
penny for it, and yet thought I was making a good bargain. Mayhappen you
will shake your head: but don it first. There are two or three trifles
beside in a kist the lads will bring up and we can unpack to-morrow.

“All this while no Ragnwald was to be seen, and I began to reckon nought
of the Manchester man’s tale. At last comes jack-in-office, and bids us
to the Saxon king: and in we go, over a bridge and through a gate in the
stout oaken wall new cut: and there is a yard in the midst, full of his
housecarles, and one could not but see with half an eye that they were
big fellows and their weapons were of the best.

“I need not tell thee, Unna, what a king’s house is like: but this burg
was a sight to see, for its bigness without, and within for its hangings
and carvings and gold and silver: yet most of all for the king we have
heard tell about sitting on his high seat, all gold, with his high crown
and gold staff: and his earls and priests in gold cloaks and horned caps,
holding their crooks like so many warlocks: and indeed who knows what
spell they were casting over us? Anyhow there were Constantine and Donal
down on their knees, like men bewitched, and their hands in the king’s
hands, saying after one that stood by—‘I Constantine, and I Donal, take
thee Eadward to be my father and lord, and father and lord of all my
folk.’ And then came Ealdred Eadulfson of Bamborough, with his Angles,
and did likewise. And then came Sigtrygg Ivarson and a scrow of Danes,
and did likewise, only that they made oath on the ring, for they are not
Christian men like those that went before. And then came Ragnwald.

“Unna, lass, I was mad wrath when I saw him, and I could have run upon
him there: only Sigurd held me by one arm and Ketel by the other, and
said ‘Peace, man, at a mote!’ And then stood one forth in the silence,
and spoke, ‘Forasmuch as you have commended you to our king Eadward, king
of Angles and Saxons, and overlord of Cornwall and of Gwynedd and of all
the West Welsh, to be his men, each and all of you—’

“‘Nay, not I,’ cried a voice: they said it was mine, though I knew not I
spoke, for I was that angry. But you may guess if there was a haybay and
swords drawn. They plucked me by the sleeve and shouted in my ears ‘Peace
man, peace!’ I tried to get at my sword, and looked for Ragnwald first.
But the Saxon king sat still on his high seat, and waved his wand, and
men were quiet again and I standing thrust out in the midst.

“‘Come hither, good friend,’ he said, speaking very fair and slowly, so
that I could understand him well, for the Saxon tongue is hard to hear at
first: ‘Come nigh and tell me what ails thee.’

“And I marched up to the high seat, and said I, ‘Nothing but this, king;
that I have sworn nought to thee: and I see my enemy standing there.’

“‘Softly, good man,’ says the king; ‘this is a hallowed mote: if all foes
here were to fight, we should eat each other up.’ And he smiled, Unn, and
I could not but laugh too, for I thought of yon Irish cats thy mother
used to tell of.

“‘And who is thy foe?’ says Eadward.

“‘Ragnwald Ivarson.’

“With that, out steps Ragnwald as proud as a peacock.

“‘I never set eyes on the carle,’ says he.

“‘But I know thee, Ragnwald,’ said I; ‘and well I mind the day when thy
ship ran Bardi’s down, ten years ago, off Man.’

“‘And is that all?’ said he.

“‘Come,’ said Eadward: ‘this day we let bygones be bygones. Have I
nothing against Ragnwald, thinkst thou? and were Bardi Ottarson’s folk
sackless of scathe to me and mine? Who art thou, good fellow, and whence?’

“So I told him my name and where I lived: and the upshot of it was that
Eadward says, ‘Well then, if I let thee dwell there in peace, wilt thou
leave thy neighbours in peace?’

“What could one say but Aye?

“Now, all this while was the high priest muttering and making signs at
me, Sigurd says: and doubtless I was bewitched. For I looked in the
king’s eyes and clean forgot about Ragnwald, and all the mind I had to
live and die my own man, and no king’s man. The people in the hall seemed
to be a dream, and there were I and Eadward only. He reached out his hand
to me, and my hand was in his, and the ring fell from his arm upon mine.
‘Kneel, man, kneel!’ cried the bystanders: but Eadward smiled, like one
who has mated you at chess.

“‘Take hands on a bargain,’ he said: ‘that is the Northman’s way, is it
not? Nay, keep the ring, friend Swein.’

“And there it is,” said Swein: casting a gold armlet on the turf. “The
bull’s snout-ring, I call it: the thrall’s collar.”

“And is that the tale?” said Unna, stooping to pick it up. “Oh, man!
serve the best and spurn the worst. I am weary of this wandering and
warring; I would fain end our days as this day ends.”

And the moon cast a great stream of light along the Leven.

“I thought there could be no welcome for a nithing like me.”

“Welcome?” she said. “Thrice welcome for the best tale of these ten
years: a thousand welcomes if the peace but hold good.”

“Maybe through the winter,” said Swein, as they rose to leave the howe.
Then, as their feet brushed through the beaded dew, “I doubt if the oath
will bind us long,” said he. “Methought when he took mine, that I was
holding a dead man’s hand.”




CHAPTER VI.

OF FURNESS FOLK A THOUSAND YEARS SINCE.


The winter wore and the summer came: and Eadward still ruled the land in
peace. But about hay-harvest there were rumours, at which Swein nodded
to his wife as one who says “You see I was right.” And when haytime was
well passed, came people from over the fell bidding him to a meeting at
Ulfar’s Lund.

Now this Ulfar, of whom we spoke before, had land on the brink of the
fells where they met the low country, about an hour’s journey to the
southward of Greenodd. He was an old man, and he had been a chieftain
formerly, and was a man of worth even now, and a stickler for old times
and the old laws.

Near his “town” (as we still call hereabouts any cluster of dwellings
though it be nothing like a city) and between it and the waterside,
there was a broad mound, not so high, but standing by itself: from which
could be seen a great ring of country all around: across the firth, Cark
and Cartmel way, and all the Sandgate, that is the road across the sands
of Leven, and whosoever was coming and going, for good or ill: and down
the coast to Conishead, that was the king’s seat, where the York kings
had their folk to take tax of the iron-workers and mines: and then again
westward to Pennington, where the Pennings lived.

They were an ancient family of English kin long ago settled there, and
busied chiefly in getting red iron ore out of the iron pits on their
land, and smelting it and forging it. They were great smiths, and used
charcoal in their furnaces or bloomeries as we call these old works.
The charcoal was got from the woods that in old times covered all the
country: but by now these Pennings and their people had cleared a deal
of ground: there was the Swartmoor between their town and the old road,
called so, no doubt, from the cutting and coaling that had gone to clear
it. And so much iron they smelted and forged into weapons and tools, pots
and pans, and iron-ware of all sorts, that they were glad to sell it to
the merchants who came in ships up the firth. When Ulfar came, at first
they were angry, and fought with him: but when they found that for all
their smith’s cunning they could never give him the smith’s stroke, as
the saying is, they came round to the mind of king Donal’s counsellors
that Ketel told of. They made peace with Ulfar, and found that he was
an honest man and abiding by his word. When he offered to take their
ironmongery and sell it for them, better than the cowpers who had come
before, they were glad of it, and did all the brisker business in his
company: and in the end they settled down into good neighbours and
friends.

[Illustration: THE NORTHMEN IN HOUGUN]

When the Northmen came into Hougun, that is the country we call Furness,
beside the Pennings they found a few English and some Welsh here and
there. There were Welsh in the low land over against Walney, and Rhos
they called the meadow-land thereabouts. There were already villages
between that and Dalton and up to Broughton on the Duddon, and churches
there, and priests, no doubt; but such as heard little of any English
bishops, or what we should call government whether of church or state.
Across at Cartmel the land and all the Welsh that were on it had long ago
been given to York Minster; but Furness was a bit of that broad debatable
ground over which the tide of invasion flowed from age to age and ebbed
back again, just like the sea upon Morecambe shores. As time went on,
here a piece of sand was fully reclaimed, and there a piece of land was
swallowed up by the tide. So that it is hopeless now to seek the true
boundaries either of the people or of the place so many years ago: we can
only pick out here and there an English or a Welsh name among the Norse.

But when the Northmen came they took the snuggest places for shelter and
for safety, as we said, from the great fleets of Harald and Alfred. They
always wanted a good landing spot for their flat-bottomed boats, so that
when summer came, between sheep-shearing and corn harvest, they might
make use of their spare time by pushing out to sea and doing a little
quiet trade, or may be at times you might call it “raid,” up and down the
coasts of the Irish Sea. And so they went on farming and seafaring, turn
about, and picked up a better living the harder they worked at both.

Beside Ulfar there settled others of the Northmen along the coast. There
would have been Raven at the south point of Foreness, from whom we call
Rampside and Ramsey. Beyond Barr-ey, that is Barley island there is
Orm’s Gill, and round about it the villages into which his folk spread;
Hawcott, the high cottage; Sowerby, the muddy farm; Sandscale, the shed
by the sand; and so forth. Then up the Duddonfirth there is Roanhead,
that is to say the headland with the grove of trees, at one end of the
Roman road that goes by Dalton and Lindal to Conishead and Bardsea, which
again is, in the language of the Northmen, as recorded in king William’s
Domesday-book, Barehead’s-edge, and doubtless a place of ancient
inhabitation. Then, up the Duddon again, there is Dunnerholm—the wild
ducks’ islet, a fine spot for a stronghold; and opposite to it Mealholm,
Sandy isle, where in after times Millom castle was built. A little
higher is Arnold’s-by and Wolveswater, or Ulfa, as they called the river
Duddon, and round about them many a Norse thwaite.

After a while, from these first settlements on the coast, land was taken
up inbank by the families and followers of the first viking settlers.
Around Ulfar’s town there were Rolf’s seat, and Asmund’s lea, and Hauk’s
vale, and Máni’s riggs. In the lower land across the Swarthmoor there
is one Saxon spot, namely: Eadgar’s lyth, and outlying farms with Norse
names such as Bolton, Stainton, Scales and Bousfield. Urswick, maybe
means nothing but “stone walls” and Glassertun the beck town below; and
on the coast hard by is Aldingham and its Motehill where some Saxon thane
had dwelt in bygone times. Some say the Northmen afterwards used it for
their Althing, and so gave it the name it keeps, though of this there is
no other record than the ancient name Aldhingham, and the burial place of
some Thing-priest of theirs hard by, at the Godi’s barrow.

Now you must have patience for a while to hear a word about these
Motehills, and Things, and what was meant by a Godi.

Of all the Northmen in Furness our tale tells that Ulfar was the chief,
both because he was a man of repute to begin with, and an early comer,
and because he had got wealth from his trading and shipping iron to
all parts. Being as we said a stickler for the old laws, Ulfar made a
sacrificing place on that mound near his town among the trees that grew
upon it. He set up an altar to worship Thor in that grove, and called it
his Lund. To the feasts of the Lund he bade his neighbours; and they were
glad to come, not only for the worship, and to be on good terms with the
gods, but because there was a chance of meeting one another, and talking
over their affairs. So many came and so long they stayed, as folk who
had a good way to travel and were loth to return in a hurry, that around
about the Lund they built booths to lodge in, and set up tents. Some
brought wares to sell, and others started games and wrestling-matches:
so that it was quite like a fair, at the great feasts after Yule and
after sheep-shearing, and after corn-harvest, the seasons that stand for
Ulverston fair to this day.

When anyone had a quarrel with his neighbour and there had been
manslaughter or other misdoing, since there was no king to do justice
they brought the case to Ulfar at one of these feasts, and he judged it
according to the use and wont of the Northmen; so that Ulfar was called
their Godi, or chief and priest. Over in Dunnerdale, folk would meet in
the same manner at Folksfield which is named like the Folksdale by the
Tynwald in Man; and in Kentdale Sigurd had his holy place at Sigurd’s
Hörgr, the spot we now call Sizergh: and in every dale there was some
meeting place of which we have for the most part either the name or the
spot to point to.

After a while, the people from these little meeting-places or Things, as
they called them, found reason why they must come together into greater
meetings, or Althings. And they held the Althing first in one place and
then in another: and last of all, if our guess tell truth, after the
ravaging of Cumberland by King Ethelred when the men of the Morecambe
coast were cut off from their kindred in the north, they shifted their
meeting place southward, and used the Saxon Motehill for the Althing of
Hougun, being fashioned to hand, and plain round about, and thereto the
midmost spot for the Thingmen to come at within the borders of the king
of England, in the country between the Cumberland fells and the Ribble,
namely the district which was then known as Amounderness. But this is out
of our tale.

Well, as summer was drawing on, Swein was bidden to a Lund feast: and
took boat and landed at the Hummerside and went up to the Lund. There
men were all talking of the new king, and what should be done about
him. For Eadward was now dead and Athelstan his son reigned in his
stead; a stirring man, and not one to let the fire smoulder under his
feet. The news was that Sigtrygg of York—Sihtric he is called by the
English—had marched out as soon as the old king was gone: but Athelstan
was before-hand, and met him at Tamworth in the March, and there they
made peace, and Athelstan gave Sigtrygg his sister Eathgita to wife, and
confirmed him in his kingdom.

“And Ragnwald the viking, what of him?” asked Swein.

Nobody knew: some said he was gone to France, some said he was killed:
anyway he was out of the road by this time, and Sigtrygg was now head
king over all the Danelaw. These great kings being at peace there was no
longer any chance of a rising: not that it mattered much to the Northmen
hereabouts: but they were all good fighting men as well as good farmers
and merchants. A summer without war was a season lost, to their way of
thinking. So they went home again grumbling; and the next winter nothing
happened, but that at Greenodd, Thorstein grew too big for his cradle,
and began to walk and talk.




CHAPTER VII.

COWPERS’ CRACKS.

[The great Aurora of A.D. 926.]


Evening it was, when the afternoons were already beginning to lengthen,
but before the frost was over. Thorstein came running in at his bedtime,
and “Mother, mother,” says he, “the fell’s afire!”

Sure enough there was a sight to make the boldest heart shake in its step
like a ricketty mast. For it seemed that all the heavens were aflame; as
though, beyond the high hills, woods and forests—nay, the very mountains
themselves were blazing in a light low. And one while, great sheets of
wavering flame turned blood-colour, and the sky between them was green,
and the stars faded away. Then it throbbed, and shifted, and changed like
clouds of sunset, though the sun was long gone down and there was no
moon. Swein and Raud and the rest of them were aught but cowards: but
when they turned in, they saw one another pale as grass in the firelight,
and laughed but little that night. But what it might mean they disputed
among themselves: and it was mostly thought there would be bloodshed
wherever that blood in the sky had shone.

There was another evening soon after, when trading merchants came in a
boat up the firth of the Leven. Such were never unwelcome in winter, when
folk were at home and work was slack; there was time to rummage the wares
and hear the news. These cowpers also found the coast a deal safer when
no summer fighting was going on. As for storms, they were never out of
sight of a shelter, creeping about the shore, picking up what they could,
and always well entertained. They had come last from Cowprond, which was
their “trading shore” and market-place with the Cartmel Welsh, where the
old road met the Sandgate over the Leven. Greenodd was the only house up
the firth, and it was not always that chapmen called there; and so they
were made much of.

When they had got their packs up to the house, and when they had been
served and suppered, out came news. For it seems that Sigtrygg had died,
not long after that great fire-flaught in the heavens. “Aye,” said the
cowpers, “you may well cock your ears: others beside you guessed that
great doings would happen. But listen now, Swein Biornson and all.

“Folk said there was foul play in that matter: and Sigtrygg’s sons by the
queen that was, the Irish-woman, charged it on the queen that is, the
English-woman for whose sake the king had taken christening: but having
won her, he went back on his word and took to sacrificing again. Upon
which off she goes to her brother Athelstan, wed and yet unwed, as one
may say. And then dies Sigtrygg. Athelstan, they say, knew as much about
it as another: but that is only guess work, and neither here nor there.
Anyhow he is a brisk lad and sprack, not the man to see his sister put
upon, right or wrong. Away he marches with a great power to York; and no
sooner is he in sight, but Sigtrygg’s sons show him their heels, the best
way they could: and that was out by the back door, and away up the big
North road, across the fells, till they come to Penrith in Cumberland:
and there we lose sight of them. But they do say that Guthferth
Sigtryggson started on the North road to visit Constantine king of Scots,
and get shelter with him if he could: and Olaf Cuaran said good-bye to
his brother and went west, as if to seek his uncle Guthferth, who is king
now in Dublin. The question is What next? for you may be sure they will
not rest, and the Irish and Scots will be glad of a chance for a throw at
the young king—the king of all England as he will reckon himself.”

“And so that bad business at Bakewell comes to nothing?” said Swein. “I
knew as much. But this lad Athelstan, by what you tell of him must be a
fine cockerel to crow so loud. And now I call to mind, he must have been
the youngster that sat on the high-seat step at Bakewell: he with the
bright eyes.”

“Aye,” said the chapman, “tall and slender: he would be some thirty
winters old when you saw him: handsome and flaxenhaired: and ye will have
noticed how his hair was all twisted up with gold threads. He’s a real
king to look at, though they say he is but the son of a shepherd lass
whom Eadward his father lighted upon in his travels. And he is a good
sort, they say, and has seen the world, and knows better than most kings
how folk live. Why, he speaks our language like one of us, and has done
a bit of seafaring. But for all that he is a Saxon, and he must stand by
his own kin.”

“Well, what are we to do? Knock him on the head?”

“To hold thy peace,” said Unna, “is my advice: and watch the weather.”

“A wise woman is my wife,” said Swein, “and knows the weasel’s trick.
After all, we are free of our oath, and need not put our heads into the
snare again.”

“Laugh at the lightning when the storm has passed,” said the chapmen.
“Athelstan with his power was at York awhile since, and may be in
Lunesdale by now to foreset us.”

“Let him come!” shouted Swein; “and hey for a gradely good stir-about,
and pot luck for the sharpest claws!”

“Look you, master cowper, and all the rest,” said Unna, “if you set up
for eggbattles and put my man on shouting, I shall have those blessed
barns awake and on my hands all night. Swein Biornson is a good friend to
all his friends but himself alone. We have seen a little fighting, to our
sorrow: and the talk of the trade hangs about the tongue, like smoke in
a half-burnt house. But here we are, and here we stay if we can. As for
Swein, his bark is worse than his bite. He shaped well for a good farmer
in Man before Ragnwald shifted us: and he shapes well for a good farmer
now: and pity it were if we be plucked up by the roots again. These great
kings and their powers come not where nothing is to be had but kale
pottage and hard bats. I’ll uphold it, Athelstan will be bound for the
great burgs in the north, or connily on his way home again. And I should
reckon it ill done of you good fellows to go abroad stirring up useless
riot, or coming hither to entrap quiet folk into rash vows.”

So the cowpers said they were but giving the news and meant no harm: and
that it never had been their way to go talebearing and raising strife,
nor never would be. At which Unna smiled, and got up to make them beds
before the fire on the benches of the hall. When she saw them well
furnished with rugs to hap them and bolsters for their heads, she sent
her folk to their chambers; put her knitting away into a basket; lit a
rushlight in an iron candlestick; and bade them good-night.

Child Thorstein was fast asleep on the farther side of the bolster in the
narrow chamber of their lock-bed, with one little dimpled arm stretched
upon the quilted coverlet. Swein, sitting upon a kist to unlace his
shoes, looked sleepily at him, and then at her, as she let a sheaf of
yellow hair fall upon her white night-sark: and the rushlight on the
shelf shone down through it, flickering in the draught from the little
round window above: for the lock-bed was just like a cabin aboard ship.

“Right thou art, Irish fairy,” said he: “and always right. But ah, you
women, you never felt the heartiness of a good fight.”

“Nay, we are nought: that’s well known,” she laughed, drawing the curtain
round the baby. “Bar the door, Norse bearsark.”




CHAPTER VIII.

THE GIANT COMES IN.


Restless they were that spring; and Unna was anxious and somewhat pettish
when Swein talked over the chances of a war. For one good thing, however,
he was eager to get forward with work at home, so that he might leave the
place well redd up: and that pleased the mistress right well. So they
put on until haytime, which is pretty early in the low fields by the
waterside, and these were all they had under hay: for the summer-pastures
on the fell were hardly stubbed, and far too stony for cutting with the
ley.

Well, they were all raking by the beck side, and the mistress was pouring
ale to slocken them, and the boys were tumbling in the haycocks,
when there was a terrible stir in the woods on the other bank. These
woods were on a long hill that made a wall to the valley over against
Greenodd: and the fields lay between, and the tide ran up the Crake to
where the valley narrowed and the fields ended, and there was a wath or
fording-place. Dogs barked, and men shouted, and swine squealed. They
could see by the shaking of the boughs that something was going forward:
most like a wild-cat hunt, they said to one another, and left it to the
swine-herds to deal with.

But presently there was a great splash in the ford, and out came a most
enormous man, half naked, with long red hair and red beard. He held one
hand on high, carrying they could not see what. In his other hand was a
huge ugly stock of tree. All the swine-herds’ dogs were after him, and
the men too, for that matter: but he made no account of them, until one
dog leaped at his legs as he came up the bank on the hither side. The big
man turned and flicked him like a football, high in the air and splash in
the water: and ran straight for Greenodd garth.

Swein and his men ran up to meet him with their rakes and forks, less
afraid than puzzled. The big man never stayed until he came to the door,
and then he thrust the thing he was carrying into a chink of the posts,
and began talking in a strange tongue. He was indeed a giant, head and
shoulders taller than any of the Greenodd men, but of quite another
make: crane-legged and clumsy handed and jolter-headed; unlike Swein,
who was no little fellow, though his strength was rather in the breadth
of his shoulders and the ropy sinews of his wrist and forearm, like a
seafaring man as he had been bred. They could make nothing of the giant’s
talk, but they saw that the thing he had brought was a burnt splinter,
and they knew that it was a war-arrow and token of fighting: but whence
or why they could not guess. Presently came Unna; and listening to the
man’s talk, she smiled, and began to answer him. The creature made her a
low court-reverence, half haughty, half awkward, and spoke to her with a
strutting way about him, like a cock upon pattens, as one may say.

When he had done, “Friends,” she said, “this man’s talk is like the talk
of our Irish: and I gather thus much of his discourse, that he is the
messenger of a war-rising in the north: and bids you to a weapon-show
beyond the fells, you and all the country side, whoever will cast in his
lot against the Saxon king. And you are to send on the arrow to our next
neighbours, and bid them likewise.”

“Speer of him, Unna, where and when,” said Swein.

So she asked him, and said his story was to the intent that he would come
again in ten days’ time to lead them over the fells by the bainest gate
to the Scots king and the Welsh king and all their friends: and she added
that she was sorry; but she doubted nothing of the man’s faith, for
there was the arrow.

Swein drew out the arrow, and gave it to one of his young men, and bade
him carry it to Ulfar by the fell-path. The red stranger watched him
start, and saw him run up the fell nimbly, and nodded his head: and then
Unna signed that he should come to the house for a bite and a sup, and
sent the servants back to their haymaking. He ate like a wolf, until
little was left for supper; and stared about him in great wonderment at
the house and all that was in it, especially at the three boys, who gaped
at him, while they kept hold of their mother’s gown. At last he made
another of his reverences, and a speech to Swein: walked swiftly through
the fields: splashed across the ford: and so vanished into the woods.

Now when the arrow came to Ulfar he was right glad, and sent it on far
and wide, and bade all his neighbours meet at Greenodd. So to Greenodd
came two-score men with their war-weapons: and what the giant had left
they ate. But it was a point of honour to give to all comers: and in
summer especially there was plenty for the trouble of killing and
cooking. They set up tents in the mown field to lodge them, and being
all good neighbours there was no rough play to speak of. As for the
errand upon which they were come, they held their meeting on the field
over against Greenodd across the ford of Crake. They cleared a space on
the fell side, and found a little howe there, and made a doom-ring and
hallowed it with sprinkling of blood. Some of them that held to the old
law wanted Swein to let them have a thrall to redden the stone. But he
said nay to that, and gave them a horse. So they killed a horse there for
Thor, and sprinkled its blood upon all the people, and held a hallowed
Thing to order their doings and to pray help and luck from their gods
on the journey whither they were bound. Because Ulfar was old they made
Swein their captain, and swore to him at that spot, which they called
Lögberg, and we call Legbarrow to this day.

Then began they to ask after the red man their guide, for it was well
known by this time that they were bidden to join Constantine the king
of Scots and Owain the son of Donal, the new king of Cumberland and
Strathclyde, and to march with all the north upon York by the great
highway. But how to come upon that highway none of them knew, nor did
they know the paths across the fells, for they had kept hitherto by the
sea and hardly ventured inland where all was wild forest. As they stood
in their assembly, some blaming Swein for putting trust in the red man,
and some saying that he ought to have been kept by force and not let go,
lo and behold the wood opened, and there he was beside them, true to his
appointed time.




CHAPTER IX.

THEY TRAVEL THROUGH THE FELLS.


Little farewell they made, and set out, some on horseback and some on
foot, these two-score men. The giant striding along led them through
wild woods up hill and down dale. In the midst of the valleys and fells,
they came upon the traces of an ancient path overgrown with brambles,
and washed away wherever the becks crossed it. For a good while it ran
along between hill and plain; and then it entered a narrow valley umbered
with ancient trees, and wholly uninhabited but for wild boars and such
like, whereupon they named that place Grisdale, from the boars they found
there. Then the path crossed the beck and crept up the side of a hill
to the right hand, until it got above the tops of the trees and out on
a heathy moor, where, after a while, they found traces of an ancient
village, but all by now in ruins, wall and cot and dike. From the brink
of this moor the travellers could see a delightful lake lying in the
valley beneath, among many little howes and hills, and all smothered up
in dark green forest. Between the hills on the farther side there came
peeps of blue water, here a little and there a little; to which the giant
pointed, making signs with his hands that these bits of blue were all one
great long winding mere. To which indeed they came, after travelling down
from the high place past an old ruin by a river side where Hawkshead Hall
stands now, and after toiling for more than a step through the overgrown
and deserted pathways. If it had not been for their guide one would never
have guessed that any pathway ran there at all, so hard to follow out was
that old track in the forest, and so lonely and uncouth it seemed.

They stayed that night at the water-head of this long mere, upon a holm
beside two rivers that joined and ran into it—Breithá, the broad water,
they called the one they first came to, and Reythá, that is Trout-stream,
the other, in which folk say trout alone do breed. Upon this holm was an
ancient stronghold, built foursquare, and well-nigh even with the water.
The walls were in ruin, and the roofs of the houses were fallen in. But
it could be seen that this had been a fine city once upon a time: for the
houses were strongly built of stone and tiles, and the defences were well
planned, and there were old docks and landing-places between sharp nabs
that ran into the lake. Among the ruins of the houses were carven pillars
and painted walls, so well done that it was a wonder. But the place was
overgrown with nettles, and the fairest chambers were choked with briars.
A few of the old houses were patched up, and a handful of Welsh dwelt in
them hugger-mugger. These Welsh our Northmen could understand a little,
for they were used to the talk of their Welsh neighbours and servants.
They got fire and a welcome, such as it was; for it seemed their coming
was known, and more about them than would have been guessed. So they
passed the night in the ruined burg by the water-head of the winding
mere, among the rocky fells and forests.

[Illustration: THE NORTHMEN IN THE FELLS]

Next morning their guide took them by a road along the valley until they
came to another mere, a little one, under a great nab’s scar: over whose
axle they climbed about to another lake, not much larger, and with an
island in the middle of it, and shores all overgrown with rushes and
grass. The mountains around seemed to rise higher and wilder, and on one
fell top was seen the likeness of a man crouching down, as if he would
roll great rocks upon the road below. They looked at him again and again,
but their guide took up a stone and pointed aloft, making signs that the
man on the helm of the crag was no living wight, but a man of stone. And
yet some of the Northmen were not sorry when they had passed to the other
side of his crag, and saw him again in the mist as if he were asleep on
his elbow. They were afraid of no mortal man, but they knew that this was
a land of wonders and warlocks, and it could be seen that yon stone giant
had heard them coming and had stirred in his sleep.

Not the least wonder was that road, running through wild forests, up
and down rocks and hills, always straight forward, and paved with
cobble-stones; no little broken path like the one that brought them to
the water-head. Swein likened it to the Manchester road, and wondered if
the Roman folk had been here too, where no churches were, and whether
they had made that stone image on the fell for their god. And in this
mood they climbed over a high hause where the mountains were at their
wildest and rough screes fell down from the rocks on either hand through
the ragged trees. And soon they had an adventure.

For on coming down from that pass, they found houses by the roadside
where it crept along the steep brink. A big man came out to meet them,
swaggering, and dressed in strange ancient armour of iron fitted to his
body like an iron skin. All the same he seemed very filthy, and sodden
with drink. He gave them to wit in Welsh that he was governor of this
borderland for the Cumbrian king, and seemingly a greater man than the
king himself. “For,” said he, “Owain and his father are no Romans, like
the Donal that went before them. But I,” said he, “am of right Roman
blood, and my name is Elphin map Rhydderch map Caradoc: and I let no man
nor woman pass without tribute.”

“Ah!” said Swein, “here we have one of the folk who made this road. I
guessed they were of the troll’s kin. Look you, friends, no iron will
bite upon him.”

And since the fellow would not let them pass, Swein with little ado smote
out his fist, as it might be to try what would happen: and the brainpan
of Elphin was cracked against his own stone door post. Their guide gazed
awhile upon him, and turned him over with his foot, saying nought but
“Aigh!” And so they passed on.

But here the houses thickened, and they came to a city of Welshmen that
was called the city of Helvellyn. It was built on a rock above the swampy
flats at the head of another lake, and fenced round about with a great
wall of huge stones. On one side was the mire, and on the other side
rough rocky ground and a waterfall running down from the high mountains.
The road came up to it, and turned sharp round to encompass it and to
come in at the gate; and then, after passing through the houses, ran
out again; and so to the cliffs overhanging the lake. At this city they
stayed awhile, and the people brought them honeymead to drink: and it
seemed as though Swein was made much of, and pointed out by the women and
children, who came thronging to the door of the house where he sat: and
at their departure a crowd followed them along the road, beckoning with
their hands and making merriment. Swein thought they were glad to be quit
of the long-named carle, Roman or no Roman.

Then the road took them on the edge of wonderful great cliffs by the
brink of a long mere, in the middle of which was a narrow place, and a
wath. Here there were houses, poor enough, of men who seemed to be the
giant’s kin, and there our travellers stayed for the night. Next morning
they crossed the wath, and at the foot of the lake they came to a place
where four dales met among high mountains and crags. And here there
was a sweet spot alone in the wilderness, with cleared meadow-land and
a little brook coming down from Helvellyn through the leas, to meet the
great river that ran from the lake, and turning sharply round went by a
deep valley. Afterwards they called this river Grit-á, which is as much
as to say the Stony water; and there is none indeed that has a rougher
bed. They took notice of this dale because of its sweetness in the midst
of wild rocks and forests, and because it is not often one sees four
dales meeting in one spot like the rays of the sign of Thor.

But their path led them onward through the deep valley of the Greta, with
crags on one hand and a roaring river or spreading swamps on the other,
until they came to a wide plain, and on the other side of it, at the foot
of the mountain Blencathra, their path struck a great road which led them
eastward. By nightfall they came to another of those ancient foursquare
strongholds: and hard by, across a little dell, the army of the Welsh lay
at Penrhydderch.

Owain the king received them well, and thanked them for their coming,
and promised them the foremost place when they should meet the Saxons.
In his tent they met Ketel Bolster as Swein had called him, and the
Northmen from the holm on Sölvi’s bay, as they named the Solway, and they
fell in talk together. But before they had spoken many words, men came
running in through the lanes of tents, crying out “They are here!” Owain
bade them have peace: and took Swein and his chief men, and went out to
the brow of the hill. There in the twilight they saw the valley beyond
thronged with a great multitude, and knew, by the lights that started up
from point to point, that Athelstan with all his power was camping in the
fields of Dacor.




CHAPTER X.

THE CARVING OF DACOR CROSS.


Dacor was then, as it is now, the name of a village in a pleasant vale,
on the border between the plain country of Cumberland and the mountains
Lakeland. Among the mountains at that time were dwelling only wild Welsh,
and still wilder fell-folk akin to the Picts of Galloway. But in the
plain country were many homesteads of Anglians and Danes, dotted here
and there beside the old high-road. The Danes were new comers, who had
crossed the waterparting, the Keel of England one may say, as they talked
of the Keel of Norway. They had invaded these western parts but fifty
years since, when Halfdan laid all the inland regions under him from
Carlisle to Conishead, and remained there after his power had ebbed back
over the Keel again. But the Anglians were old inhabitants since the
days of Ecgfrith and other great kings, whose heirs ruled at Bamborough,
though in diminished splendour, until Athelstan took their kingdom to
himself.

These Anglians were Christian people, and had priests and monks among
them. One of their churches was at Dacor; and near by, a monastery. A
church is there yet on the spot: as for the monastery nobody knows where
it stood; but it was doubtless in that valley with the lovely winding
beck and among the acres of corn and pleasant meadowlands which the monks
had cleared and tilled, bordering on the wild home of rocks and wolves.
The Welsh of Penrith and Penruddock and Blencow lived thus alongside
of Danes and Anglians: not always quiet neighbours perhaps, but yet on
some terms of neighbourhood: and if not good subjects to Owain king of
Cumbria, still reckoned within his borders.

So when Athelstan had news about the plots of Owain and Constantine to
put back Sigtrygg’s sons on their father’s throne, he marched from York
by the old high-road straight over the Keel: and in three days he was
here at Dacor guesting with the monks. And his foes, who had come south
too late to carry the war into the country of York, found nothing left
for them to do but to agree with him as best they might.

Athelstan the king sat in Dacor hall, and the kings of the north swore to
him as they had sworn to his father Eadward: and they gave their hostages
into his hands, and renounced their dealings with the idolaters, namely
those heathen Danes, the sons of Sigtrygg. “For,” said Athelstan, “it is
a shame if we, being Christian men and ruling Christian men, suffer these
unbaptized pagans to ravage a Christian land, to burn the churches, and
slay the monks, and rob the holy women our sisters. And if we three but
stand together, we might clear the whole island of such knaves, and keep
it clear for ourselves and our people, in peace and plenty.”

To such talk at that while Owain and Constantine were well agreed, and
all the readier because Athelstan’s host was bigger than both of theirs.

Now Constantine had with him a young son of his, yet unchristened; and
Athelstan, willing to knit himself closer to his new friends, said that
he would stand godfather to the child: for in those days it was thought
nearer than kinship by blood to be god-sib, or bound by holy water and
the vows of baptism. So they brought the young child to Dacor church, and
baptized him, and Athelstan stood his godfather.

When he was out of the water, and dressed in white, with white linen
wrapped about his head, said the priest, “Here is water, king, as the
Scripture says: what should hinder these from being baptized?” and he
pointed to the Northmen who were standing without, and neither signed
themselves with the cross nor bent the knee at prayer, but stared in
through the church porch at the gilded imagery, and at the glass windows
that Bishop Wilfrith had put there in ancient times.

With that there was some shrinking back among those who had been most
eager to look on: and Athelstan turned and fixed his gaze upon Swein, and
spoke in the Northmen’s tongue, for he knew it well.

“What sayest thou, friend? Wilt thou set the good example?”

“King,” answered he, “I am a prime-signed man and no church robber.”

(For it must be known that many of the heathen were, as one may say,
half-baptized: not that they meant to change their faith, but in order to
have dealings in trade and otherwise with Christians, who might have no
communion with the unbelievers).

“And,” added Swein, “I have a mind to stay as I am.”

“But if I bid thee?” said the young king.

“Eadward thy father asked no such thing of me, when I took him for father
and lord two years ago.”

“Why, brother, I seem to have some inkling of thy face. Wast not thou the
brawler of Bakewell?”

With that they laughed and Swein reddened, and replied somewhat angrily,
“Saving a king’s presence, I was no brawler, nor did Eadward call me so,
to my face.”

“Nor behind thy back, believe me, good man. For I tell truth when I say
that after all were gone, and we were together at supper, my father said
this to me: Boy, he said, we have done a good day’s work;—and I remember
well how he cracked a great nut when he said it. But, said he, the best
touch of my kingcraft, for many a year, has been the winning of that
stout franklin and his fellows. And he charged me to leave no stone
unturned to get the love of you Northmen, such as had settled peaceably
within our borders, and were busied in tilling lands hitherto waste, and
in the carrying trade about our coasts. Now, what shall I give thee,
since thou dost refuse the best of gifts in my keeping?”

“King,” said Swein, “they say we Northmen are greedy of gold, and of
blood, and of plunder alone. But by this I know that thou art wiser than
other men, and bearest a grey head on those young shoulders. Truth it
is when thou sayest that we are busied in tilling waste places, and in
sea-trading; and this no man can gainsay. And indeed if at times we are
ready to fight, and to fight our best, it is but to keep the homes we
have made with our own hands, and to give them over no less than we hold
them into the safe keeping of our little ones.”

Then Athelstan thought awhile and said “It has been in my mind now these
many days that it would be a wise law, if every such brave seafaring
merchant who has made three voyages with his own goods in his own ship,
should be called Thane of England. Will that cap fit, friend?”

“Well, king,” answered Swein, “many a voyage have I made with my own bulk
in my own ship, cheaping a little and—”

“And taking what came in thy way?” broke in the king with a smile.

“That’s as you may call it,” said Swein.

“Well, for the law the Witan must look to it: and for thee, friend, come
to me once again when thy mind is made up, after talk with the priest
here, and with the good monks hard by.”

The priest was glad enough to talk with Swein, and so were the monks, for
that matter; and they went near to tearing him in pieces between them.

First he must away to see the monastery: and in it was a carved shrine
of gold and enamel, curiously worked, and holding their treasure. Swein
looked for a crown of jewels at the least: but lo and behold it was only
a lock of hair. But they said that this lock of hair was from the head of
Cuthbert the great saint of their faith: and that it had been cut from
his dead body when he was carried about by his monks for seven years,
fleeing before Halfdan after Carlisle was burnt. And then they told Swein
of the wonderful things which that lock of hair could do: how it had
healed a young man who was diseased in his eyes, and such like, as was
writ in the book of venerable Beda. Swein wondered at the casket, but he
took little heed of the relic, saying he thanked them, and he would come
back to them when his eyes ached, if no wise wife at home could cure him.

Then they carried him back to Dacor kirkgarth, where was lying a great
pillar of sandstone foursquared: and on it, drawn with chalk, figures to
carve: and the carver was already at work with mallet and chisel, for a
monument of the kings’ meeting. There was the font of baptism, and over
it the two kings handselling their peace. Athelstan was drawn much the
greater because he was the greater king: and he seemed eager enough in
his picture, while Constantine drew back like one who would gladly get
his hand out of the grip of his friend. At which Swein laughed within
himself, and thought that the carver was belike a true prophet.

Then there was a lamb above them, and beneath, a hart worried by a hound,
so fairly drawn that it was like the life.

Under all was a tree, and a serpent at its roots, and one who plucked the
apples, and one who took them to make him wise and to get knowledge.

“Nay,” said Swein, “that is no new picture: but you have not got it
right. This Adam you call him,—Odin, I say as I was taught,—should be
hanging in the tree, as the rhyme says:—

    I wavered, I wot,
    On the windy tree
    Nine whole nights:
    With weapon wounded,
    Offered to Odin,
    Myself to myself.

    Gazing groundward
    The runes I gathered;
    Weeping I wooed them,
    And won me down.”

“Ah!” cried the priest eagerly, “thou art not far from the kingdom of
God. For what saith the Scripture? As in Adam all died, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive. Come with me, and the Lord open thine
eyes.”

Then he took Swein into the little church, and the sunshine came through
the windows upon the altar.

“Behold,” said the priest kneeling, “One hanging on the tree, wounded
with the spear, very God of very God: given by himself to himself, that
we who are his body might know the truth, and that the truth might make
us free.”

And more he added, earnestly entreating his guest: until Swein laid his
hand on the frail shoulder of the priest, and said gravely:—

“Young man, these two-score years I have followed the gods of my fathers:
and one while they have been good to me, and another while they have
been evilminded. Now I will not lightly take a new god at the bidding of
yonder king: nay, not to be Thane or Earl. Nor do I wholly understand all
thy words, though meseems they are good words, and spoken from a good
heart. But this I say, that no priest nor church shall ever be the worse
for me or mine: and when my day of need comes, if thy God will help me,
he shall be my God.”

He took the priest’s hand, and went his way. But the priest knelt there,
weeping passionately and praying, “Oh God, give me that man’s soul. Nay,
not unto me, oh Lord, but unto Thy name be the glory.”




CHAPTER XI.

THE GIANT’S BOON.


Haymaking was begun when our Northmen started on their journey to Dacor:
and it was not yet finished when they came back, as empty-handed as they
went. When they were once again in the hall at home, and the red man had
brought them safe and sound through flood and fell, Swein said to his
wife, “Now that this man our guide has taken us in good faith through
strange places, and brought us home again, though little we have got by
our travelling unless it be gain to be no worse off than we were, but the
more assured of peace and quietness: I would not send him away without
thanks, but I would give him a gift, even if it be a good weapon, or as
many sheep as he can drive. Ask him then to make his choice, and he shall
not find us stingy.”

Unna agreed very readily to this: and when she had set it forth, the red
man was silent for a time, looking round as if to choose something out of
the house. At last he stood up, and made a long speech in his own tongue,
waving his arms and shaking his head. While he spoke, they saw her grow
pale as grass, and the tears came into her eyes.

“Swein,” she said, “and friends all, here is a hard thing for us to
answer: and indeed I know not myself what to do. For the man says that
he has enough and to spare of all the goods he needs; and that he is
a chief among his own people, so that he may not take a hired man’s
wages for service done rather to his king than to strangers. But if I
understand him aright he says that he saw at Dacor how men had respect to
thee, Swein Biornson: and that even the great king of the Saxons spoke
with thee friendly, as with a great chief. And moreover I gather from
his words that he has some foresight from his own dreams or from a wise
man’s, that you strangers are to be mighty in this land, and that nothing
will stand against you in the end: and that you will wipe his people from
the face of the earth, and take from them the homes of their fathers. Now
he says that he would be thy friend and brother; and for a pledge of our
peace, he would have nothing else but the fostering of one of our sons.”

With that they all cried out astonished, and Swein laughing a little and
harshly, said, “Tell him that we do not give our lads to giants and wild
men of the woods nowadays, even if Signy gave her child to Sigmund once
on a time, as the old song says.”

“Nay,” she said, “I will not anger him, or he will do us a bad turn one
of these days.”

“Tell him that we humbly thank his lordship for the honour, and one day
we will wait on his lordship at his lordship’s palace.”

But the red man, though he could make nothing of the words, knew very
well from the horse-laugh and the rough gesture of Swein that he was
despised and his offer scorned: and before Unna could speak, he dashed
his great club on the ground so that it tore a hole in the paving, and
made the cobbles fly. Then turning round, he went swiftly and disappeared
into the woods as before.

They looked at one another as if mischief should come next, but Swein
said, “Take courage, wife, and never fear that I will give up child of
ours to such a foster-father: and you, friends all, be on your guard, and
keep a watch on the ford and the woods, so that we be not taken unawares.
As for you, barns, let me not say it twice: stay with your mother, and
never wander away out of her sight, or the sight of the good fellows who
have charge of you.”

Days passed, and months: and all that winter nothing was seen or heard of
the red man: until it became a jest among them. For when any of the boys
were unruly, they would say to snape him, “Folk would think the giant had
thy fostering.”

But what with fear of this wood-man, and what with lack of neighbours,
Orm and Hundi and Thorstein grew up in their father’s house, and were not
put out to foster parents like many children of that day. For all that,
they were not brought up in idleness, to be spoiled lads and good for
nought; since, although there was plenty of servants, it was the way of
these people to do their own work, and to show their mastery in craft of
hand as well as in cunning of head.

There was a smithy on the farm; for how else could they shoe their nags
or fettle their weapons? and Swein was proud to be called master smith
of them all, and would spend many a winter day at the anvil, forging the
iron they brought in their boats from the Pennings’ people. So the boys
picked up something of the craft, maybe not so workmanlike as others,
and yet serviceably for the needs of people whose things were less for
show than for use. Their fine jewellery and goldsmith’s work they had
from abroad: but even so there was always some conceit of daintiness or
quaintness in the way they turned out their homely jobs, because their
time was before them, and they liked smithying, and lingered over it as a
pastime: curling the horns of a door-latch or a candlestick into ringlets
with the tongs: twisting the bar of a horse-bit into a screw, and
engraving a blade with devices or punching it into patterns. And every
bit of work was a lesson to the boys.

Beside smithying there was always woodwork to be done, for their houses
were wooden, and many things for which we use potter’s wares, they made
of wood: as cups and platters and all sort of vessels. In the winter
evenings especially this work went on round the hearth, while the women
spun and wove. The lads were not long at whittling sticks before they
were set to make arrows and shafts for weapons and tools, and it was
a proud day when they made their first piggin with hoops and staves
complete. And from that they got to carving, since these people were as
nice about their woodwork as their iron, and could not abide a blank
kist-panel or door-post, after they had once got roof raised and land
stubbed.

Moreover on these winter evenings there was story-telling and singing
of ballads, which let the lads into some knowledge of olden times, of
the kings and the gods, and especially adventures in strange lands. Add
to this that their mother, half Irish as she was, and the Welsh thralls
with whom they consorted, as children will with servants, taught them
something of other tongues than their own. And Unna showed them their
letters, drawing the runestaves with a charred stick on a board for them
to carve. As to book-learning, they got on very well without it.




CHAPTER XII.

RAIDS.


Springtime was now come and the children of Greenodd went with their
playmates from the thralls’ cottages to roam the woods. For then were
the hollows among the knolls by Crake side all carpeted with golden
lilies and dim white wind-flowers. And when the time of these was over,
bluebells, sweet scented, and growing as thick as grass, covered the
glades. Thorstein, who was now four years old, and some of his playfairs
were in the woods one day; and their game was to make a queen of the
prettiest girl, dressing a bower for her and crowning her with bluebells.
In the midst of it who should come suddenly upon them but a wild red man,
bellowing, they said, like a bull, and shaking his great club as if he
meant to kill them all. But he only caught the biggest and best looking
of the boys, and dragged him off. When the boy bealed and screamed, the
robber nipped him round the throat, and soon stopped his noise. The
children ran home with their knees trembling, and said that a giant had
got their playfellow to eat him. But whatever he did with him he did not
eat him; for next morning before the men could start to lait the lad, he
came down the beck with his head broken.

Said Swein, “No use to shut the door when the roof has fallen in.” Then
he sent a good gift to the thrall whose child was lost, telling him to
wipe his eyes with it: and forbade the youngsters wandering in woods or
out of sight. So all was quiet for a time, and if there were uneasiness
about robbers, it was no more than what everyone felt everywhere in those
days, when by sea and shore men carried their lives in their hands, and
trusted to luck to keep their women and children from bloodshed and
slavery.

In the next winter there was much snow, and the distant mountains were
curd-white, both at Yule and for many a week after. Even the moorlands
were covered and the forests were choked: and when great storms blew,
the mealy snow would drift in streaming clouds, and fill all the hollow
places and the gills: so that many wild beasts were buried in the drifts,
and many came down into the valleys, where the snow lay not so thick
and melted away between whiles. Sheep and cattle needed double care; for
though most of the stock was killed and hung in smoke, some beasts always
had to be kept, and fed with the hay of the summer, and holly boughs,
which the shepherds cut and let them pick up when they took them out from
the byres and folds. Even so there was always danger of drifts, and the
burying of whole flocks in the snow: and then they had to dig them out,
which was a great labour to the men, but a fine playtime for Thorstein
and his brothers. For to the boys the snow was like fairyland, and rare
enough to be something of a marvel to children in sheltered Greenodd by
the sea. What storms they feel come mostly from the warm south-west, and
if the wind blows from north-east it brings sunshine, with blue sky and
black frost that vanishes away long before noon.

One day Thorstein went with the shepherds and their lads to an uplying
fold to serve the sheep, and found the snow much trampled, as though wild
beasts had been there, for all there was a high turf dike around it,
with a sharp fence on the top such as no wolves were like to climb. So
the shepherd began counting out the flock, in their way which Thorstein
learnt from him:—“Un, dau, tri, y-pedwar, y-pump: chwech, y-saith,
y-wyth, naw, deg.” And we may say that our old folk still use this way
of reckoning little changed but to make the words easier with rhyme,
as:—“Yan, tyan, teddera, meddera, pimp; haata, slaata, sour, down,
dick:—” and so forth.

When he had counted a score he marked it off on his fingers, or scored
a notch on a stick, and began again. And so counting he found that two
sheep were gone: and worse than that, they saw, by the blood on the snow
and by the footprints, that thieves had cut their throats and carried
them off. So away they went to track the thieves at once, which was easy
enough because of the snow. Before long, stopping to listen, they heard a
crackling of branches ahead, and shouted, and put Thorstein in the rear,
and pressed forward. Then were seen through the leafless trees three men,
or not men but giants they seemed, long and gaunt and red-haired. One had
a sheep on his shoulders, and another had a sheep on his shoulders, not
a little encumbered as they pushed their ways through the underwood and
thick tangle.

The shepherds had gone too far to go back; and beside that, they were
armed, while the thieves had only their cudgels. But when it came to
blows, such was the tangle in the wood that they were soon scattered:
one was stuck in a thicket, and another floored with a broken head, and
a third with a broken arm; and the robbers were off and away. So when
they came to collect their forces there was one wanting, a shepherd’s
son. They shouted and searched the wood as well as they might, for it
was beginning to grow dark. In the end they were forced to return home
without him, and their sheep were gone and all.

When they brought Thorstein to the house and told their tale, Swein
listened with a very long face, and saw to their hurts: for it was the
chief’s business to be surgeon, both to handle wounds until the blood
stopped, and to set broken limbs and bind them. It was the lady’s to make
drinks of herbs for medicine. Some good drink Unna gave them, and they
went home: but Swein and she talked late that night after Thorstein was
asleep.

The next day Swein himself, with a band of men well armed, set off early,
and soon found the place where the fight had been. Thenceforward by the
broken branches, for it had snowed and the tracks were covered, they
followed the robbers up the fell and towards the moors. But when they
came out of the wood upon the heather, what should they see but the boy
who had been carried off, lying on the ground, and dead. It was plain
that the robbers had knocked him on the head; though why they should take
him all that way, and wherefore they should kill him at the last, nobody
could tell. Swein gave a good gift to the shepherd whose son had been
killed, saying that he could get no other atonement at the time: but that
one day he would gather his neighbours together and clear the fells of
such vermin. And he said no more of the matter, unless it were of nights
to the mistress.




CHAPTER XIII.

LEGBARROW AND LEGBURTHWAITE.


All that year king Constantine and king Owain were quiet, and held to the
peace of Dacor. But king Guthferth Ivarson of Dublin, to whom Olaf Cuaran
had fled, was not in the treaty, and thought himself in no way bound to
refrain from attacking the realms of Britain, but quite otherwise.

For it was an old use and wont of the heathen vikings to plunder
Christians whenever they got the chance: and there was now not only the
open door to York, but friends within, the party of Sigtrygg’s sons,
bidding him to come over.

So king Guthferth and his nephew Olaf Cuaran and their host crossed the
sea, and landed, as our story has it, at Ellenburg by the mouth of the
river Ellen in Cumberland, where now stands Maryport, and before those
times stood some old Roman city. Thence there was the good road that the
Romans had made, straight through the fells and between the two waters
of Bassenthwaite and Derwent, and so to Penrith, and over the Keel. In
a week or so they were again in York: but not for long. For as soon as
Athelstan heard of it he went Northward, and drove them home by the way
they came. There was a deal of confused fighting, of which folk never
will know, and maybe never did know, the rights. And sorely he blamed
Owain for giving the Danes passage through his kingdom. But Owain came
off this time with the excuse that in Strathclyde he had enough on his
hands, and could not be answerable for vikings who forced their way
through the extremest borders of his dominion. Yet when the same thing
happened again and again and every time the viking host left behind it
stragglers and settlers to hold strong places and good lands on the
Cumberland coasts, as a flood tide leaves its wreckage on the shore, then
the English king was forced to take stronger measures with the Cumbrians,
as the tale tells in the end.

Meanwhile Athelstan held counsel about that borderland which lay around
Morecambe Bay, where our Northmen lived. Neither Swein nor any of his
neighbours had come in to him, ready to be baptized and to take his
service: or maybe he might have set one of them over these parts as Thane
or Earl, to rule the country in his name. On the other hand, the land
of Cartmel was already in the holding of the priests at York, and they
no doubt were instant in their claims to take under them the whole of
which they held a part. So Athelstan, for the good of his soul, and for
the souls of the Northmen who should be brought into the fold, and for
the better ruling of these outlying borders, gave to the priests of York
Minster all Amounderness—that is, the land of Lancaster and the shores of
Morecambe, being Lunesdale and Kentdale and Hougun, and the coast about
Duddon and Eskmouth.

After a while came the summoner from York church, to take tithe and tax
from the Northmen, as he was wont to do from the Cartmel people. But
they made short work of him, before ever he got so far as Greenodd: and
when next there was a meeting at Legbarrow, loud talk was held about the
matter. Even Swein Biornson, though he had loved Athelstan when he saw
him at Dacor, was angry with him now, for giving away what was not his
own to give, and lands that he never had so much as set eyes on.

Then stood up one and said, “News, friends! I have been lately seafaring
by way of the South-isles and thereabouts: and wherever I came the talk
was that Olaf Cuaran had gone over from Dublin to Scotland, and that
Constantine the king had received him as guest: and more than that, had
given him his daughter to wife. Now, what think you of that, friends?”

There was a great hubbub when this came out, for not a man of them but
knew what it meant and they were glad to think that if they themselves
had a quarrel with Athelstan, friends would be easy to find. For by
giving his daughter to Olaf the heathen, Constantine had already broken
the peace of Dacor.

Well, some were for war, and some for waiting; and they talked it over
this way and that, until Swein, who was their lawman at that meeting on
his own law-stead, bade them have peace. “For,” said he, “I know this
Athelstan, that he is a brisk man and full of good counsel: and I know
the Saxons that they are not to be despised. If we alone set ourselves up
to make war we shall be fools: for they have men enough to sweep us off
the face of the earth, as a thrall sweeps out a byre with a besom. But if
Constantine and Owain and our kinsmen in the north are agreed, and come
together to invade the south country, well and good. My rede is to lie
still and watch the weather.”

Now Mistress Unna was all this while in the house, cooking the supper for
Swein and the chief men of the Thing, and little did she know that all
the Northmen of Amounderness were being ruled by her counsels.

“To lie still and watch the weather,” says Swein, and nodded his head and
looked wisely round from the law-mount on the brink of Legbarrow. “But,”
says he, “pity we sit so far away from those kinsmen of ours across
the fells in the north: better it were for us if we could take counsel
with them now and then, and shape our plans together. For when we were
called to Bakewell, I mind me that we knew nothing of what was forward.
We went out for war, and found the rest of them jogging along as to a
quiet and peaceable Thing-mote. And then again when we went to Dacor we
knew nothing, and were but made fools of, and much better had stayed at
home. Now if we fixed some place of meeting with Ketel and the others in
the north, we should learn the news of those kings from time to time,
and talk over the affairs of our whole kindred, as we do here among
ourselves.”

Then stood out one and said, “Swein Biornson and all, I have a friend
from over the seas, new come from Iceland. Now in Iceland, mayhappen you
know, there are many of our kindred who live as we do upon the lands they
have taken, and owe no more than we owe to any man, least of all to kings
in other parts. For their worship and sacrifices they have temple-steads
as we have, here and there: and for the punishment of evil doers and the
atonement of quarrels, the godi of each temple-stead sees to it. But it
appears that of late things have come to such a pass, that manslayers who
have been outlawed from one country-side have fled to another, and have
been kept there as guiltless men, and thence have returned to do what
harm they might on their old neighbours. And so there has been fighting
and unpeace stirred up, and the authority of the godi set at nought, as
if there were no law in the land. Therefore all the men of Iceland have
taken counsel together, and hallowed one Thing-stead in the midst of
the land; and at mid-summer they are to meet there, the chiefs all and
all the free men, under one law-speaker. And if any man has a grievance
that cannot be settled at a Thing by his own godi, there at the Althing
it will be judged by Raven Ketelson the law-speaker over all. And there
also they are to fix the feasts and seasons for the year that is to be:
and if any new law or custom is to be made, there will they make it:
so that the whole land may be under one law, and be of one mind, and at
peace within itself. Now it seems to me that if the Icelanders, being men
famous for their wisdom, have taken this counsel, we too should do well
to take the counsel of Swein Biornson, and join with our brethren of the
north across the fells in such a spot as we may find convenient, mid-way
between them and us; to talk over our common matters, and especially how
we may ward the land we have made our own, against all its foes and ours.”

With that they took their weapons and shouted aye to this advice: and
Swein said “Friends, since we have agreed that there should be this
Althing established, it remains only to mark the place of it, and to bid
our brethren in the north to meet us there. This place here we find good
for a meeting because it is midmost of all our land to the south of the
wild fells: and he who comes from Lunesdale on the east has no longer
journey than he who comes from Eskdale on the west: and to Kentdale and
to Dunnerdale the ways are equal: and across the bay it is not far to
go, whether by the sands or by the sea. Now, when we were coming home
from Dacor, we started in the company of Ketel and his men, and when we
parted from him they had still a day and a half to go before they were
home, while we had two days and a half: though doubtless on kenned roads,
and if we had nothing to carry nor any hindrance by the way, we might
make shorter work of it. But I say that if we went a two days’ journey
from here, and if they came a two days’ journey from their home, and met
upon the great road that leads through the heart of the fell country,
that meeting-place should be our Thing-stead. And I think it would not
be far from a little dale you remember well, near the foot of the mere
with the wath in it, and at a spot where four dales met. A fair place it
was, with a likely howe and a conny bit of flat that offered well for a
Thing-field, and everything else fit for our purpose.”

So, to make matters short, they sent the arrow, by which men were bid
to a meeting, round the sea-coast until it came to Ketel’s holm and to
Sölvi’s holm higher up the firth of Eden. The Northmen thereaway met
together and agreed on their part to set off on the day appointed: Swein
and his neighbours set off on the same day: and their two companies
fell in with one another by Thirlmere, which they thenceforward called
Brackmere, from the Thing-brekka or hill of assembly, which they hallowed
at Legburthwaite, as we still call the place, forgetting maybe that we
say Law-burg-field, being the midmost spot in all Lakeland from Solway
to Morecambe. And having hallowed the place and held their meeting, they
made their tryst for next mid-summer, and went their ways home.

Lucky it was for our Northmen that they took Unna’s counsel, and
listened to Swein when he told them of the briskness of Athelstan. For
Constantine, who had received Olaf Cuaran and given him his daughter,
before ever he could draw his host together to invade England, while he
was yet preparing for war, saw the ships of Athelstan bear down upon his
coast; and fleeing inland, whom should he meet but Athelstan himself with
an army, come through Northumberland to avenge the peace of Dacor. And
great mischief was done before the English went home with pledges of a
new peace wrung from the Scots, who for their part had no mind to keep
it, any more than their oaths of seven years ago, and only waited for the
day when they might take their revenge.

But if the York priests complained of their new liege-men, and told
Athelstan on his way home how their summoner had been treated; and if
Athelstan laughed and bade them study to be quiet, as the epistle says,
and mind their own business: it is no more than was likely. For he had
enough to do without taking his host across the Keel to gather tithes
from the Northmen of Amounderness.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE FINDING OF THURSTON-WATER.


Now the story leaves those great kings and their wars, to tell of
Thorstein Sweinson, and how he went up the river Crake, and how he
found the great water at the river-head: the same that old folk call
Thurston-water, and we mostly call Coniston lake, from the name of our
village hard by it.

In the year after the ravaging of Scotland, Thorstein was eleven winters
old, and a great lad: sturdy at all games of strength, and skilful enough
in all kinds of work that a lad was set to do. He could catch a nag on
the fell, and ride it home through the heather; make an arrow, and shoot
it to the mark: handle the smith’s tools or the woodwright’s: swim, and
row, wrestle and race with his brothers, and often beat them, and always
beat the thralls’ boys. Most of all he took pleasure in going about with
the herds, to look after the beasts and the sheep on the summer-hills:
and when they were once out and away, he would egg them on to take him
farther, to see the little dells and winding valleys on either side of
the Crake, as if he might find there something of the great world which
he had heard about and longed to wander through.

It was nigh upon seven years since the wild men of the fells had made
their last raid and carried off the thrall’s son: but still Swein would
often warn his boys to keep within sight of home, and bid them stay by
their mother if he himself were abroad. But he might as well have warned
the smoke not to go out of the chimney. For northern blood stirred in the
lads: and Thorstein often looked down the firth to seaward, and wished he
were big enough to go viking in a ship of his own. Orm said he would go
with him if it were trading he meant: and thought that they might make
a deal of money by selling the thralls’ children. Upon which Thorstein
hit him in the face, and said, “Thou shan’t get our little May-queen for
one.” And he spoke no more of his plans to Orm.

Hundi was a better friend to Thorstein, and they talked a deal together
of the travels they should take and the deeds they should do. There were
those great mountains in the far distance, always beckoning to them;
peopled with giants and fairies,—had not their father often told them
of the stone man that kept the road beyond Grasmere? and had they not
the dim remembrance, not easily let die, of the red giant? They knew by
hearsay of wide lakes among the fells, lying all alone for the first
adventurer to take and hold. The beck that flowed through their fields,
and the greater Leven that they could see from the howe or from Legbarrow
winding far away among the hills, came down, so the Welshmen said, out of
wide waters full of fish and haunted by fowl in countless flocks. And as
they sat on the rocks at Crakemouth when the tide was low moulding clay
arrowheads in the rune-shaped clifts and chinks of the smooth rock, they
wondered what troll or fairy had been there with chisel and mallet, and
what more marvellous marvel there might be to find in the unknown wilds
beyond. Crake, Cregiog as their Welsh called it, the rocky river, came
down night and day, sometimes fierce and swollen, sometimes faint and
shrunken, but always singing over its rocks the same song of enticement.
“If we could only track the beck,” they said, “and find the great water,
and take the fish and fowl, and build a house by the shore and make a
boat!”

So at last the wish grew into a plan, and the plan into a purpose. When
nobody was looking they were to slip away: follow the Crake to its mere,
take the land about it, and make a backwood bigging of their own. They
filled a bag with meal, took their knives in their belts, and set off one
morning early, as though they were going for a day with the shepherds.
But where the fields ended, they took the path to the outlying folds:
and when they were near the folds, they turned through the woods to the
river, so that they might not be seen, and scrambled for a great way up
the stony channel. It was only half filled, because, as often happens in
those parts, the spring had been dry, and the rainy weather was yet to
come on, after the days began to shorten.

For a while it was easy work: there is a flat shore on the left hand, and
they could run over the shingle even where the water went swiftly and
fell in eddies and foam over rock-ridges. But soon the hills on either
side close in: the banks are steep: the river foams beneath thick trees
which spread their branches, making the squirrel’s bridge overhead. Thus
it is even nowadays, but in yon old times in many places great firs had
fallen right across the deep channel, or huge oaks had lost their hold of
the rocky bank from very weight of age, and had rolled into the torrent,
to be weirs and dams that held the water and flooded the banks: so that
what with the swamp, wherever there was a bit of flat shore, and what
with the rock walls, or the slippery sodden tufts of moss and fern,
wherever the gill-banks were brant, the lads made but little way. And
whoever has stood upon Spark Brig and looked up-bank and down-bank, and
dreamt over a time when all the mills and houses were unbuilt, and the
land uncleared, and nothing but wild timber, dank and dense, filled the
dale, with the logs that rotted where they fell, and the brambles and
creepers that matted the growing trunks together: and wild bulls and wild
boars, wolves and cats, hag-worms and lizards, and maybe a bear or two,
tenanted the place:—he will know what the adventure of those two boys was
like. And whoever has fought his way up one of our moorland gills where
the land is still rough, will know how they stumbled over the shallows,
and scrambled over the boulders, and waded the mires, and swam the dubs,
as they came through the jaws of Crake, and out into the easier ground
by the eyot beneath Lowick Green, as it is now. There, if the river was
less rough, the trees were still thick and the banks steep: and on the
right hand the fells seemed to come nearer: and standing out through the
black fir-trees high over head, white brows of crag seemed to frown and
nod above them, as they sat on a great stone in mid-stream to take their
breath.

The king-fishers flitted past, blue flashes in the green gloom. Where a
ray of sunshine came in through the vault of trees overhead and pierced
the brown water, they could see, beneath mossy rocks fringed with fern,
little dippers running over the bottom among the trout, and as free as if
they were on dry land, for all the rushing of the water. Now and again a
wild animal ran down to drink, and started back crashing into the wood:
but there was no sign of houses, nor of men dwelling in this uncouth
wilderness.

They toiled on again, mounting the stream where it breaks over long-drawn
ledges, around a rocky eyot at a sharp bend, and through a swampy tarn
(as it was then) till they came to the spot where Lowick bridge now
stands. It was high noon. They sat down on the steep bank above the
swamp; and taking handfuls of the meal from their bag, soaked it with
the clear fresh water and made their dinner. When it was done, said
Hundi, “Well, old forge-ahead, how much farther? For my part I call the
shepherds’ tales all Welsh lies. There is no great water that we can see,
only this dirty puddle: and we shall have work enough to get home before
supper-time, down the screes we have climbed and this waste of rubbish.”

“Nay,” said Thorstein, “the beck must come from somewhere, and I mean to
see the end of it.”

“What, and sleep in a tree like a squirrel?”

“Why not, if I must, thou slug-a-bed? The nights are short and warm
enough.”

“Well then,” said Hundi, “I will sit on the howe over there, and wait
until the conquering hero comes back. I’ll count a hundred, and then.”

“And then go home like a wise lad to thy mother, and say Thorstein is
coming to-morrow with news, and a great fish out of Thorstein’s mere; for
it will be none of Hundi’s.”

“Hundi’s howe is here, Thorstein’s mere is nowhere.” And indeed
afterwards the story says that Hundi lived hard by, and was in the end
buried on that howe: but that is still to tell.—Said he, “A wilful beast
must gang his own gate, and I’ll not mar sport, nor splash thy mere to
frighten thy whales. Come, Thorstein, don’t be a fool. Turn back with me
now, or rue it!”

“Neither, dear lad: and don’t anger me, but hie thy ways home, and bid
them not worry. Happen I’ll light on my journey’s end sooner than we
think for.”

“Happen thou’ll light on mischief sooner than thou think’st for. Come
along, I say.”

“Go along, I say. We can’t miss the road, for its down-bank for thee and
up-bank for me to the end.”

“Nay, that’s an ill speech,” said Hundi, “for parting.”

“Well then, home for thee, and away in the wide world for me, for
evermore. Will that suit?”

“Nor that either. I wish thee luck, and thy big fish: and I’ll foreset
the scolding that awaits thee: and have thy breakfast kept warm: for yon
bag of meal will be gone before to-morrow, if I know aught.”

“Good lad, then; we part friends:” and Hundi turned and slid down the
bank and splashed down stream: for he was always an easy-going lad.

But Thorstein toiled on as before, and found his work no less, at first:
for he had to win his way up Lowick force and through the swamps at its
head. But then he saw, at last, rising above the trees, a crest and a
cone, of high rugged fells, distant indeed, but not a mere blue line as
he had seen them from the heights of Greenodd. The afternoon sun threw
its lights and shadows on the great scars of Dowcrags, and the rocks of
the Coniston Old Man stood out bold in the blue air.

The lad’s heart leapt up, and he shouted as he plunged again in the
rapids that swirled beneath the wild steeps on his right, and the long
dark slopes of Blawith, the Blue-wood, on the other hand. By and by he
was lost again in the crooked ravine where the Nibthwaite Mills now
stand, where the water narrowed to half its former breadth, and slid
over ranks of rock, sloping downwards like carven tables, or a giant’s
stairway, sunken and aslew. But at the head of every force, there were
the great fells again in sight, and every time nearer and clearer,
grander and more wonderful. At last he came to a sweet round tarn. It was
bedded in the woods, and the likeness of every several branch lay upon
the water. Thorstein shouted: but then he stayed. Was this the mere he
had come so far to seek? and no more than this?

He pressed forward, round the miry edges of the tarn, and stumbled
through the narrows of Arklid. Hitherto the stream had been ever
narrower, and, but for a few ledges and flats, ever steeper: but here
it suddenly became both still and deep, and opened out into breadth.
Thorstein’s heart beat hard when the wood thinned, and the waterway
broadened, and the world grew brighter, and lo, beyond, a great gleam of
blue, and a blaze of golden sky.

Close beside him, seal-bushes fringed the shilloe beds, bulrushes stood
in their ranks right out into the shallows, and purple flags and white
and yellow water-lilies lay along the edges of the lake. On either hand,
seaming the deep forest that clothed the sides of the valley, sharp
craggy spurs came down, as it were gateposts to the hall of hills; and
broke at their bases into long nabs, rounded here and rocky there,
running far out into the mere and tufted to the water-edge with dark oaks
and dark firs. And between, there were blue nooks of ripple reflecting
the evening sky, and the wild ducks and teal swam through the ripple, and
the gulls floated above it: and in lound spots a hundred rings showed how
the fish were rising.

Thorstein climbed a howe on the left: and as he climbed, the lake opened
up before him. Beyond the nearer woods there was the deep of blue, and
the lonely island in the midst of it: and from his feet, away into the
uttermost distance, the huge fells, tossing like the breakers on a stormy
beach, and rolling away and afar like the heaving waves of the sea. And
over them late sunset brooded in the North, with bars of level cloud,
purple and gold, and fading rose-flecks overhead.

Unwearied in his exultation, the lad ran down to the shore again, and
stripping off hood and kirtle, hose and shoes, all stained and ragged
with scrambling through brake and briar, he waded out into deep water,
plunged beneath, and swam sturdily through the calmness. Then he flagged
at last, and crept ashore, and donned his clothes, and looked about
him for a safe night-lair; smiling as he thought of Hundi’s horror at
sleeping like a squirrel. He crept into the boughs of a great spreading
oak, and its thick leaves sheltered him like a thatched roof and hid
him like the hangings of a shut-bed. The level clouds drew together;
the purple colour darkened into black; and a line of dusky light alone
lingered in the North over Helvellyn, while he slept, dreamless.




CHAPTER XV.

THE GIANT GETS HIS FOSTERLING.


Thorstein slept on in the tree long after the day had dawned through
those level clouds: for at mid-summer in Lakeland it is never black
night; the sun only dives, as it were, behind a fell or two, and up
again; and you can follow its track by the light that travels round
the north, like the ripples which betray a diver in shoal water. But
this dawning was a dull one, for those level clouds had lowered, and
thickened, and turned to rain: and wind came up from the seaward, as
the gulls had foretold. And yet it mattered little to the lad in his
oak-tree lair, except that no loud singing of birds awoke him, and the
dimness of the light let him sleep on when he should have been well on
his way homeward. For as to the plan of taking land and building a house
and a boat, that was out of his mind now that Hundi was gone. To take
land, one must go round it with fire, and have witnesses to the deed.
Some other day he would come back, now that he knew the road. And it was
lonely waking there in the damp, hungry and stiff, with all that waste of
wilderness to tread before ever he saw home again.

Back along the bank of Crake and round the little tarn went Thorstein
until he heard, in the woods on his right hand, shouting, and the voices
of men. At once his heart came into his mouth and he stood stock-still to
listen. Could it be Hundi come back, and the Greenodd folk in search of
him? What if they should go forward and find his mere, and he away and
out of it all? What of the chance of a good bag of meal or a barley cake
somewhere about them? For he was both clemmed and starved. So he crept
through the wood, and now and again the noise came louder. He followed
it, slowly forcing his way among the deep fern and the brambles under
the great trees. The voices were heard more plainly now, singing and
shouting in a strange manner. It was not Hundi and the Greenodd folk: but
who? Thorstein was drawn by a great desire to know this secret of the
woods, and to add one more marvel to the story he should tell at supper.

On the top of a little howe, clear of trees, but rocky and ferny like the
wildest moorland, there was a great heap of stones, whether grave or cot
it would be hard to tell: and beside it in the fern sat huge men, red
haired and red-bearded, crane-legged and clumsy handed and jolter-headed,
clothed rudely in skins, and devouring great ugly gobbets of flesh from
a roebuck they had killed, and seemed to eat with little or no cooking.
Thorstein gazed at them openmouthed and astonished: it was like a dream
of the wonders he had pictured to himself, but never fully hoped to set
eyes on.

The branch he held by, snapped: and forthwith there was a terrible shout,
and a crash on his head, and he seemed as in a dream to be falling down a
dark pit.

Then it was all light, grey light, and no green gloom of the woods; and
beneath him the red ling-blossom fled away, as he was carried by someone
or something swiftly over the wide moor. He began to know that he was
weary and in a great pain of his head; and at every stride of his bearer
he was jerked so that it hurt him. He kicked and struggled; the huge red
man put him into the middle of a deep heather-tuft, and set himself down
to look at the lad, as a cat watches a mouse.

Then Thorstein rose on his knees and tried to scramble away, but the
giant man just reached out and gave him a great batt with his hand, that
sent him heels over head, scratching his face in the heather. Then the
same thing happened again; and the third time Thorstein plucked himself
together and flew at the giant, snatching out his knife, and minded in
his rage to stick it in anywhere or anyhow. But the giant never moved
off the stone where he sat: he just caught the knife in one hand,
and with the other crushed the lad down. He looked at the knife long
and curiously, then he nodded and laughed to himself. Then he looked
at Thorstein where he lay on his back, kicking up the ling-blossoms:
and then he waved the knife as if to draw it over Thorstein’s throat.
Thorstein shut his eyes and his mouth as tightly as he could.

The cold knife cut his neck a little, and the blood came; Thorstein
waited to be killed. The rain pattered on his eyelids, and when he opened
them again half blinded, but not with tears, the giant was looking at the
knife-handle and the pattern on its blade: and nodding to himself. Then
he picked up the lad under one arm, and strode off through the heather.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE FELL-FOLK’S HOME.


Beyond the heather was the giant’s home, on the fell between Blawith and
Broughton. You may find the spot even nowadays with little searching,
if you make for a farm called Heathwaite, and up behind it to the
brackenbeds between Kirkby Moor and Blawith Knott. There among the
borrans which the mowers have heaped of autumns to clear the land for
their leys, there is a deal of other borrans, and older ones, that no man
minds the building of: though yearly work on the land keeps them up, so
to say. You can see that they are ruins of a kind of homestead, with its
little garths, and greater intakes on a ridge of fell. On one hand there
are the waste wet mosses of the moor, and on the other hand, far below,
the great flats of Woodlands, dotted with old farmsteads and thwaites,
and surrounded by the tossing rocky range of Dunnerdale fells, from
the Coniston Old Man on the right hand away down to Black Comb and the
glittering sea.

In a high place like this, people might live for many a long year unseen
and unknown of their neighbours in the dales: and if they were hunters
and robbers, no doubt they could pick up a living of a sort even now:
but in old times when the land was waste, it was as good a place as
could be for the home of wild half-savage fell-folk. The ground is not
so high as to be bitterly cold in winter, and at a time when there were
trees in plenty where now is only fern or heather, they could find cosy
shelter. Down in the valley at that time every thing was smothered up in
wild wood, or uninhabitable for swamps and dampness, except where the
ground had been cleared and drained by the hand of man. But high on the
moors the ground drained itself: so that both for health and wealth it
was the moor that was the chosen home of the earliest dwellers among the
mountains: and their children lived on in the old places here and there,
even after new comers had begun to make their farms and villages where we
see them nowadays.

Here at Heathwaite fell you can see the walls of their buildings,
and even in little corners what may be chambers, or store-houses, or
fire-spots, or what not, curiously built of great stones: but all quite
different from the farm-buildings of our own people, and plainly the
relics of an earlier race. Beside these homesteads there is one heap that
is round and hollow in the midst, with a spot for a doorway, and well
built within and without. Though the top of it is all fallen in, one can
see that it might have been a hut shaped like a beehive, and roofed over
with stone walling like those Pict-houses they tell of in other parts:
this would be high enough inside for a big man to stand up in, and broad
enough for him to lie at length. And all about the place there are the
remains of huts ruder and more ancient than even this, though not of the
kind that were made in the earliest ages of all, when folk used only
stone tools. These show some knowledge of walling; and yet among them is
plenty of graves where the fell-folk doubtless lie buried. At one end of
this settlement, as they call it, there is a great barrow in which folk
digging found burnt bones and you can see the tall stone that stood at
the head still standing there. They call this place the Giant’s Grave:
and old neighbours tell that it is the burial place of the last of the
giants who dwelt in that moorland village, and that he was shot with an
arrow on that very fell side, and so was killed, and his race ended.

[Illustration: THE GIANT’S GRAVE.]

Well, when the big red man strode off through the heather and the ragged
birches of the moor with Thorstein under his arm, this was the spot he
came to. He marched in at the gate of the intake, and up to the homestead
through cattle-folds with little cows of the old Northern breed and
rough mountain goats, grazing between the walls: and through patches of
kale and rye by the side of the tarn which lies blue and clear in the
midst of the place. There in the evening sunshine, among the huts, would
be a dozen or so of women and children, dirty and half-naked, both the
old hags and the little goblins. They had four posts set upright in the
earth, and a skin stretched over them in which was seething upon a fire
of sticks a mess of flesh in its own broth. Some were making ready for
the evening’s feast, and some were cobbling skins together: but for the
most part they were a set of idle do-noughts, to reckon by the filth and
hugger-mugger in which they lived.

They raised a screech when Thorstein was brought in and cast on the
ground: and set upon him to stare at him and pull him about; until
what with the raggedness of his torn clothes and their handling he was
mother-naked, and not a little ashamed of his plight, and of his white
skin. Not that the fell-folk were blackamoors; but they were sunburnt
with going half-naked, and grimy with dirt. So there he sat, part covered
with litter and bracken which he pulled over himself; and he brazened it
out as well as he could.




CHAPTER XVII.

THORSTEIN’S BONDAGE.


In a while the rest of the men came up, not all as huge as the giant
who had caught him, but all long fellows, gaunt with fell-running and
hard fare. They began their feast, dipping bowls and spoons into the
skin over the fire, and drinking out of horns and cups until they were
merry. Then one of the youngsters spied Thorstein where he sat, and threw
at him the bone he had been gnawing. Thorstein warded it off with his
hand, and others that were thrown: but whenever they hit him there was
a horse-laugh. When all the bones were gnawed and thrown, one of them
picked up a dart, which he threw at the lad: and it would have made an
end of him, but Thorstein dodged it: at which they all cried “Oigh!” and
seemed to wonder at his address.

Last of all one of the men, seemingly enraged at his luck or cunning
leaped up and ran at him with a cudgel, a thick stick with a stone
hammer-head at the end of it. Thorstein had been through too much to cry
out now: but what was his surprise when one of the children, a great girl
with long red hair over her bare shoulders, ran in and flung her arms
round him, half smothering him with her mane and the closeness of her
embrace.

Then there was gabbling in a strange tongue while she kept him tight and
seemed to forbid the giant lad to touch him: and the chief of them all
spoke long, waving his arms and nodding his head, as who should say “Let
the barn be, and we will keep him for our thrall.” He seemed to show how
he had threatened the lad with his own knife, and held up the knife, and
pointed away over the fells: from which Thorstein gathered that they knew
whence he had come and somewhat of who he was: and for the first time a
gleam of hope shone into his heart.

In the end they gave him some of their meat, which he loathed and could
not swallow: and pushed him into the stone hut, the best that there was,
though even this could not be entered except by creeping: and they signed
that he should lie down and go to sleep. But little sleep came to him:
the place was filthy, and he was among unfriends; his head ached and all
his bones were sore. So he watched them as they came in one by one, and
stripped, for the hut was as hot as an oven: and they lay down, as it
seemed, in a heap, like snakes in an old tree root.

At last all was quiet without, and within they were snoring. The air was
thick and foul: Thorstein could not breathe. It was fun to sleep in a
tree with squirrels, but this was sleeping in a pighull among swine. He
dragged himself like a worm, a little nearer the door-hole and then lay
still. After a while he dragged himself a little nearer: and lay still
again, with his heart beating so loud, he feared it would awaken them all.

Out into the fresh air Thorstein crept in the end: and it was like a
draught of cool ale after haymaking to taste the night wind. He stepped
warily between the huts, straining his eyes in the gloom lest he should
run against anything, for the night was cloudy and there were no stars,
not even the dawn-streak in the north. He groped his way like a white
ghost to the first wall, and began to climb it; but just as he reached
the coping, down it came with a rumble and a thud, and the stones fell on
his feet and crushed them, so that he could not stir for the pain. And
straightway he was in the grip of the giant again, who belaboured him
with a dart, as if he had been a dog. The pain of his crushed feet and
sickness was such that Thorstein felt little of the giant’s blows, though
every time the dart-head touched him, it cut into the bare flesh.

But when he woke up at last, it was in the nasty hut: and every one was
gone except the child who had flown at him before; and she was nursing
his head and weeping over him. She looked so ugly, thought the boy, as
he opened his eyes, with her face all blubbered and red, and the tears
making dirty water-courses down her freckles, and dripping off her chin,
and upon her rough red hair that hung all about. But when he came to
himself, she called out shrilly, and an old woman brought milk in a pan
and put it to the lad’s mouth: and when he drank, the child let go his
head to clap her hands and laugh. It hurt Thorstein to drop his head, but
he thought she was less ugly when she laughed, and threw back her hair:
and he saw that her eyes were blue, and her teeth shone. And it rested
Thorstein when she took up his head again, and smiled and stroked him.

To make a short story, he lay there for days and nights, and sometimes
slept, and often raved, and only now and then knew that the child was
holding him and giving him drink from the milk-pan. Whether it was dark
or light when he awoke from wild ugly dreams of swamps and snakes, and
things chasing him through the brambles, and high endless walls to climb,
and torrents of stones rolling down with him into the snakes again:
whenever he came to his senses there she was, and no other pillow he
had. In the end, the fever left him. As for his wounds they let the bark
harden, and Thorstein had a whole skin before ever he was strong enough
to stand up in it.

But when he could look about him, the child seemed to be eager in giving
him what pleasure she could. She brought out a little kist that held
her treasures: there were shining beads, and pennies of silver and gold
with holes to hang them by, and a gold thing like a Thor’s hammer, but
Thorstein guessed it must be a cross; for the child set it up and knelt
down before it and prayed, looking sometimes at it and sometimes at
him. Thorstein knew that his own people set little store by Christians,
because they were not so good at fighting as the Northmen, and because
they could be overreached by their chapmen, so they said: and he thought
that all strange uncouth folk were Christians, as a matter of course: and
so the wonder was less that giants and troll-kin in filthy huts should be
of that faith.

But when he slept again after this awakening, he dreamed that he was at
home, and his mother was kissing him good night, and stooping above him
through the hangings of his own shut-bed: but her hair seemed to be all
red like fern on the fells after early frost when the summer is over.




CHAPTER XVIII.

RAINEACH.


So Thorstein was healed of his sickness; but not until the summer was far
spent, and not until he had begun, little by little, to learn words of
the fell-folk’s language. For whatever the child did for him or showed
him she was not silent about it, but chattered the while, and often said
its name loud and plain; and when he said it after her, she laughed and
nodded. When she brought him milk she would say “Bainne:” and sometimes
when he was thirsty the little roguish creature would wait awhile, as
he clacked his tongue and licked his lips, until he would say “Bainne:”
and then she laughed and brought the milk-pot. And Thorstein soon learnt
with such teaching, and never thought of being shy as children are when
they are taught a strange tongue. Nor was it quite strange to him: for
his mother had told him a few words of her mother’s language, which was
Erse, and not unlike the words of these people, only spoken a little
otherwise. So when he one day saw a ring in the child’s treasure-ark, and
came out with “Fainne,” and saying “Meur” put it upon her finger, she was
astonished, and the rest of them laughed.

Now that he offered no longer to run away, they treated him well after
their fashion. He got the cream of the milk, as if he had been a chief’s
son at fostering: although the cream was always sour from keeping in foul
crocks of rough clay; and indeed they liked it so, as though new cream
were tasteless. There was always plenty of flesh meat, of roe-deer and
hares and other savoury sorts, good enough, said he to himself, if one
doesn’t watch the cooking. As the saw says “What the eye never sees, the
heart never grieves after,” so their clarty ways vexed him less and less,
as the days wore, and as Greenodd began to be like a dream on the other
side of awakening.

Lying in the hut, or sitting out in the sun wrapped in a deer-skin,
Thorstein watched the people, and when they were not so new to him they
seemed less strange and uncouth. Even when the men came in, whereas at
first he crept as far out of the way as he could, at last he was drawn to
look on at the game they brought, red-deer and roe-deer, wild boar and
hares, all manner of moor-fowl and mere-fowl, and wonderful fish, spotted
trout, and silver and golden char, whose pink flesh is the delicatest
of all eating. Thorstein had seen some little sport at Greenodd, but
it was plain that here the great lake was a teeming fish-pond and the
great fells one deer-park, and that these red men were the cunningest of
hunters and fishers, if their farming was nought.

Nor were they rough with him now. Once, when a huge youngster began to
tease him with some more horse-play, the giant carle who was father and
chief of them all, laid open the lout’s head for him. And if once he had
thought that they had no manners, and their customs were beastly, now
he began to find that they were cunning in their own craft, eloquent in
their own tongue, kind to their own kin, and proud of their own havings.
It was not always growls and blows: many a time the little wench would
play with her ugly father, and cuddle him prettily, and he would pet her
as if, said Thorstein to himself, they were no Christian savages, but
decent Thor-fearing folk. And if he had looked down upon them as the dirt
beneath his feet, he now gathered that they reckoned less of him than he
thought for, and kept him at arm’s length while they treated him well,
just as a boy treats a squirrel he has caught, stroking it while he holds
it hard, for fear it should bite.

So the summer wore and the autumn came, and Thorstein was kept within
walls or close at hand. He spent his time with the women for the most
part, helping them in their work, but much as he liked. They let him
stack wood for fires: sew and fashion such garments as they made from
skins, or from cloth that they got by barter for pelts among the Welsh.
Sometimes he was let milk the cows and goats, and take them to pasture;
but then there was always somebody to watch that he should not run away.
Other whiles he tried his hand at woodwork: but it was long before they
let him handle a knife, and when they did, sharp eyes were upon him
all the time. But they seemed mighty pleased when he turned out little
stools and boxes, pegged together with wooden nails, or bits of hooper’s
work that would hold water. And as he began to be useful, so he got on
famously with them and felt homelike.

The child who had nursed him gave him to understand that her name was
Raineach, that is Fern: and indeed she was not unlike the bracken when
it is red in autumn, and she was slender and strong and wild as its tall
fronds that smother up the hollows among the boulders on the moors.
She was maybe a year or so younger than Thorstein, but as tall as he.
Gartnaidh mac Tairneach, which is the Son of Thunder, was the name of her
father, the giant as we may call him, for he was a head and shoulders
taller than even a tall fellow among the Northmen, and far away bigger
than the Welsh. Raineach was pleased when she found out Thorstein’s
name and what it meant in her talk; for it is as much as to say the
Thunder-stone, because Thor is nothing else than the Thunder-god. “And
so,” said she, “We are brother and sister, for the Thunder-stone is the
Thunder’s child.” And Thorstein by this time was little loath to have it
so: and whenever his mind went to Greenodd it took Raineach there too,
and he could see her in his dreams in their hall, sharing his trencher
and cup, and friendly with Hundi, and tormented by Orm. So he put off the
escape that sometimes he planned, until he might persuade her to run with
him.

But when at last he had words enough to open out his mind, and to tell
her of his longing for home, she was astonished and grieved, and gave him
to know that she thought him a very lucky lad to be living in such good
company and so well off as he was. For many days she was cool with him
and said little: which angered him, so that he would say nothing to her.
Once when they were out with the goats together, and she was groping in
a blackberry bush, a wild cat sprang straight out at her, like a shot
from a sling: and fixed teeth and claws all together in her shoulder.
Thorstein had the creature throttled in an instant, but great work it was
to get it off, and to kill it, bang as he might with his thick stick. And
then he got her home, and the women put herbs on the bite to take the
poison out, and to stop the blood. So it was Thorstein’s turn to be nurse
for a while, and his sulkiness melted away: all the more that she gave a
fine story of his bravery.

Which when the giant heard, he said the little fellow was good enough
now to go out with the men. And after that, for many a weary day and
through many a terrible night, trotted he behind long-shanks and his
lads by moor and mire, chasing the red deer and the roe, and snaring the
fowl of wild-wood and water. And one while he got good words for his
work; and other whiles, for all he could do, it was nought but ill luck,
and an empty belly, and hard blows to his back. But to such doings one
hardens when limbs are young, and each time the weariness and the danger
are forgotten. Hunger and cold, and rough companionship, and the squalor
of the huts became too common to be feared any more. And as the months
passed, the boy waxed and throve in the keen air of the fells. He grew
cunning to track the slot, keen of eye and deft of hand, like any savage
of them all: and Raineach was proud of her foster-brother.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE THREE TASKS.


When Thorstein had found his tongue and could talk to the fell-folk in
their own speech, he would often tell Raineach about Greenodd and his
home.

Sometimes in the winter weather, as they were crouching by the open-air
fire in sleet and wind to dress their meals, or cowering in the foul huts
from the storms that swept the moor, there would come before him, like a
dream, the bonny eld-house and its beloved rafters, and the bright things
gleaming on the wainscot, and the lasses in their neat kirtles a-spinning
or a-sewing; his mother with her needle, and his father with woodsmith’s
tools, and all so cosy and well-to-do as they worked and sang in the
warm fireshine.

Then he would whisper to the giant’s lass, as they huddled together in
the muck, and the men growled or snored,—for there was little to do
in the winter up there but sleep it out like bears,—and he would say,
“Raineach, I see them, I see them! There’s our great dog asleep with his
nose on the edge of the hearth, and father is kicking the logs together,
and he pats the dog and says to mother, ‘Where’s poor old Stein now?
I wonder if he’s all right somewhere, or tanning his hide in a cold
peat-pit.’ Mother shakes her head at Hundi and says, ‘Eh, lad, it was a
bad day thou tookest him off: the elder should have been the wiser.’ For
I’ll uphold it Hundi has led a hound’s life ever since. But I can see
mother working flowers on a kirtle, and she has been working at it every
day this back-end: blue flowers, Raineach, and gold leaves on a brave red
stuff: eh, if you saw what I see, you would see some bonny things and all.

“And the chapmen will be coming about, with packs full of wares from all
the round world, and they’ll be feasting them. And at Yule, what doings!
Pies, lass, as big as ant-hills: and butter to thy haver-bread, and honey
in thy porridge: and laiks in the afternoons, when the tables are cleared
and folk pull skins across the fire, and one side lets go and down they
tumble: and one is blindfolded and hunts the others: and I’d show thee
a safe place, Raineach, so that they couldn’t catch thee. How thou’d
laugh, and how they’d laugh: and how we’d sing and tell stories, and get
eh, that frightened, and then mother would say ‘Barns to bed,’ and we’d
pull the clothes over our heads while we heard their goings-on. Grand it
would be if I could get thee there to peep in on them all.”

With such talk, Raineach, who had looked on Thorstein as a poor savage at
first, came to feel a great longing to see what wonderful things might
be yonder across the fells: and once even asked her father whether they
could not pay a visit to Thorstein’s folk at Greenodd. She said they
would come back again, never fear: and maybe bring some of the things
Thorstein told her of. Gartnaidh laughed at first; then he growled, and
shook his fist at the lad, and bade him say no more to the child. And
for a good while they found it hard to come together: there was always
something for her to do, and something for him elsewhere: and life was
worse than before.

At last when spring came, Thorstein plucked up his courage and said
boldly that he wanted to go home.

“Well, my little man,” says the giant, “here we have nursed thee for a
summer and a winter, and given our best: and what,” says he, “shall we
get for a parting gift? for it is little we have got as yet.”

Thorstein said that his father would be sure to give something.

“Nay,” says the carle, “I know him and his gifts.”

Thorstein reddened and bit his lips.

“Now,” says the giant, “do this for me, and I’ll let thee go: keep my
cattle this twelvemonth, and see them well served: but if one be missing
thy head shall pay for it.”

So the lad became herdboy to the fell-folk: and well he knew his job, for
he had been among the beasts at home, and was used to all that belonged
to cattle. But these were well-nigh wild, and bad, bad to manage. Often
they would break bounds, and give him a rough job to hunt them out of the
mires and woods, where wolves might get them before ever they had time
to be lost. And many a night it was only by the help of the lass that he
could gather them together and drive them into the fold for the milking:
and sometimes it seemed that an unfriendly hand would loose them, and
give him a sad scare. But Raineach managed so that in a while the rest of
the folk were ashamed or afraid to meddle. And they throve that summer,
and after the slaughtering at the back end of it, Thorstein kept as many
as would make up his count for the spring: and was diligent in serving
them with everything he could lay hands on. So the end of it was that
when winter was near spent he delivered over his full tale to the carle,
and bade him farewell.

“Not so fast, my little fellow,” said the giant. “I reckon nought of
this. Here are all my beasts again, no doubt: but what more? We are no
better off than we were.”

“What then?” cried the lad, aghast.

“This,” said the carle. “Seest yonder tarn? When it is as yellow with
corn as it is blue to-day, we will talk more of this matter: but if I
hear another word, it will be the word for knocking thy brains out with
this club of mine.” And he dashed about him with his great oaken cudgel
in a way that was grewsome.

So Thorstein was angry and mad angry; and in his anger set himself to
bale the water out of the tarn the giant had pointed to,—one of a many
there were in those days about the settlement, though now they are all
peated up, without it be Pewit tarn. Then Raineach came and stood by;
and when she saw the water trickling back into the pool, and the rain
beating into it, and the sweat running off the lad’s face, she laughed.
He asked her what she was laughing at: and she said, “At thee.” Then he
threw at her the crock that he was baling with, and bade her begone for
a heartless wretch. But she drew back, and it fell on a stone and was
broken: at which she laughed the more. Then he sat down and wept. And she
came to him in the rain and comforted him, and called him a fool, which
is often the best comfort from one that can help.

“Look,” she said, “silly lad, how the water runs out of the broken pot.
Break the tarn, and it will be dry.”

“Nay, I know that well enough,” said he.

“Well, do it,” said she.

“But how?” said he.

Then she showed him that the rock ran in ridges, and that he might dig
the earth away between the ridges and make a beck. So he dug the earth
and made a beck: but still there was water in the tarn.

“Who is the fool, now?” said he.

“Not I,” said she: “throw upon the tarn all the earth out of the digging,
and fill it up.”

Thorstein thought she was a clever lass, and threw all the stones he
could find, and a deal of earth upon them into the tarn; and if it was
somewhat miry, it was no tarn any longer. But now he was let down for
seed to sow: and beg as he might, they said they had but enough for
themselves. Then after some days of bitter words and nights of useless
thinking, came Raineach with a bag full of corn. She would not tell
whence it came, but it was good seed corn: and Thorstein sowed it, and
watched it morn and eve, and built a fence around to keep man and beast
out of it. And glad he was when it showed above the brown earth, and fain
when the ears began to turn yellow: and bade the giant see to it, and let
him go forthwith. But all he got was a growl and a roar.

“Where did that corn come from?”

“Not from thee,” says Thorstein.

“Thief!” says the giant.

“Liar!” says Thorstein: and they were both as angry as they might be. But
the giant would not kill him, and best knew the reason why. For he meant
to keep the lad against a time when there should be trouble with the
Northmen, and then give him over as a ransom. So he was in no hurry to
let his prisoner go.

“Look you here,” says Gartnaidh at last: “those great firs yonder where
the crows build,—they must be cut down and made into a house for me,
before ever I let thee go.”

“Ask another to do the job,” said Thorstein.

“Never another will I ask,” said the giant: “folk that can make corn grow
in tarns, can make firs into houses.”

So Thorstein toiled at one of the least of the trees with his knife and a
little hatchet, the best he could find: but he could only notch it round,
and it stood as straight as ever. Then Raineach came and laughed at him
again, and bade him go to sleep till she helped him: but she would not
say how or when. And in a while she disappeared altogether.

One day when nobody was nigh, the men all away hunting, and Thorstein
bewailing himself, he looked at the fir-wood from afar, and thought one
of the tree tops shook more than the wind used to shake it. By and by
it fell, and he heard a crash in the wood. He ran down to the spot, and
there was a great tree on the ground, and chips of new-cut wood all about
it: but never a soul to be seen. Then the lass came laughing, and saying
it was magic, and the good folk would have none of his spying; and so she
took him by the shoulders and pushed him out of the wood. Magic or no
magic, she managed that on certain days the men were out early and home
late, and none of them noticed that the fir tops were gone: and Thorstein
was hugely puzzled. At last he went to the spot by stealth, and saw
strange men working there: they looked like Welsh, and he guessed they
might be from the brough across the flats. They had many of the trees
down, and sawed, and squared into timbers, that men might carry on their
shoulders. Raineach was not there; but round the neck of the foreman of
them, as it seemed, was her gold cross hanging. Then the lad knew how she
had helped him: and right proud he was of her and her favours, and told
her as much.

So when the winter was on them, one day comes Thorstein up with a plank
on his shoulder, and “Where is thy house to stand?” says he to the giant.

“What!” cries the giant, “who felled my trees?”

“They are felled,” says the lad.

“Not by thee,” says the giant.

“That’s neither here nor there,” says Thorstein: “where is the house to
stand?”

The giant was not ill pleased to think he was to have a house like the
Northmen, and so he let things be: and Raineach made the lads of the
fell-folk help, in that they dragged up the big timbers right merrily,
and Thorstein was master of the works. And if his building was not great
nor very workmanlike, it was game to him when the studs were sunk in the
ground, and beams hoisted and fixed with pegs, and rafters began to show
the shape of the roof. And all this was done with the tools left in the
wood by the strangers, of whom nothing could be heard. Most folk said it
was fairies.




CHAPTER XX.

OVER THE FELLS.


Before the building was done, that is to say in the early spring when
Thorstein had been now three winters among the red folk, there was once
more rumour of war throughout all the north, and the sound of it came
even to these wildernesses, so far as they were apart from the dwellings
and intercourse of men. For Gartnaidh the giant, being in this respect
like Swein Biornson, was a borderer and a dweller on no man’s land,
that is to say he had no laws nor kings over him, and was bound to no
government of lawmakers. And yet he was akin to other Gaels dwelling up
and down these parts: who, though they were at ancient feud with their
Welsh neighbours, yet could let sleeping dogs lie when it served their
turn, and play at give and take, or even do good work for Owain the king
of Cumbria. For since these hardy hunters and fell runners knew the lie
of the land better than settled ploughmen or townsfolk, in many ways they
were useful, as in guiding the Northmen to Dacor, and in spying upon them
often, when little they knew what eyes were gleaming through the green
leafage. Add to this that Gartnaidh and his like found the king’s service
not unprofitable; and poor folk must live, however proud they be.

So when war was talked of, the news came to their ears somehow, handed on
from one to another of the woodlanders, or picked up at market; for there
were times when they came in to sell their furs to the Welsh or Anglians
at burgs and trading places on the outskirts of the mountains, as at
Broughton or Ravenglass, Cartmel or Bowness.

This time it seemed certain that the north was going to rise against
the south in good earnest. Constantine and Olaf Cuaran, Owain and the
new Dublin king Olaf Guthferthson had made common cause. Says the giant
to Thorstein, “Thy folk will be gathering at their meeting-place in the
mountains, and that is hard by our meeting-place too. Thither I am going,
and if thou hast a mind to see thy father—”

“Say no more,” cried Thorstein: and they made ready for the journey.

In those days, to one who knew the country, the best roads were not
always the high-roads, but the tops and ridges of the fells. The valleys
were all umbered up with trees, or choked with swamps; and what with wild
beasts and what with wild folk, travelling was no child’s play. But in
the waste wildernesses of high moorland, on the tall rock-ranges that
joined peak to peak like bridges in the air, foe in shape of mankind was
hardly to be found. It was rough work over snow in winter and through
moss and mire in summer-time, and a stranger would easily be lost and
never seen again: but these hunters were at home anywhere between
Skiddaw and Blackcomb.

Gartnaidh the giant, with Thorstein and a few of the lads that followed
him, were not far on their way, when there was a stir in the woods behind
them, and presently through the coppice came a slim running figure, in
brogues and tightly knit plaid and deer skin, and a great bush of red
hair streaming behind.

“How now, Raineach?” says the giant: “what folly is this? We want no
wenches on this journey.”

With that she pouted, and when he bade her turn back, she began to weep,
and sat down on a stone to lament. Thorstein was vexed to see her cry,
and would have stayed by her to comfort her: for indeed it had been a
sore parting but a little while before. Then the giant took him by the
elbow and shoved him along the road, telling him not to be a fool, or
never a sight of his father would he get.

Well, they went along for a space: and as they climbed one height of the
many on that moorland around what we call Beacon tarn, where the lad used
to fish with the lass: and while he was thinking that after all they were
happy days he was leaving behind: just then, one of them cried out that
there was a stir again in the birch boughs on the height they had left:
and a red spot flitted over the heather from cover to cover. Gartnaidh
bade the man shoot an arrow to scare their follower: and the man shot,
but took good care to aim wide.

They pushed on, until they were out of their own grounds, so to say, and
nearing the houses of Coniston. For even in those days there was some
habitation by the beck that leads down from the copper-mines. They say
that even in the time of the Romans mining had been done thereabouts,
when the old roads were open, and the country, since fallen into waste,
was more populous. The name of the village, which is as much as to say
King’s-town, signifies perhaps that the York kings had officers there to
take royalty and dues from those mines: as perhaps at Conishead king’s
men took toll from the ironworks of Pennington and the traffic by the old
road of Furness: all such metal-works paid tax to the king in ancient
times. But in the time of our story, whatever ancient doings may have
been at Coniston, were already of the past: the people who then remained
were but few and rude, the children of fathers who had seen brighter
days. Yet were they better off than the fell-folk in the high grounds, of
whom scattered families lived here and there in many a spot on the moors.

As the travellers came towards the place, along the brow between
Banniside and the lake, there was a shout in the rear, and a scream,
which they could not but understand. So they ran back on their traces,
and soon saw Raineach fighting and kicking in the grip of a rough fellow,
who made off when he saw the big men. It was little use to scold her, and
too late to carry her back home. Gartnaidh said no more when she came up
with them, and only strode on with his best foot foremost, so that it was
all she could do to trot after and keep in sight, for many a weary hour.

From Coniston they slanted up great crags by a narrow pathway until they
got to the top of the high waterfall we call the White Lady, because she
comes and goes like a wraith. Thence they found their way over the bogs
to Wetherlam cove and the head of the great gill that runs down into
Yewdale,—Wolfdale the Northmen called it, as it seems by its old name of
Ulldale; and a terrible wild place it would have been in those times.
Then away they went up and down over the rough fells, until they found
lodging for the night in a lone dell Langdale-way, with some kindred
fell-folk who had their huts there. The children were right glad to rest
their swollen and battered feet on a heather-heap all night, whether
asleep or awake, while the men talked loud round the fire.

The morning it was up and away over wilder ground than ever, climbing
by the ledges of rock to the bogs that make as it were a thatched roof
above the walls of those great mountain houses, whose streets are the
dales, and whose gables are the peaks. All day long it was wading work
through the mosses, or clambering over the screes, up and down long
slopes that seemed in the passing clouds and showers to lead nowhither
but into the rain and the mist. In the afternoon they were aware of a
great valley beneath them. They had come so to say to the eaves of the
house of mountains and yet could not look over, nor see what was going on
below. But they were above the dale through which the great Roman road
goes, where lies the city of Helvellyn and the lake of Thirlmere and the
Northmen’s Law-burg-thwaite.

At the city of Helvellyn, as Gartnaidh reckoned, there would be some
force posted to defend the border and the main road to the south, for it
would be a likely point of attack. With this point guarded, and the coast
road, and the Maiden way that comes through the Westmorland fells, king
Owain would be safe, and free to throw his whole power upon York by the
great way over the Keel. And it was thought that the king himself might
soon be there, to speak about the defences with the people of the place,
and with the Northmen whose Althing would soon be held hard by.

But Gartnaidh had no mind to put his daughter in the way of Owain’s
soldiers, any more than to leave her in the clutches of the ruffian on
Banniside: neither would he give Thorstein the chance of getting away
before his time. So he avoided the Welsh burg at Wythburn, the city of
which we spoke, and led them down upon a dwelling of his kindred, such
as dwelt here along the brink overlooking Thirlmere, on the Benn as we
still call it in their language,—the great mountain between Armboth and
Thirlmere water-foot.




CHAPTER XXI.

ALUINN.


Down came they through the bracken, which was just beginning to shoot
among the boulders of the moor, and were stopped by a group of men who
seemed to have sprung out of the ground; and indeed for colour and rough
aspect they seemed to be part and parcel of it, as paddocks match mud
and caterpillars mimic twigs of trees. A shout in the fell-folk’s tongue
put all to rights without fighting; and then they saw two low houses
on the slope of the moor, built of great stones and roofed over with
peat. They passed by these to the head of a gill that ran sharp down
between cut rocks, and then they found more of these houses, all low and
foursquare in the plan, better built than the Heathwaite dwellings, but
squalid enough. There were people about, who welcomed them when they knew
who the visitors were, and came out of the huts, unkempt and fierce as
Gartnaidh’s folk, and yet as proud as he in their mountain fastness.

[Illustration: THIRLMERE FROM]

[Illustration: ARMBOTH FELL.]

It was built on a nab between two ravines, and the only path ran steeply
down to the wath across Thirlmere. From this spot one could see the
length of the lake and all its rugged shores, cleft into scars and
steeps, and whatever was not rock or water was trees. Over against them
was the great wall of Helvellyn, rising high, and seemingly sheer and
unattainable in the clouds of heaven. Such steepness and such dizzy
terror of falling the children had never known, as when they came to the
utmost of the houses, which stood on the axle of the nab, where on either
hand and in front the ground fell suddenly away, as when one stands on
a high tower, and men are like mice underneath one’s feet. A woman kept
house in this place, not old, but no longer young; tall, and sinewy in
her arms, with beautiful fair hair: but a harsh face, and a harsh voice.
She welcomed Gartnaidh, and said little to the children, but did them
no harm, and gave them a better supper than they were used to have on
Heathwaite fell. For though the cot was rude, she seemed to have plenty,
and there were neighbours, and the road was below, by which a sort of
marketing could now and then be done if one had the means; whereas at
Raineach’s home neither love nor money could get what was never there to
be got.

When they had eaten, out they crept as children do, to see the new place
they had come to: and looked over the brink into the gill with its soft
moss and purple butterwort cushioning all the rough hard rocks, and
sweet-fern fringing the fountains that sprayed into dimpling basins among
the stone, or slid down black slopes under a roof of silky-barked birch
and white-flowering rowan. Here and there ancient gnarled hawthorn-trees
clung to the crags: one especially was thick with may-blossom, as if it
were loaded with snow: its rich almond scent hung about the place, coming
and going like a breath.

The children scrambled down the steep side to get at its boughs from
above, for it grew close to the slope, like a flower in a girl’s
bosom. But when they broke a hole as it were in the white thatch, what
should they see but the loveliest lady in the world sitting among the
twisted boughs, and the finest prince in the world, as it seemed to
them, standing below, and reaching out his arms to her, and speaking
passionately, with his eyes afire and bonny smooth cheeks aglow. But
when he saw the strange little faces thrust through the blossom-roof,
with wide opened mouths and staring eyes like goblins, he slid away with
a start, down the forest slope, like a snake in the whins, so that they
could just see the flash of his mail and the glint of red and blue in
the leafage as he disappeared. And when they looked again for the lovely
lady, she was gone.

They were too astonished to say a word, but Thorstein held Raineach’s
hand, and they climbed back to the cot, and crept in, bidden to sleep by
the woman of the place. It was not long before something bright was at
the door; and in came the lovely lady they had seen, with grey eyes wide
open as if she saw wonders, and a smile that stirred their heart-strings,
and all her golden hair flaming about her green gown.

The woman—they could only be mother and daughter—looked at her quickly;
and looked at her again: and even Gartnaidh, who had not yet gone away,
bent his brows upon her in amazement. Then he made one of those clumsy
reverences of his, for he had at whiles a sort of half forgotten courtesy
about him, like a man who has seen better days. “So this is thy lovely
daughter,” said he. “When I saw Elphin map Rhydderch, the worthy lord
warden of the march, roll in the dust, little did I think what sweet
flower would have sprung from such a dunghill.”

“Peace,” said the woman. “And thou, Aluinn, what news?”

“News?” said the beautiful girl. “Grand news! Nay, what news should there
be?”

“Fool,” said the mother. “Greet thy kinsman Gartnaidh mac Tairneach
Famhair (that is, the giant) and give word of thine errand.”

She kissed the big red man on the beard, and stood thinking: and said
“Ah, the king’s men have come, if that be all.”

“Well?” said her mother and Gartnaidh.

“Oh, a good troop; maybe three score, maybe six score. I forget.”

“And the king?”

“Oh, aye, the king, I suppose, and the young king, I suppose: and all as
it should be. But oh mother, the hawthorn is sweet to-night, and the
birds are wild with their singing, and I was fain to bide out in the
gill. It was bad of me, for I should have been here serving the company.
Is our good kinsman suppered? Where are his folk? What can I do to help
thee?” and she began as if to busy herself with the housekeeping.

“Peace, child,” said the mother. “Gartnaidh mac Tairneach is served, and
for his folk, they are bestowed. Two of them, hush, they are asleep.”

But Thorstein and Raineach, vaguely bethinking them of manners little
learned on Heathwaite fell, sat up on the heather heap in the corner
which was their bed, Aluinn started at the two goblin faces, the red head
and the tow head, unkempt and uncouth, rising in the dark corner: and she
screamed and laughed wildly.

“What’s to do with the silly thing now?” cried the woman, and shook her:
but all she got was a flood of tears.

Gartnaidh was mightily aggrieved that his children should be taken for
goblins, and all manner of talk was held, as Aluinn came to her right
mind: and said she was sick, and lay down in her bed. And so they all
rested, uneasily enough, for that night.

In the morning she was quite another lass, and chattering like a jay.
Raineach her young kinswoman was made much of, and if she stared shyly at
the wonderful beauty for half a day, she was won over into companionship
by the afternoon. The lad was ill at ease: he could not tell why, though
nobody spoke him aught but fair. Gartnaidh was away to the king’s army:
and now and again there were sounds of stirring below, as if horns were
blown far down through the forest, and men shouted.

Thorstein moped about, staring at the great mountains half hidden by rain
and mist, while the two lasses foregathered. He came in and helped his
hostess with her tasks, but she looked at him askance. He had never felt
more a stranger, even in his first days among the fell-folk. At bedtime,
the beautiful Aluinn turned to him and waved her hand. “Lads lie there:”
she said. “Raineach is my bed-fellow.”

Thorstein crept into the place she pointed at. It was a little tiny shed
at the end of the hut: a sort of kist of stone walling, just high enough
to crawl into, and long enough to lie in: a dog-kennel or fowl-house it
might have been. But the heather was soft within, and he crept out and
gathered more, and piled it around him.

Early in the morning he was awakened. Raineach’s face was at his feet,
peeping in through the door-hole. “Heigh!” she said, whispering loud and
eagerly. “Thorstein, listen! I know it all. The bonny man is the king’s
son. Wake, Thorstein! Aluinn wears his gold collar round her neck: I saw
it when she doffed her clothes. And she gave him her ring. Thou wilt
give me a gold collar, Thorstein? Wake up, lad! And thy father killed
her father, think of that! He was a wicked man, and they were glad. But
Domhnaill is a lovely man. And if thy father hadn’t killed her father,
she would be a lady at the Castle down there. Domhnaill is the king’s
son, Thorstein: and Aluinn will be queen, Thorstein. Oh poor Thorstein,
they said thou wast a wolf’s cub: but I said nay. Now, thou must have a
red coat, and I would have thine eyes shine like—”

“Go away!” growled the lad from his lair.




CHAPTER XXII.

THORSTEIN SEES HIS FATHER.


Now all this while Thorstein was eager for a sight of his father: why
else was he here? And all the more because his heart was sore against
Raineach who could so lightly leave him for her fine friend. He bethought
him, little as he knew of love-making, that he must cap yon glittering
Welshman, or else be cast off as a good-for-nought and a lout. There was
only one way of doing this: namely to get back among his own people, and
let it be seen what like they were, and what like was he when his hand
was in its glove again.

Over yonder he knew was the Althing-stead, somewhere across the water.
Run he could and swim: why not away? So he slipped off and slid down the
gill, steep and steeper down the great crags beneath the fell-folk’s
houses, and buried deep and dark in trees that covered the brink on
both hands with well-nigh impassable thickets. Down the cliff he went,
holding by tuft and ledge, and at last let himself go, sliding down the
scree with a fall that brought him to the water’s edge.

It was a black basin of rock into which the white foam tumbled through
the ferns, a secret place among rowan and hawthorn. In the splashing
water lay great rocks, some as it were bits of carven pillars six sided,
and others whose fragments were bright with red and green colours, and
curiously inlaid with patterns of white and black that looked like
lace work. They seemed to be the precious stones folk put in rings and
brooches, only larger and more precious in every way. He picked them
out of the water, and broke them smaller to get the glowing bits out,
thinking what fine jewellery he had lit upon: there would be enough for
more than Raineach could wear, aye, and for every one he knew: and maybe
gold might be found where jewels were, if he could but light upon it.

He hunted stones up and down the gill until he was wearied, not to say
bruised and bleeding with his scrambling among the sharp rocks and with
many a fall in dub and force: so he lay down, wet as he was, beside his
heaped treasure, and slept. But when he awoke, the bright colours on the
stones had all faded: they shone only while they were lying in the water,
and against the black and grey of the wild rocks in the gill. The white
hawthorn and the purple butterwort were brighter by far, and faded not so
soon as the fairy colours of these stones.

Then he bethought him to explore the gill and find his way down to the
lake: for every beck comes to dale at last. But this was no beck like the
streams of the lower moorlands. It was all fierce forces with rocks on
either hand, and when the ground was ever so little passable the trees
had got a hold of it, and hedged it up. And yet he won down, and lighted
upon the road that led to the wath. Then came folk. Thorstein went back
into the wood, for he dared not risk being seen in broad daylight. He
forced his way up the brow of the fell aslant through the trees, and
struck a path that brought him to the houses above.

So the long day wore, and the gloaming came late as it does in Lakeland
in mid-summer: but it came: and the lasses were abroad, and the woman
throng with her housekeeping in the cot. He slipped away down the gill
again and found the big road, and stood awhile wondering whether he
should swim the lake or go boldly by the general fording-place. Then
there was a noise of horses and men. He climbed a hammer, a jutting rock
that overhung the road, and lay down flat upon it to see and not be seen.

The troop of wayfarers came on in silence, as wearied men who had
travelled far between morning and this late twilight-time, on wearied
beasts,—ponies we should call them rather than horses: for the nags
they rode in those days were tiny compared with the great chargers of
the knights in after ages. It was grey mirk by now, and only when they
came close beneath him did Thorstein know them for Northmen. But even
so their mailcoats and their fighting helms of iron, with great leather
flaps, disguised them. He crept nearer to the edge to look over. A stone
fell from under him and one of them passing beneath looked up sharply.
“Father, father!” cried the lad; but at that very instant was gripped
from behind, and throttled fiercely, and dragged up into the wood: with
two great hands round his neck, and a knee in his back to hold him down,
quick or dead.

Beneath, upon the road, there was a scurrying to and fro, as Swein
Biornson swore it was his lad’s voice, and he would know it anywhere.

“Nay, man, it was but an owl,” said some: and others upheld that it
was some trick to draw them into ambushment: or maybe a troll of that
hag-ridden wilderness. Swein climbed the hammer, where nothing was to
be seen or heard, but the roar of the beck in the gill, and a grisly
groaning in the wood, that might be wind in the trees, or wood-sprites,
or what not. So they went forward, none the slower for this adventure:
and the sound of them died in distant pattering.

“Ha, my little wolf-cub,” said the giant Gartnaidh, loosing his grip
of Thorstein’s throat: “so thou hast eyes for thy father, and none for
thy foster-father. Well, what was my promise? That thou shouldst see
him: and thou hast seen him. Good: we art quits. Now no more straying
of nights, dog. Get to thy kennel.” And he drove him through the woods
with many a stripe, and kicked him into his lair, and rolled a big stone
against the hole of it.




CHAPTER XXIII.

DOMHNAILL.


So there we leave Thorstein to bite his hands and weep for that slip
between cup and lip, the bitterest he had known. Gartnaidh came into the
cot, and what should he see but Raineach, giggling and wide-eyed over a
silken scarf that a gay spark, he knew him well, was tying round her bare
shoulders: and the house-mistress smiling and becking and bowing like
a fool. Aluinn was not there: but they seemed merry, and the wild lass
looked quite bonny in the firelight.

“What, goodfellow giant!” said Domhnaill, with somewhat shame-faced
bravery, as Gartnaidh scowled in at them; “here we are all as merry as
hares by moonlight; and upon my honour, I make my best bow to the father
of such a bright little thing.”

“See what he has given me,” said Raineach with childish pride.

“She’ll be back before long,” said the mother. “I warrant, now I know of
it, Aluinn just slipped away to look for somebody. But take something,
sir. It’s little we fell-folk have to offer the likes of you: though
fair’s the day that brought you: and it’s a poor place for a king’s son,
though the last drop of Roman blood runs in the veins of our Aluinn.”

“It’s the sweetest spot in the world, mother,” said Domhnaill: “and no
finer greeting can I give you when we take our Aluinn to court, and all
the lords of the land have to bow down before her.”

Then Aluinn burst in, breathless and haggard and panting. She flew at her
lover and held him tight, taking no heed of them all.

“What now?” cried they, and the young man unwound her arms from his neck,
and held her off a little.

They learnt bit by bit that she had strayed out to look for him, and away
on the road toward the wath. She had hidden while a troop of men rode
past,—Northmen they would be, going to their meeting place. She had heard
them splash over the ford, and then it was dark and she turned homewards.
But suddenly she saw a light, as if some wayfarer were camping in the
wood by the lake-side. It brightened and spread, until she thought the
forest was on fire. But no sound of crackling branches or hissing flame
could she hear. The blaze grew broader: sparks flew on high, and all
round it seemed one great flickering. Then she was terrified and fled by
the well-known wood-paths, daring no more to look behind her.

The men went out to a little spying-place on the uttermost brink of the
nab, but fire there was none. The glow of the Northmen’s Thing-stead was
hidden behind Great Howe, and the Welsh city was away beyond the crags.

“Why, pretty one,” said Domhnaill, coming in, “what fancies are these?
The heather’s afire I know, for all the country is up: but that is the
only blaze, and black night it is between here and Helvellyn.”

“But I saw it,” said the lass shuddering.

“It was only a glint of moonshine: come, little silly, let us be merry
again.”

“Nay,” said her mother thoughtfully, and stood up, tall and strange. “She
saw it. I have seen it. Twice before I have seen it, and well I know the
sight. Once for death: and again for death: and the third time.”

“Come, good mother,” said Domhnaill, “never seek to scare us. King’s
sons and queens that are to be, give no heed to old wives’ soothsayings.
Aluinn, smile now, and drink. It will do thee good, and me too.”

“Peace, young man,” said the mother. “Are not all thy men now bound for
battle, and unappeasable war with the great king? Which of them all,
think’st thou, which of them that drink to-night and shout drunkenly
round their fires, will come unscathed out of the fire of the fight,
to march hitherward again in triumph to the homes of their fathers and
their children? Nay, I tell you, not a man of them all. And which of them
will lie in agony on the desolate heath far away in Saxon-land, till the
ravens pluck out their eyes, and the wolves tear their hearts out of the
riven harness? Aye, by that token, many and many a one. I see them there,
the proudest, the mightiest, the bravest: I see them in their blood: and
I see the handful that flee over heath and hill, in their shame and their
sorrow, terror-stricken before the sword of England and trembling beneath
the spear of the stranger, fleeing to their lairs in the mountains and to
all the wild-wood fastnesses: and I hear the wail of the mourner, and the
scream of the captive, and the curse of the mother that bore the coward
and the coward’s son.”

“Ah, my life, go not out to this battle,” cried Aluinn, clinging to him.
“Stay by us in peace: and if evil must come, let it roll over thy head,
lying hidden here in safety.”

“What!” said Domhnaill, “shirk the play for a girl’s vision and a woman’s
fears?”

“King,” said Gartnaidh, “for thou, lord, may’st be king before this moon
has waned,—these are no idle counsels. A brave heart is the praise of
youth, but a seeing eye is the glory of a king. Hear me. Gartnaidh mac
Tairneach is no coward, but he is old: and life is good to him in the
woods: is it not good to thee in the city and in the court? And if blood
must be shed, why should the blood of father and son redden one field
together? Stay by us here, and claim from king Owain the wardenship of
these marches. It is a post of honour. And so we shall keep the seed corn
while we spend the reapings of the harvest.”

Thus they talked until morning, and it was resolved that Domhnaill,
nothing loath, for the sake of Aluinn if not to save his own skin,
should withhold himself from the battle. Gartnaidh, because he knew the
land, and was cunning as a spy, got the ear of King Owain next day; and
saying nothing of the vision, bade the king go in peace, and begged that
Domhnaill might be left with the defenders of the border, to keep them
in heart, and to be king of the land in his father’s room, to do justice
upon the upstarts and peacebreakers, who always showed their heads when
the king’s back is turned. Such advice was held to be good, and the army
went on its way to fight Athelstan at Brunanburg.




CHAPTER XXIV.

THE GIANT’S CASTLE.


Clean gone were the Welshmen at last, and the Northmen with them; and
then came Gartnaidh and dragged poor Thorstein out of his lair, where he
had lain a night and a day with little ease: and took his daughter with
them: and over the mosses they travelled, no long way, to the stronghold
where the fell-folk were used to retire in times of war and trouble. All
along the Benn their houses were scattered, but on the side away from
Thirlmere there is a deep valley. No wilder might be in any part, and
scarcely in any land inhabited, than this that opens at Shoulthwaite.
On either side high cliffs, brant and broken, rise above the sheets of
ruin, which fall from them among scanty leafage of battered forest-trees.
In one place the crags frown over the gill as they frown nowhere else in
our fells, overhanging their bases, as if they would topple down with a
breath. The gill is steep and rocky; the chasm that cleaves its sides,
one long waterfall from top to bottom, coming down from the high moors
and desolate bogs to the low-lying valley and inhabited plain between the
Benn and Blencathra.

There in the midst of this trough runs out a tongue of land, steep on
either side: and the tip of it rises abrupt into a tall rocky island,
precipitous all round, and approachable only by a narrow neck that joins
it to the mountain.

Across this neck great trenches had been dug in ancient times, deep and
wide, and curving round the castle rock, like the new moon lying about
the old. So huge they are that they remain there to this day. And if the
first is climbed there is the second; and if the second is climbed there
is the third, twice as high; and no way to circumvent it or avoid it if
one would get up to the stronghold in the midst. And then there is the
hollow in the rock where a few houses might be built, as the forecourt
of the castle or its outer bailey, defended on two sides by the sheer
precipice, and on the third by the trenches: but on the fourth side rises
still higher the uttermost rock, a sheer tower unapproachable save by
a narrow path like a ledge in the side of it, so that one only at once
can enter; and one man above with a good spear could easily defend it,
thrusting each new comer over in turn, and down into the gulf below, like
sheep one by one thrust into the pool at a sheep-washing. Then on the
very top is a plain place, a rocky platform, whence the eye searches all
that valley and views the great vale and the roads below, and Blencathra
and Skiddaw rising beyond them, and the mountain tops of Helvellyn above
the nearer crags, and Ullscarf over the moor. By a steep path one could
come upon the road leading from Thirlmere out to the plain and round to
the old Roman fort at the foot of Derwentwater: and from spying-places
could be watched everything that passed, and all that was doing below. So
that this was the safest place for refuge, and the most dangerous to the
neighbourhood that could be found: a stronghold seemingly impregnable
before the days of gunshot, and still among the wonders of Lakeland.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE ROCK OF SHOULTHWAITE]

Here it was, our story says, that Gartnaidh kept ward on the passes with
his men, and held Thorstein in a prison from which there was little
escape. But so long as Raineach was there, life was not bitter nor
unbearable: for she was all the world to him now.

And yet there was little to give them pleasure in the horrible black
rocks and roaring gill, and the loneliness and deathliness of all around.
Gartnaidh came and went with his men, never leaving the place without a
guard upon the gateway, so that none might go out or come in. And indeed,
what with wild beasts and the terrible country round about, to say
nothing of a time of war when every kind of evil-doer is abroad, there
was little to tempt them forth, so long as they had a roof over their
heads, if it were no better than a pighull; and a wall between them and
the world, even though it were a prison-wall.

The summer sultriness thickened day upon day, until Blencathra was but
a film of grey, hung like a cobweb in the sky: and the beck began to
dwindle, and its roar died into a murmur beneath the bulwarks of the
hold. Then followed the stillness and the heaviness that makes one weary
in the hour before a storm bursts. But if the sky was threatening and if
the air was full of dread, in their hearts was a still greater unease
while they waited evening after evening for the news that must by now
be on its way to them,—the fulfilment of Aluinn’s sight-seeing and the
sooth-saying of her mother.

One night the men came back and called for drink; and Raineach brought
them what mead there was, and a jar of strong waters. Gartnaidh drank
and bid Thorstein out of his sight. The lad crept into one of the ruined
chambers,—low bields they were, like dog-kennels against the wall, in
the lap, so to say, of that Castle-crag: and he lay there long, waiting
for the thunder to begin. But all he heard was the sound of loud voices,
and furious talking, and Raineach’s shrill tongue scolding, begging,
threatening; and at last a smothered scream, as if some evil had
happened. His heart went quite cold, and he crept out to die with her.
She was there beside him, sobbing and shuddering: but she put her hand
upon his mouth, and drew him into the chamber.

“He has beaten me,” she whispered: “and he will kill thee. He says the
wolf-cub is a burden, now the wolves are slaughtered. And he will kill
me too, if I stand in his way. He is wild. Oh, Thorstein, listen! he is
coming!”

There were shuffling footsteps without: the giant, drunken with strong
drink, was groping towards them in the darkness. His hand pressed the
broken thatch of the shed where they lay, and the underside of it cracked
away and dropped on them. But he could not find the door. After a while
he growled and muttered, and sank into slumber.

“Thorstein,” said she, “let us away while he sleeps. Oh save me, lad, and
save thyself out of this den!”

Then Thorstein, terrified as he was, tried to soothe her: and in a while
the quietness gave them courage to look forth.




CHAPTER XXV.

HOW THEY FLED.


Dawn was at hand, and things began to loom through the blackness of mirk
night. Gartnaidh snored on where he fell; but the gate-guards lay in
their places, whether sleeping or waking the children could not know; and
none could open the gate without stirring them.

Thorstein looked over the bulwarks and down into the gill. Black it was
down yonder; and even the waterfall, into which he was used to throw
stones for pastime, on the fellside over against them, had dwindled so
that the white of it hardly showed. Beneath him the rock went sheer down
for a space; and underneath, he knew that there were tufts of heather
and saplings growing out of the scree-side that sloped from the crag.
He stole breathless to one of the chambers where some little store of
bedding and apparel lay, and brought out a bundle of girdlethongs and
such like, and began to tie them into a line. But they were scantly
enough to loop round a big stone, and to reach thence to the wall edge
and a very little way overboard. He went back for an armful of skins: but
how to rip them up into thongs without a knife?

Then Raineach crept up to the giant, and loosed his sword in the sheath:
and as she rattled it, he gave a great groan: and she let go. But he sank
into sleep again, and she drew it out. They cut the skins into strips,
and knotted their line in haste, with trembling hands, and threw it over
the wall.

Raineach sat on the edge, and clinging tight to the line, slid down
hand under hand, fending herself off the crag with her feet, until they
touched the rough scree-slope. Down came Thorstein, with the giant’s
sword thrust naked through his girdle behind. Her heart beat lest the
line should break, or the stones come away from the wall-coping upon them
both: but at last he stood beside her, and they stumbled down the long
slide of ruin to the gill. There was just light enough for them to cross
it without being carried down the stream; and they scrambled up the other
side on the grassy bank of the waterfall as steep as a hillside can be,
all under those terrible hanging crags, in the glimmering dawn and the
thunder-mist.

Then there was a roar and a crash, and splinters of stone flew about
them. They saw the giant’s head over the bulwarks against the sky, and
his long arms whirling as he took aim at them again. She screamed and
they ran up-bank on hands and knees while the stones flew, and the curses
and threats with them. But they never looked behind again until they were
a good step out of the deepest of the ravine, and well up towards the
moor, where the ground was not so dangerously steep; none the worse yet
except for cutting their shins on the scree, and tearing their faces in
the blackthorn bushes.

They stopped for breath, and a last sight of their prison: but they
stopped only a moment, for the gate was opened and folk were running
after them in the grey mist across the tongue of land. So they plunged
into the birches and the bogs, and crept through the underwood, and waded
through the tottermoss, startling the hag-worms beneath and the wild fowl
above, as they beat their way up and ahead, hoping only to be lost and
out of sight.

Then they came to a high ridge, with piked rocks standing on it, from
which they could see that their homeward course was plain, over a great
swamp and a bleak tarn, and along the green mountains beyond it. But
from their rock they could trace the giant not so far behind, making
his way through the wood, which was harder for him to force than for
the lithe light bodies that could slip between its boughs, and over its
half-dried, cracking mire-holes in which his bulk and weight stuck and
sank continually. And yet he went at it with main strength, swinging his
club and hewing a passage.

Down from their peak they flitted, and up he came from the other side,
shadowy against the lurid sunrise. With a shout he strode over the edge,
taking great steps against the sky, while they were lost in the maze of
oozy rills, too broad for them to jump, and too deep and too treacherous
to wade. While they looked wildly for their crossings, he leapt the
ditches and gained on them, until at last he whirled his club round his
head, and it flew hurtling through the air. They fell flat in the mire,
and it skimmed close over them. Then they struggled to their feet and ran
neck and neck for Blea tarn. Thorstein plunged in, dragging her after
him, and struck out for the other side, sorely weighed down by her head
on his shoulder, and well nigh choked by her grip round his neck; for she
was no swimmer, and gasped and struggled in the black water. He landed
her, though, upon a shoal, and up the bank they fled, on firmer ground
now, and with a clear way before them and treeless, over stones and
grass, forward and upward to Ullscarf.

But a terrible roar came up from the tarn; and they looked back, and
saw the giant near the middle of it, fighting with the black water, and
lashing it into foaming waves that circled and spread until all the
mere was in a turmoil. And then his head went under: but he rose again,
flapping and battling like a wounded heron. Then he sank again, and once
more came to the surface, drifting like a log in an eddy. And then the
water closed over him, black and calm, and the pattern of the mountain
tops began to take shape where he had been. The children stood fixed
to the spot. A stream of bubbles rose, and burst; and the reflections
joined again. Raineach turned suddenly on Thorstein and dealt him a blow
that felled him to the ground: she burst into a passion of weeping, as
she flung herself beside him. “Thou hast killed my father,” she wailed:
“I hate thee, I hate thee!”

Thorstein was in no mood to say good or bad to her, so utterly weary was
he: least of all to make love-speeches. He lay awhile, and the tarn-water
ran from him upon the grass.

“Listen, Raineach,” he said at last: “I hear the shouts of the men that
follow us afar.”

“O lad,” she cried, “dear lad, take me with thee.”

So they climbed the ridge, and held by it on the farther side, hidden
from their pursuers, and saw them no more.

But now the day had broken, a dismal day of thunder mist and gathering
storm. The highest tops were lost, not in their homely cloud-caps, but
fading away into black vapour; and through the rents in it the sun
shot beams of coppery and swarthy sheen, down into the smoky dells and
tumbling precipices, that seemed to ditch their moorland road on either
hand. The long rise and fall of Ullscarf before them looked like a vast
bridge in the air, and leading nowhither but into darkness. Far to the
right, gaps in the gloom showed awful edges of mountain, rolling and
plunging along the skyline, as wheels that moved, great toppling balls
advancing slowly over hill and dale, wayward and unescapable. Nigher at
hand were huge monsters, mis-shapen and grey and foul to see; many-headed
things, with eyes and crests and spiny backs, crouching along the naked
ground, among white and bleaching bones in the black soil. And when the
children came nearer, hoping to slip by, for there was no other way,
these things became great boulders, as it might be images of unknown
dragons of dreamland, or they were weird tussocks of grass on black and
embattled towers and pinnacles of crumbling peat, that took the shape of
laidly worms and all the terrors of winter-night tales.

They won their way over the bridge in air, down through the silky green
mosses and heatherless moor-grasses, to Greenup raise: for they dared
not try the valleys on either hand in fear of losing the only way they
knew, the safe and solitary ridge that must bring them southward and
homeward. But the darkness deepened, and then came a flash and an instant
crack and roar that sent them speeding upward in panic. Then the storm
began, flash upon flash of blue light, terrifying and bewildering, as
they scudded through the din and rattle of hail, blindly seeking shelter:
and dashed into a nook of white shattered rocks, an island on the great
heaving billow of moor. As they crushed themselves into the bield, some
ugly beast with a snarl and white teeth pushed out, and fled past them
into the storm. And there they cruddled, in shelter at last: and such
was their weariness and the heaviness of the air, that they knew no more
until they awoke wondering.

For the sky was violet-blue above them, and the sun was going down among
torn flitters of cloud-wreck. All around, the mountains were hard-edged
and dark purple, with streaks and stripes and slashes of dim white from
the hail and sudden cold. The children crept out, shivering and tottering.

“Oh, Thorstein,” sobbed the lass, “I can go no farther: let us lie down
and die here.”

But he comforted her, and bade her lean on him, and led her up the moor,
slowly and painfully toiling, until step by step they gained a rocky pike
among white tables of stone and strange pillars and domes and curving
hollows, like the icebergs they tell of in the far northern seas. And
looking homeward in the twilight from that tower, they saw a deep dark
valley below, and weary fells on the other side, and dells and mountain
moors. But beyond, far beyond, a gleam of water and a rising shadow of
mountain beside it, that wiped off the stars from the southern sky. Aye,
and Thorstein greeted as he held the poor lass up to look at the strip of
light in the distance. “It is my mere, it is our own mere, Raineach. I
know it!”

How they came down Langdale side in the darkness they could never tell.
From ledge to ledge, among the hammers and knots of rock, clambering and
groping for foot-hold and hand-hold, sliding sometimes down the screes
and losing one another in the deep fern: but still descending, even when
they were swept down the mazes of the black gills and the torrent beds
roaring from the rain-storm: lightheaded with hunger, and reckless from
fatigue, they reached the valley.

Guided by a red spot of firelight they came upon the huts of the poor
folk who had harboured them on their outward journey: and there they
found food and a respite from their travelling; and made a ready tale
how the men had gone to the war and sent them home. For if they had let
it be known that Gartnaidh was dead, it was odds but the fell-folk would
have been rough and mishandled them. But for pity’s sake they were good,
and made them welcome, and wondered how they had come through the storm
unscathed. They housed them, and fed them, as long as they would bide,
and then set them a good step on their way, until they struck the path
over Hawkshead moor and down Rusland pool to the Leven.

As they came within sight of Leven firth and the well known hills, wooded
softly and winsome after the horrible ruggedness of the mountains,
Thorstein laughed and sang and shouted for joy, and stepped briskly
forward. “Come along, lass,” he cried, “come along with thee! Yonder is
Legbarrow, and the sands of Leven: a bit more and we shall see Greenodd.
Home, lass, home! Step out. Why, what ails thee, silly?”

“Oh, Thorstein, I dare not. My heart is like water within me, and my head
works sore.”

“Aye, poor thing, little tired thing. I’ll help thee along. See: yonder
is our howe: and the smoke from Greenodd. See the bonny fields and flocks
in them; and ah! they have built a new cottage by the ford, and sown a
bit of the intake on the fell. There’s Greenodd, Raineach: there it is;
our own house!”

“Nay, Thorstein, I can go no farther. My feet are broken, and my knees
are trembling. Oh let me be, and leave me.”

“Why, lass, it is but a step. Well, then: well, then: bide here if thou
must, and look for me back in a hop, skip and jump to lait thee.”

She saw him trip off with no more farewell; and then she dragged herself
up into a wild apple tree, and it began to grow dark: and she waited for
him, sick at heart. Then the night fell, and still she waited for him.




CHAPTER XXVI.

THE ARVALE FOR SWEIN BIORNSON.


Grand doings were at Greenodd house. There was a table set out before
the door and drinking horns upon it, and a vat of ale in the porch.
Rosy-cheeked lasses, in their feast-day kirtles and kerchiefs, served all
comers by way of a welcome and a foretaste of the supper. For this day
was the Arvale made for Swein Biornson who had fallen at the battle of
Brunanburg.

It was their custom to bid to the funeral feast all their neighbours and
friends, not only that they might do honour to the dead, but also that
they might bear witness to the incoming of his heirs according to law and
the wonted order of kinship. This they called Arv-ale, which is as much
as to say Inheritance-ale: as they said Bride-ale for the wedding-feast.
And still in these parts the name is given to cakes they make at
funerals, which they call Arval-cakes.

Now when Thorstein came up to the door, guests were in the act of
arriving: namely a good neighbour whom he knew for Master Asmund, whose
land was Asmundar-lea, away over the back fell: he had come now and then
to feasts and meetings at Greenodd and the Legbarrow. He was finely
dressed in a new kirtle and hose of the best homespun: he wore a broad
felt hat, and leather riding-boots with bright spurs to them: and when he
lit down from his horse, he stood in the porch with a seasonable sadness,
and drank his ale to the good luck of the house, and hemmed, and sighed,
and wiped his beard, and walked in.

With him was a bright little slip of a lass, who must be his daughter,
for one could see that her nag was well groomed and well fed: and though
she was covered from head to foot with a great hooded riding-cloak of
dark blue and somewhat splashed with mud, such a merry grey eye looked
out from the hood and such a dainty foot stood in Thorstein’s hand as he
helped her from the saddle,—for he happened to be the nighest,—that there
was no doubt of it, who she was. She just put the horn to her lips, cast
her eye round with a little grimace, and mimicking the grave gait of her
father, stepped in after him.

Thorstein looked at the servant-lasses, but they were strange to him. He
saw that a feast was forward, and guessed well enough the reason why: for
the fell-folk had already heard tidings of a great defeat, and he knew
his father had passed him, that night of evil luck, on the way to the
battle. He could put two and two together now. And as he stood in the
porch, glad to be home again, it came over him suddenly that this was
no more his father’s house, and that his three-years’-long desire was
unfulfilled after all: and the tears came into his eyes.

Just then stood forth a couple of finely dressed young men, returned to
the porch after bestowing neighbour Asmund and his daughter within.

“Now, my good fellow,” said Orm roughly, “no loitering here with the
lasses and the ale. The thrall’s quarters are yonder.”

“Hold hard,” said Hundi. “This is none of Asmund’s folk. He is more like
a wild lad from the fells, with his long naked sword. Nay now, he is a
queer one. What is thine errand, friend?”

Thorstein said nothing. Words failed him. To think his own brothers knew
him no more!

But just then the mother came out, wet-eyed, but bustling over her
guests, and anxious that all should be rightly seen to. Nay, never ask if
she mistook him, or bade him begone.

Well, the guests had come and the supper was ready. The hall was hung
with its finest tapestries, and the floor new strewn with fern. After
a fashion that was sometimes followed then-a-days, men and women were
paired off to eat together. Unna sat in her own high-seat, with Asmund
as honoured guest beside her. On her left hand was Raud her brother, who
had taken land just across the water at Roudsey. One place was empty, the
high-seat of the master of the house: but in all others men and women
sat according to their rank, for the women’s thwart-bench was not yet
come into fashion, but if for weddings. As it fell out, Thorstein was
given for his partner the young lass Asmund’s daughter, Asdis by name.
Folk nodded and patted the table with hard fingers when they two sat
down, as if to say “Welcome back!” and as though they would add, “Well
matched, lad and lass!” For Asdis came out of her cloak like a butterfly
from its shell; and Thorstein, when his mother had bathed him and trimmed
his hair and dressed him—and little else she did before supper-time
from the moment she set eyes on him—why then he was quite another lad,
and they all said as much. Hundi was quite friendly, and Orm was civil
enough; though he whispered to Hundi “Why couldn’t the fellow have come
to-morrow?”

“Eh?” said Hundi, bluntly. “Why to-morrow?”

“Only that half is more than a third, thickhead.”

Then Hundi went over to Thorstein and kissed him, and gave him a good
slap on the back, saying “How about that whale, lad?” At which they all
laughed, for they knew the story well: but sobered themselves of a sudden
and fell to business, namely their supper. Asdis, the roguish lass, ate
off Thorstein’s plate and drank out of his cup, for at feasts when guests
outnumbered the household goods, that was their way. And between the
mouthfuls she chattered in a low voice, for it was not seemly to speak
loud at a feast for the dead.

“So, neighbour Thorstein Sweinson, ye’ve been seeing the world?”

“Aye.”

“And maybe you’ve set eyes on a deal of grand folk, kings and queens and
such like?

“Aye.”

“You don’t say so. Hark to him. Happen you’ve been faring to Micklegarth,
and aboon?”

“Nay.”

“What then? Not over seas? Well, maybe over the fells and far away?”

“Aye.”

“And clean forgotten thy mother tongue; or more like grown a peacock,
that has never a word for such as us?”

“Nay.”

“I thought as much. Tell me, neighbour, didst thou see a ragged lad in
the porch this afternoon?”

“Nay.”

“Good. Then I’ll tell thee. He was a scarecrow, he was. Who’d have
thought of a prince in disguise?”

And so she went on teasing and bantering him, while he could not but spy
at her round the corners of his eyes, so pretty she was in her low-cut
kirtle and gold necklace on a white smooth neck, with the locks of
her unbraided yellow hair brushing his sleeve, and the dimples in her
little soft knuckles coming and going, as she handled and turned the cup
before him. She was so dainty that he was fairly abashed, and never knew
how to answer her, and hardly dared touch the trencher with his rough
paws. There she was laughing softly, and joking in a whisper, with her
apple-blossom chin over his shoulder; and folk staring at him too, till
he was fit to sink under the table. Then he drank up all the ale, and
held out the cup for more, and drank that: and then he felt more blate
than ever, and sat stock still, for fear he should do something foolish.
For ale-drinking was strange to him; he got little stronger than milk on
the fell, at the best of times.

When they had eaten, healths were drunk; a cup to Thor, and a cup to
each of the gods. At each health they all rapped the tables and shouted.
Then one stood up and hemmed and coughed,—it was Master Asmund their
neighbour; and he spoke in a loud sing-song voice:—

“Friends all, and neighbours, here we are met together under this kindly
roof-tree on a joyful errand—nay, what say I? Joyful is the day that
brings the wanderer to his home” (at which they shouted “Hear him,
welcome Thorstein Sweinson!”) “And joyful it is to find a hearty welcome
from our worthy hostess, even in the midst of her great sorrow” (“Well
said,” they cried all.) “And right and meet it is to come together to
cheer the widow and the orphan, and to speak a word of praise for him
that is gone.” (“Speak on!” they cried.) “Aye, friends and neighbours,
he was a good man, was Swein Biornson. When I bethink me of the days
he used to come home, ten and twelve winters it is and more, from
summer-leading, before ever this new order of things began, when there
was none of the nonsense that’s talked nowadays about folk-right and
king’s law and the like: I say when I bethink me of our good neighbour
that was, and him coming home by harvest-time as regular as the swallows
in spring, with a shipload of fine wares that had cost him many a hard
knock in the gathering, and many a long cruise on strange coasts, and
through stormy seas: I can see him once again in his seat over yonder,
at the feast he used to give for his home-coming and the harvest of the
sea, and well I mind his hearty voice; ‘Take thy time, neighbour; make
thy choice,’ he would say: for he had a gift in the heap for every
guest, and a good word with it. And when I look round on the land he
stubbed, bonny corn-riggs and lea land it is now, and few of ye can call
to mind as well as I the rough spot this used to be, before ever he set
to work upon it: when I come over the fell and look down on this fine
house he raised, fit up it is with every comfort, and nothing awanting to
suit his lady, highborn as she may be, what with householding gear and
servants out-doors and in, dairy fit for a king’s daughter and byres of
the best, and all the stock so well managed,—for there’s a deal more in
managing, mind you, than some folk allow, that are always blaming their
luck for every beast they lose, and every load of hay that they let rot
in the rain: I say he was a grand man, and long will it be or we see the
like of him again. It is not his friends only that say so, mind you:
they tell me the very king of England himself offered our neighbour to
make him a thane, and set him over the country-side to take scat of the
folk: but ‘Nay,’ says Swein Biornson as proud as a prince, ‘Nor thane of
thine nor thrall of thine will I be,’ says he to the king. ‘I am a free
statesman, and a good neighbour to all,’ said he: ‘and ye kings may lait
your tools otherwheres.’ That was a grand speech, friends: and many’s the
grand word we have had from him over yonder at our meetings, and many a
time folk have been ruled by his rede. For look you, friends, there was
never a man of us but kenned right well that Swein Biornson spoke his
mind, and every word came out of a good heart, and honest; though maybe
we could not all of us go as far as he did, in some matters. And now,”
said Asmund, bringing his speech to end, “He is gone, and we shall see
him no more. Over the fells in the great battle-play, hewing down his
foes as a lad haggs weeds with his wand, leaping through the spears of
the English and shouting to the cowards who dared not follow him: the
kemp and captain of the little band that backed him, until the Saxons
faltered and fled, so they tell the tale that saw it. Aye, and if Owain
and Constantine and Olaf the Dane had but found a handful such as he,
there would have been another tale to tell of the doings at Brunanburg.
But it pleased the Allfather to send for him, and take him to himself.
Right glad we should have been to have laid our neighbour in his own
howe, to overlook the lands he has won and the house he has planted; but
afar on the Winheath he lies, and Odin has spared him the sorrow of a
straw-death. Let us be glad, friends, and rejoice for him: for the deeds
he has done in his life, and for the glory he has gathered in his death.
Drink with me this cup to him: drink to Swein Biornson.”

Standing up, they drank in silence: and in silence they sat down again.
Then Orm Sweinson, as being the eldest son of his father, stood in his
place to drink the Bragi-cup. It was their custom at Arvales to leave the
dead man’s high-seat empty until his health had been drunk, and honoured
with some fitting speech or vow made by him who should be the chief heir
to the name of the dead: and not until then might he sit in the empty
high-seat, and by that token take the rule over the house of his father.

So Orm’s cup was filled, and he rose and came into the middle of the
hall, and stood with one foot on the stone curb of the hearth. “I drink,”
he cried aloud, “this cup to Bragi; and I vow hereby to do vengeance for
the dead, and justice to the living.” Then they cried out that he had
vowed well; could say no less and need say no more: and they made room
for him to take his place upon his father’s seat, as master of the house
thenceforward.

Then far into the night they sat to drink, and each man told his tale
of him that was gone, or sang a song in honour of him. But long before
they were done with their feast, Thorstein’s eyes were closed, for he was
heavy with travelling, and with the joy and sorrow of home-coming, and
maybe also with the strong ale he had drunk. So he slept where he sat,
long after Asdis, pouting and vexed, had gone off to her chamber with the
rest of the women-kind.

Thus ended the first day of the Arvale for Swein Biornson. And all
the while, in the dark night, Raineach clung to the branches of the
wild apple tree by Crakeford, weary and hungry and sick at heart, and
listening for Thorstein. And when she slept for very weariness, she
dreamed that he was dragging her among proud strangers who scorned
her: and then that he was saying “Off, off, ugly paddock.” And she
awoke weeping, and listened for him, in the patter of the rain upon the
drenched leaves in the dawning.




CHAPTER XXVII.

SWEIN BIORNSON’S HEIRS.


Morning came and they were stirring. Thorstein found it hard to awake;
but as he rubbed his eyes and shook himself, there came over him the
thought of Raineach and how he had left her: and he was bitterly ashamed.
He ran to his mother, and “Mother,” said he, “I have been both knave and
fool.”

“What now, barn?” said she.

“Mother,” said he, “I had a gold ring in my hand, and I dropped it in the
ale vat.”

“Never heed it, barn,” said she: “thou wilt have gold rings enough, and
that thou wilt see before to-day is done. And thy old one will land up
when the ale is drunk.”

“Mother,” he said, “there was a young lass with me as I came along the
road: and I left her hard by Crakeford; for she was weary, she said, and
would come no farther.”

“A lass, barn? What, thou art young to lead lasses up and down. But lads
will be men nowadays, no sooner than they are out of swaddling clothes.
And what sort of a lass may she be?”

“She’s a good lass, mother, and a kind one to me: and I’d liefer by far
lose ring or ring-finger.”

“What then, lad? I’ll say nay to nothing, now I have thee home: but be
guided. Here we are all throng as throng can be, and folk to break their
fast: and men-folk are aye fractious on the morrow of a feast until they
be served. And there’s the settlement to follow, and a gey work it will
be to get through unless Orm be more reasonable than I fear. Let me send
one of our men to lait thy lass, and bestow her in one of the thrall’s
cots until we get these guests off our hands: or if thy mind is to fetch
her here upon us all, maybe Asdis Asmund’s daughter will give her a share
of her bed. That’s a bonny lass, Thorstein.”

“Nay, mother,” answered he, stuttering, “I doubt Asdis will give us no
thanks for thrusting a stranger upon her: and Raineach—”

“What?” said his mother: “is it an Irish woman?”

“Never mind what, mother, now: but I say she will be better suited
elsewhere than here, until this turmoil is over, and then.”

The first thing was their breakfast, which was a great meal with the
North-folk then-a-days, and the set-out was well nigh as big as at supper
time. Next thing was the settlement, and division of the dead man’s
goods; to be done before the neighbours, fair and square and above-board:
for in those days they had no lawyers and writings and such-like, either
for the making of laws or for the conveying of property, and all was
done by word of mouth and deed of hand in the presence of witnesses,
whose testimony was the only token of the continuance of a custom or the
assurance of ownership.

After question asked and answered about debts the dead man might owe, and
after sundry to whom he had lent money or goods had repaid them in bags
of silver or ells of cloth they came to the division of the estate. It
was their use for the widow to take one part in three, both of the land
and goods. After some talk, they climbed the howe and parcelled out the
whole land-take of Swein Biornson, both wild-wood and cleared land: and
coming down from the howe they all walked over the grounds as they had
measured them out from above, beating the boundaries, and planting staves
or stones from point to point along. And this side of the line, up-bank
towards Greenodd, was to be Unna’s, and the other side was to be for the
rest of the heirs.

Of furniture and movable things, ornaments and apparel and household
gear, they carried out a third part and stood them in a heap in one of
the sheds, until it should be settled where Unna would bestow herself and
her goods. Then she chose out her third part of the thralls, both men and
maids, and set them aside. And by that time the morning was spent, and
the mid-day drinking was served to them in the disordered garth. But to
the younger folk all this was a holiday-making, and it was merriment to
see arks opened and goods shifted, and the thralls set out in a line and
chosen: and to hear the maids say “Oh mistress, take me!” and to one and
another the mistress replying “Nay, lass; I know thee too well.”

So then they talked about what should be done as between the three lads;
until one said, “It has been done before, neighbours, and it is often
a good custom, for the first-born to get house and land, and for the
younger to take the movable goods. Now here we have three lads: and
if we set all that remains in three shares, namely house and land and
farming-stock to one share: and the ship and all that belongs to it,
boats and boat-sheds, tools and tackle and such-like, to another share:
and lastly if we reckon up silver and gold, apparel and furniture and
such chattels to the third share: then I say we shall not be far from
a fair parting of the estate. And I say that if Orm Sweinson takes the
house and farm, he will do well: and if Hundi takes the ship and goes
abroad, he is like to thrive: and if Thorstein the child gets the money
and movables, he will be well set up.”

At this Orm boggled somewhat, for said he, “An empty house is cold
cheer.” But Thorstein answered, “Why, brother, we can mend that. Give me
and my goods house-room, and I will give thee the help of me and mine.”
And so said Unn, for she was loath to leave the old spot, and Orm knew
right well what a manager she was. And so they settled it, without more
ado, and went down to the field for a game of wrestling.

There they played until supper time, and Thorstein acquitted himself
right well, though he was hardly fifteen years of age and far from full
grown. But his life on the fells had hardened him, so that Hundi Snail,
as they called him because he was easy and fat, went down under the
youngster: and even Orm was thrown twice out of thrice; at which he was
vexed, though he said little. So to set matters right Unna bade them in
to supper: and as they went up to supper said Asmund to Thorstein, “A
word with thee, my lad.”

“Say on, master,” says he.

“Look you now,” says Asmund. “Thou hast been these three winters away,
and no doubt we shall hear of thy doings. But one thing I see, and that
is, thou hast not lost thy time.”

“Thank you kindly,” says Thorstein.

“But,” says Asmund, “take a word from one who knows. It is not all of us
who have the trick, like thy poor father, of being soft to friends and
sour only to foes: and even betwixt brothers things do not always fall
as one would. Now, was it quite wise in thee to throw thy brother Orm,
think’st thou, those two times? Was not once enough?”

“What!” said he, “I threw him fair.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Asmund. “Fair is foul in such matters. Riddle me that,
lad. But when thou comest to know Orm a bit better, from serving him a
month or two—”

“Serving him?” cries Thorstein.

“Well, what else? since he is master of the house, and a masterful man at
any time. But when thou hast need of a friend and a friendly roof over
thy head, take thy money-bags, if aught be left in them, and hie thy ways
over to Asmundarlea. Say no more, my lad, but bear it in mind.”

So they went to supper, and Asdis sat again by Thorstein, daintier than
ever, and not a bit put out with him: and he was a deal more at his
ease. And while men drank after supper, said she, “Bonny things, master
wrestler, I spied among thy goods: and a lucky lad is the getter of them.”

“Aye,” said he, “they are fine enough, I suppose.”

“Would it be asking over much to have a sight of them once again before
we go? There’s a stitch in some of thy hangings I would be glad to learn.”

So he brought an armful and cleared the table where they sat, and she
fingered the embroideries and praised them, and praised him, until he had
given her a good half of them in spite of her nays.

“What,” she said at last, “I’ll see no more if everything I touch is to
be given me. But in one of thy kists, I saw a fine draught-board. Shall
we have a game?”

[Illustration: A LESSON IN FOX AND GEESE]

“I doubt,” said he, “I have forgotten how to play.”

“Oh,” said she, clapping her hands, “then I’ll teach thee, master
mountain bear: and that will be fun, for it’s dull for us poor lasses if
you men do nought but drink till bedtime and aboon.”

So he found the draught-board and the carved knaves, and they played fox
and geese until he learned something of the trick of it. Then she said,
“Nay, thou art fairly my master. I’ll teach no more. Let us play rightly
as folk do, and stake a trifle on a game or two.”

Well, the end was she won a good bit more of Thorstein’s fineries, and
carried a great heap off to bed with her. And if she was pleased, so was
he, at finding any way to please so pretty and dainty a creature.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

WHITE ROSE AND RED.


Now the third day of the feast had come, when the guests bethought them
of going their ways homewards. Thorstein went out with Asdis to catch
her nag for her, and to set her on the way with Asmund and his men. But
when they got up to the fell-pasture where the horses were, thralls were
cutting wood from the stubs in the coppice hard by. And just as Thorstein
was laying hold of the nag, what should he see but a poor, thin, gaunt
figure in rags, among the woodcutters, carrying a huge load of sticks,
and the red hair hanging down unkempt over her face. One of the men, in
rough horse-play, as rude rascals do with a strange new fellow-servant,
put out his foot, and let her trip over it, and tumble with the load and
all. Then another went up to her and cursed her for a fool and gave her
a kick. Thorstein flew at them, and it was right for one and left for
t’other, and down they went, heels over head, one with a broken jaw and
one with bloody nose. Thorstein picked up the lass, and would have kissed
her, but she fought herself loose and struggled away.

“Raineach!” he cried; “Raineach!”

She turned and looked at him in his finery. Then she looked at Asdis who
had come up, staring. Then she looked down at her tatters, and black,
bare feet and fingers.

Asdis put her hand on Thorstein’s shoulder. “Eh, what breaks!” she
giggled, and then burst into shrieks of laughter. Thorstein shook off her
hand, and darted after the ragged lass, who fled through the wood.

“Oh, Raineach!” he cried after her in her own language, “Raineach my
darling! forgive me, forgive me! Listen to me: only hear me! Stay,
Raineach, only stay, and hear me!”

Poor little thing, she was too weak and ill to run far: and stopped at
bay under a ridge of rock in the wood. But still she kept him off with
her hands, while she wept and laughed and wept again.

Thorstein grovelled on the moss before her, and poured out his heartful
of passionate words: blaming himself for knave and fool: and excusing
himself by telling her what had passed, and how his mother had promised
to have her well bestowed in a thrall’s cot, out of the way of the stoore
of the guests: and how he could not come nigh her till they were gone:
and over and over again he said it, till he had no more to say. At last
he lay quite still, sobbing bitterly.

“What’s all this?” shouted a rough voice through the wood. It was Orm.
“Look here, young fellow, don’t go knocking my thralls about: I’ll thank
you to learn manners, if you mean to stay. And who is this ugly goblin,
I’d like to know?”

Thorstein was on his feet in a moment, and Raineach in his arms as if
they had never parted.

“She’s my sister, kinsman: the child of my foster-father. And I give thee
to know, that there’s not a lass in the land to match her.”

“One would think the giant had fostered thee, barn,” said Orm, using the
old byword, and laughing scornfully.

“Then beware of the giant’s fosterling.”

“Well, come and show thy mother what a prize thou hast got.”

“Aye, that I will, and all the world,” answered Thorstein, as she nestled
to him, and clung to him, sobbing no more, but tall and straight and
proud, in her rags and dirt.

And then he led her to Greenodd house, whence all the guests had gone
away: and speaking in her tongue, told his mother who she was. And his
mother answered him, and spoke to her words that she could hear, and that
made her weep for gladness. And when she was washed and fed, and dressed
in clothes from Thorstein’s own store, simple things that Asdis had not
cared to take, she sat by the fire while Thorstein told them, far into
the night, the story of his wanderings and of her kindness to him.

As the story went on, Unna drew nearer to her the child, that wondered,
and understood nought of the tale but what she guessed from their
glances: until her head was on the good mother’s lap, and from her eyes,
half shut, the tears crept out, and through the great red mane, upon the
kind hands that petted her.

When Thorstein had done, Hundi kissed him, and Orm came over out of the
high-seat he was proud to keep, and held out his hand. “Kinsman,” he said
“let bygones be bygones.”

“Why,” said Thorstein, holding his brother’s hand: “What is there to
forgive?”

But Unna said, in the soft Erse tongue that came back to her like a dream
of childhood, “Many a time have I prayed, whiles to the Allfather, and
whiles to the White Christ, for a little lass, though I dared tell no
soul else of the folly. And he has heard me, whoever it is hears poor
folk’s prayers. He has taken my man to himself, and he has sent me this
bonny maid.”




CHAPTER XXIX.

RAINEACH AT GREENODD.


It was not all plain sailing, though the start was fair. They tell how,
once upon a time, a lad brought home a wild kitling from the woods, and
nursed it up among the house-cats by the hearth. So it was at Greenodd
with Raineach.

With the best will in the world, she found it hard to learn their ways,
and quite beyond her to follow them. At first there was the labour of a
new speech to get. Thorstein had picked up her talk with ease: but she
could never frame her lips to the strange sounds, nor force her thoughts
into the words of the North-folk. She would be eager to chatter, and
brimful of news, or wonderment, or recollection, or explanation: helping
herself out with gestures, and the forcefulness of her native manner,
unlike the slow steadiness of the Northern delivery, and strange to them
and disquieting. And in the midst of it all, a word wrongly spoken, and
drolly misinterpreting her meaning, would set them all roaring with
laughter. At which she would be vexed and sulk: for her people were grave
and staid, though forceful and rapid in speech and gesture: while the
Northmen, slow of speech and drawling, were ready with rough jokes and
childish fooling. So she took their laughter in bad part: and they took
her glumping for the sign of a bad heart: and Thorstein had work enough
to come between them all.

And then she could never learn the deft neatness of their household
ways, their cleanliness in kitchen and diary, and tidiness of table and
chamber, and handy management of needle and shuttle and rock. If there
were doubt in their counsels, mishap with beasts or men, or any grave
trouble befalling, who but Raineach was run to for help: for she kept her
head, while the other women-folk were shrieking and scurrying; and she
was dry-eyed while they were weeping; or sober while they giggled like
fools. But even for that they thought worse of her, as one who had not
the feelings of other folk, and never laughed nor greeted when she ought,
nor was shocked like a decent lass, nor disgusted like a dainty one.

And that bush of red hair was never dressed for long; and her kirtle
was torn, and cobbled up coarsely; and her kerchief awry; and her work
fouled with losing, and leaving in corners, and crumpling in hasty
forgetfulness. And if sometimes she was the pride of them all, for her
tall, slim strength, and her bright bonny face with the proud high-set
cheek and brent brow, and with the earnest friendliness that shone in her
eyes; at other whiles she was dismal, and the light faded out of her,
and she was no better than a draggle-tailed slut, they said. And then
nothing healed her but a run with Thorstein on the fell, and unmaidenly
scraffling among the beasts, or rough pulling and hauling at the
boat-sheds with Hundi and the ship-wrights. Unna would often say over to
herself how much she owed the lass for Thorstein’s sake, and how much she
might do for the lass to bring her into shape: and so schooled herself to
be good to her: but it was not always easy to keep back a sharp word; and
a sharp word spoiled everything.

Thorstein too was a puzzle to them. Every indoor business he shirked,
and cared only for herding and boating and the rough work of the farm.
He had been so long on the fells that quiet life came amiss to him: and
often by the fireside at nights, as that winter wore, he would fidget and
worry until he found a call for turning out, so that even the shepherds
bade him leave them in peace to look after their own job. Then he took
to hunting: and they owned he was a famous hunter. He would fish in the
firth, day and night and all weathers, as if he had a bear’s warmth in
him. They were glad of the fish he brought home: but it was irksome to
have him bring in his dripping self along with it, to reek and simmer by
the hearth, when all was redd up and snug for the evening. “Folk must do
as folk do,” said they behind his back: but when they said it to his face
he looked ugly, and Unna dreaded a fight with Orm one of those days.

So the nights wore on to Yule: and then came a messenger from over the
fell to bid the Greenodd folk to Asmundarlea for the feast-tide: and
“Over and above that,” said he, “my mistress Asdis bade thee in especial,
Thorstein Sweinson, and charged thee to bring the young may, for she
would fain know her, and make a sister of her.”

When Raineach understood that this was the lass that had laughed at her,
on that dreadful day which nobody ever named, she said flatly that she
would not go. But Unna begged hard, and told her that the lass was good
at heart, and meant all kindly, and that it would be a feather in her cap
to win such a friend. So Raineach dared say no more, though she loathed
the journey.

But Thorstein found her some right bonny fairings and tricked her out as
never was: and Raineach was child enough to be proud of her attire, and
said in her heart she would be a match for them all. And they took her on
a nag like any lady, and rode over the fell, and were received heartily;
and all went well at first.

Asdis was a handsome lass in her way: less tall and strong than Raineach,
but far more snod and neat and womanlike. Raineach at her best was a
wild-wood goddess, and at her worst she was a grey-faced tatterling
again: but Asdis was always the same, blithe and bonny, well set up and
well seen to. So that one would have thought there need be no strife
between them.

But the very next day Asdis was at her tricks: and every one but
Thorstein aided and abetted her in showing off poor Raineach in little
things, that bit and stung like midges on a wet mid-summer eve. She
would flatter till Raineach was led into simpering, and then they
chuckled: she would ask her advice about tapestry stitches, and Raineach,
seeing no malice, would give grave counsels that a body might see were
nought: she would mock her gait and manner of eating, and entice her
to say the words she always said wrong; and folk would laugh; and even
Thorstein laughed as one who couldn’t help it. Then Asdis cast a sheep’s
eye at him, and as it were claimed him for her friend and ally, and
Raineach was furious, and paled, and blushed, and wept, and sulked. Asdis
did it all so cleverly, and was so pretty and innocent over it, that
even Thorstein would take her part and bid Raineach not be a fool. She
promised to amend, and was bitterly ashamed, and tried again: and so it
went on until they were all glad to part and get home again. And Master
Asmund at the farewell clapped Thorstein on the back and said “Well, lad,
we’ll not forget, and we look to see thee when thou art tired of Greenodd
and all thy folk.” And so the lad was set up with himself, and vexed with
Raineach, thinking that she had spoiled their sport, and was after all no
better than a pettish child.

One day when Yule was well over, his mother called him aside and “Lad,”
she said, “I doubt I am wearying of these doings. It’s not that I don’t
love the lass from my heart, and there’s nothing I would not do for her.
But its dreigh work putting up with her whimsies, and setting things
to right after her. Never a stitch she sets, but I have to unpick it:
never a pat of butter she turns, but I have to wash it: what, and she was
stirring the cream this very day with a horn spoon when the rowan thival
was there at hand. And she slaps the servant lasses if they so much as
smile, and she has words with the men, aye, even with Orm himself. Why,
he said to me this very day, Mother, said he, tell that young spitfire
that I’ll have no more of her sauce; let her know who is master here,
said he.”

“Well, mother,” said Thorstein, “Raineach is a good lass, and means well.”

“Nay, never doubt it,” said his mother. “But she does ill, and sets us
all by the ears. It’s grieved I am to say it, but I would be thankful if
one she would hearken to gave her a word and got her to amend.”

“You are hard on her, mother. You all said you’d take her for one of us,
and make her at home. And its nothing but tease and worry, till the poor
child never knows whether she’s on her head or her heels.”

“Nay, Thorstein: that’s not a fair word to the mother that bore thee. Who
brought her here? Who fetched the wild cat into the house?”

Then he was angry, and she was angry, and they had high words, and parted
with little peace between them.

He went out to look for Raineach, and “Lass,” he said, “what hast thou
done to set them all against thee?”

“I?” said she. “Peace for shame, Thorstein!”

“Nay,” he answered, moodily. “It’s truth. Here’s mother can stand it no
more, and Orm fit to turn us out of the house.”

“Well then, I’ll go for one. Thou canst stay if thou wilt.”

“Raineach,” he said, “hear reason.”

“Little reason in you folk,” she answered. “And thou, Thorstein, once I
thought—.” But she burst into weeping, and fled away.

Thorstein turned in again, angry with her, and more angry with his
folk, and angry most of all with himself. As he sat and thought it out
it seemed to him that this would blow over like other storms, and that
Raineach would surely come back to supper. But supper-time came, and no
Raineach.

“What’s to do with the lass?” said Unna. “Well, hungry folk can’t wait,
and I’ll keep a bite against she comes.”

“Nay,” said Orm, “sulky dogs go supperless.”

But Thorstein was uneasy, for he had never before parted from her in
anger. He left his porridge in the bowl and went out. It was starlight,
and snowy, and he called her name. But the sound died away over the dim
white fields: and he went forward calling for her, and into the fields
and up to the ford.

He searched high and low, far into the night: and knocked at the thralls’
cots to ask for her. At last one said, coming sleepily to the door,
that he had seen her in the gloaming making her way to the fell through
the bare woods. He knew it was the wild may by the glint of red in the
boughs on the snow. Then Thorstein was terribly fleyed, and ran to seek
the place where she had been seen. He found her track in the snow and
followed it up, leaping with all his might, breathless, and stopping only
now and again to call, and to listen for an answer. The late moon rose,
and her traces were still there, the little holes where her feet had
gone, and the blur where she had stumbled or rested.

It was long before he found her, plodding ahead up the fell, far beyond
their bounds.

“Let me go,” she cried, “to my own people. Let be, and forget Raineach.”

“To thy people?” he said; “then I follow.” And he tramped onwards by her
side.

After a while she said, “They will kill thee. Go back.”

“What do I care?” said he; and they went on.

Again she said, “Thorstein, thou art a fool.”

“No news,” said he.

Then it began to dawn: and they were far on the moor, and the mountains
stood tall on the rosy sky. She sat down in the snow, and he sat beside
her. Suddenly she put her hands before her face and burst out into wild
laughing. “Fools we are both,” she said. “Look at yon sky, and our own
fells, white and still. And we with storm and blackness in our hearts. Oh
Thorstein, wouldst thou truly go with me?”

“To the end of the world,” said he.

“And beyond?”

He took her in his arms, and the sunrise brightened upon them. Long they
sat together in the glow, and forgot the night, and the blackness in
their hearts, and all the evil of bygone days. They seemed to have grown
old, now, and wise. What silly children they had been, once.

It was late in the afternoon when they came into Greenodd hall, where all
went on as ever: but the two were changed, and saw the spot as in a dream.

“Mother,” said he, “I have brought her back. Let us rest here awhile: and
give us thy blessing. We’ll trouble the house no more: give us time, and
we’ll away to a spot of our own.”

“Children,” said Unna, “what game is this?”

“I am a man now, mother,” said he. “I can fend for myself, with her to
help me. Never say nay: we have it all planned, and ask nothing but
good-will.”

“Good-will, my son you have: aye, the best. But, barn, hear reason. You
are young yet, and little you know of life. Bide awhile; take your time.
Who but guessed what it was coming to? But Thorstein lad, if thou love
thy lass, be guided. There’s house to build, lad, and gear to get. Will
you live in the wood, and eat mast like swine, with a starving brood of
piglings running naked in the mire? A man, lad, takes a man’s rede: and a
woman, lass, must grow womanly. Is it all done in a night?”




CHAPTER XXX.

THORSTEIN GOES ABROAD.


Young they were, but no fools. They kept their promise. Raineach was a
new creature, anxious to please and amenable to guidance; willing to
learn all that Thorstein’s wife should know. He on his part acknowledged
that there was a deal to do before he could set up house: and when Hundi
sometimes joked him about his castle that was to have been on the shore
of his mere, he would take it quite soberly, and reply, “Aye lad, I was a
bit before-hand: but wait until I have got my gear together, and then.”

“Better come for a trip with me this season, and see what skill we make
at cheaping. With thy goods on my ship, thou and I might do a conny bit
of trade, and see the world: maybe we’d light on luck, and come back able
men.”

Now it was a saying among these people “Homely wit has home-bred barn:”
and no lad was thought much of until he had been awhile abroad. There was
none but Raineach that had a word against it; and she was overborne the
easier because she had made up her mind to be good, and think of her own
wishes last.

So Thorstein busied himself in cleaning all the skins he had got that
winter, and added a good few to his stock: and he packed up everything
he could lay hands on, if only it would turn him a penny, or barter off
against goods that would be useful to him in his housekeeping. And at
last they bade farewell to all, and taking the shipcarles who had been
used to voyage with Swein, they started merrily on a fine spring day,
down the Leven, and stood over the sea for Ireland.

At that time there was an unwonted peace through the coasts of England
and all round about. These were the last few years of king Athelstan’s
life, when he had brought his neighbours under him, or won their good
will. He reigned in great glory and honour, and his realm prospered:
his strong hand, or the fear of it, kept all the lesser kings and earls
of the North in quiet. Folk were glad of a breathing-space after an age
of struggles and the great fight at Brunanburg; and even across the sea
there was a lull, so to say, in the turmoil of the nations. The age of
the vikings was over, and it was now the turn of cooler heads and wiser
counsels to set to rights the new order of things, and to establish the
kingdoms and governments which had arisen out of the disorder and wreck
of the old world.

By these days the Northmen had left being nought but rovers and robbers:
they had become settlers and traders and rulers of realms on the seaboard
of all the northern lands. And not only in the North; for scarce a spot
was there between Greenland and Constantinople where they or their
children were not found, like bees in a garden, at once gathering honey
for themselves, and sowing for others the seeds of new life and strength;
the busiest and brightest of all the kindreds of the age.

But the Northern lands were their homes. On salt shores, where farming
alone could never thrive; on bleak headlands among the seamews’ nests; on
lone islands veiled in the mist or girdled with the surf,—homes where any
but a race of sailors would have hungered slowly to death, or pined into
dismal savagery,—there they bred and multiplied, and sang through the
winter, and strove through the summer; their wit and wisdom and valour
putting to shame (though little they knew it) the follies and the vices
and the idleness of the South. It were long to reckon up all that we owe
them, in thought and speech, in law and custom, in arts and crafts; for
without books, they made themselves learned; without schools, they became
artists; without examples, they perfected laws; and without bigotry,
they found freedom. A wonderful people, and greatly to be gloried in,
even yet, by their inheritors; still more by their own children in the
day of their strength. For a thousand years ago it might well be said
wherever a Northman’s keel strake strand there he found his kin to
hand; be it west-over-sea from old Norway, in Britain or Ireland and
the isles thereabout; or in Greenland or Iceland; or the Baltic coasts,
and thenceaway to the Atlantic, from Finmark and Denmark to Holland and
Valland; everywhere the Northman’s tongue was heard and the Northman’s
hand feared.

It was no wonder then, if lads of the breed, born in this corner of no
man’s land, and nourished up among wild folk and woodland swine, should
long eagerly to see the ways of the world and the dwellings and the
doings of their kindred far and wide. Over and above the need to eke out
the scanty gift of the earth by sea-going trade, there was the same spell
that had beckoned them up the Crake, as boys,—curiosity, and the love of
adventure,—hailing them now from over sea, and waving afar off who knows
what glittering thing, to which reach out they must, whether they would
or no. “Homely wit has home-bred barn”—aye, indeed, if his overword is
always “Elsewhere,” and his day always “To-morrow.”

So it was in the spring of the year, nine hundred winters, thirty and
eight, since our Lord was born, the lads departed and came into Dublin
Bay. And when they were landed, officers of the king stayed them to know
their errand and whence they came. When they said they were chapmen, they
were brought to the palace; for the king’s folk had the right to be
first buyers, and to fix the price of wares.

At the gate who should spy them but Olaf Guthferthson himself. He asked
the name of the bonny boys, and they told him their names and their
father’s name, and that they were from Hougun way.

“What,” said he, “are you the sons of that brave Swein from those parts
who fell at Brunanburg? Ah!” said he, “if we had found but a few more
such men, it’s not in Dublin I’d be sitting now, but holding my court
in London town.” And when he knew for certain that they were the sons
of Swein Biornson the kemp, as he called him, he brought them in to the
queen, and bade her treat them well, for they were the sons of a better
man than any of his.

So for a day or two they had famous entertainment, and thought themselves
made men. But they soon saw ugly looks among the housecarles of Olaf: and
one of their folk bade them beware of a shrewd turn; “for these Danes,”
said he, “there’s no trusting; and stranger’s praise is the surest doom.”

So they came before the queen and told her how their business pressed,
for that they had far to go: and then she bade them farewell, but not
willingly as it seemed; and a fine gift she gave them. And as they
scudded out of Dublin Bay, they thanked their luck, and cursed all kings’
houses for downright wolf-traps.

Then, for the wind was in the South, they went up and cruised about the
Irish Sea to the Isle of Man and the great bights of Galloway. There they
met many of their own people who guested them in one place and another,
and gave them good speed: but little trade they did, for their wares were
such as all men had in plenty. They sailed from Galloway up the firth
of Clyde, and by the Kumreyar or Isles of the Welsh, to Alclyde, which
was also called Dun-breton, where was the chief city of king Domhnaill:
and there Thorstein was somewhat shy of being known lest a grudge might
be owing him for his escape and for the death of Gartnaidh. But nobody
seemed in those parts to know or care for old stories of wild fell-folk.
He asked news of the queen, hoping to hear that his friend Aluinn was by
now wedded to Domhnaill and advanced to be lady of the land. But folk
laughed and wagged their heads, and gave him to understand that there
might be a dozen queens up and down for aught they knew: and he asked no
more, for pity of the poor beauty away in the Cumberland fells, who had
put her trust in the gay raking spark. He said a deal to Hundi, out of
the fulness of his heart: what a shame it was that men should be light of
love, and how he would like to see the blood-eagle carved on Domhnaill’s
back. To which Hundi Snail answered lazily that he talked like a great
guff: and Thorstein was near coming to blows with him.

When they came out of the firth of Clyde they rounded Satiri’s muli, the
Mull of Cantire: and sailed to the Hebrides, which they called Il-ey and
Myl, Tyrwist and Skidh, Iwist and Liodhus; and everywhere they found
Northmen and friends settled, and an open market. So then they came to
the mainland again, in Sutherland, and looked in at the Lax-fiord, and
rounded Cape Hwarf, and so to the Orkneyar.

At this time Turf-Einar the earl was dead, and his sons Arnkel and Erlend
and Thorfin Skull-cleaver had the power. Thorfin’s wife was Grelaug, the
daughter of earl Duncan at Duncansby in Caithness, over the Pentland
firth: and Grelaug’s mother was Groa the daughter of Thorstein the Red.
Thus there was even some far-away kinship between her and the lads; and
when this was brought forward they were taken as the queen’s guests,
and they got protection for themselves and their men, and a good market
for their wares. And as the season was now far spent, and the Northern
seas are stormy when the winter comes on, they asked that they might sit
there in Orkney until the bad weather was over, and offered themselves
to Thorfin to serve him. How they wrought for him at ship-smithying, and
fought for him in raids on the Scots and on rough neighbours, and how
they saw many a roof burnt and many a limb lopped, and how they hunted
and drank and quarrelled and escaped,—all this is not in the story: but
no doubt they saw life as it was lived, both the good and the ill of it,
and hardened into sturdy lads, fit for the give and take of the world
they dwelt in.

When spring was come they took their leave of the Orkney folk, and sailed
for Iceland: for they had a great mind to see what was to be seen, and
to visit all the homes of their kindred, and never come back until they
could give a good account of their voyage.

Now Grelaug of Orkney had a cousin out there, the daughter of her
mother’s brother, Olaf Feilan. The cousin was named Thora, and she was
wedded to Thorstein Codbiter, the son of Thorolf Mostbeard, who built the
great temple at Thorsness and was a powerful chief among the Icelanders.
So Grelaug gave the lads a message to Thorstein Codbiter and a token to
her cousin Thora, nothing doubting that it would get them a good welcome.

When they came to Iceland they asked their way to Holyfell, the homestead
near the temple. It was easy to find, for every one knew the name
and fame of it: and in a few days they came there, sailing Westward
and Northward round the coast and in Breidafiord: but they learned
that Thorstein Codbiter was dead, drowned in fishing a twelvemonth
ago come harvest-time. Thora was still there, keeping house for her
child Thorgrim; and her brother Thord Gellir was a great man in the
country-side. So the lads were in no lack of friends here as well as
heretofore, and made hay while the sun shone.

Their goods were loaded on Thora’s beasts, and brought up to her house.
Thorstein Swart, who kept the temple, and stood as Godi until Thorgrim
the child should grow old enough to take the priesthood of his father, he
fixed the prices, according to custom; and then our lads were free to go
about and trade with their neighbours. They sold their wares to such as
wanted them; and those that would not have them at the price fixed, had
them not at all.

There was much for a stranger to see in Iceland. At Thor’s-ness there was
the new temple, and its high-seats adorned with the old carved pillars
that came from Norway, and that showed the way to Thorolf Mostbeard, when
first he came off that coast and threw them overboard to drift ashore.
And there was the inner house of the temple, rounded like the choir of a
church, with the altar-stall, and the great ring lying upon it by which
all oaths were sworn, and the blood-bowl and sprinkling-rod for the
sacrifices, and the images of Thor and the gods standing round about.
Outside there was the doom-ring with the stone of Thor, where men were
sacrificed.

After they had done their business, the lads went with a party of their
friends from Holyfell, riding to the Iceland Althing; and they saw the
wonderful valley with the precipices around and the deep rifts that seam
it, and the throngs that come together year by year into the midst of
that waste and terrible wilderness of frost and fire.

But when they were safe returned and had taken leave of Thora, they made
ready for their voyage to Norway: for they had a mind to see the old home
of their kin, and to come before king Hakon the good, the fosterling of
Athelstan of England. So in the summer, when the days were long and seas
were fair, they sailed east, and came safely to Throndheim.




CHAPTER XXXI.

KING HAKON THE GOOD.


In Throndheim this summer sat the young king Hakon, newly come from the
West country where he had wintered. He had been well received by the
Throndheimers, for he promised them to get back all those rights which
his father Harald Fairhair had taken away threescore winters ago: and
over and above that he was a handsome lad and well spoken, every inch a
king. Earl Sigurd of Ladir, the lord of the Throndheim country-side, was
his great friend, and managed matters for him; so that he came peaceably
into the power, when his brother Eric Bloodaxe was once driven out, and
away to England. “He was the blithest of all men, and the sweetest spoken
and the kindest,” say the stories: “and he was a very wise man, and set
forth the laws of the people with the help of their wisest men; and in
his time there was good peace amidst bonders and chapman, so that none
did hurt to other, nor to other’s wealth, and plenteous were the seasons
both by land and sea.”

So when our lads came over the sea straight from Iceland to Throndheim,
they found king Hakon there, and went before him. He was big and strong,
and very fair to look on, with long curling hair: and he was only of the
age of sixteen winters, being a little older than Thorstein Sweinson and
somewhat younger than Hundi.

He asked them many things of their voyage, and where they came from,
and whither bound. And when they had told all their story and said they
settled to go to England, and maybe to see London town, “Then,” said he,
“you will go to my home: for it was but last year that I came thence: and
ever since I can remember anything I have been bred up there. I reckon it
the best of all places, and would gladly live and die there, for the sake
of king Athelstan my foster-father.”

“King,” said earl Sigurd, “that is bad hearing for us Throndheimers, and
for all thy people of Norway.”

“Nay, good friend,” answered Hakon, “thou art hasty. For my mind was to
say that I would fain be in England if I were not called hither by the
best friends I have.”

King Hakon bade the lads to supper in his hall; and afterwards, when they
were beginning to drink their cups to Thor and the gods, came a page to
Hundi and Thorstein where they sat, and said, “Guests, if you have drunk
enough, there is one would speak to you without.”

So they followed him, and came into an orchard; and under the apple trees
they found the young king walking alone in the sunset.

“Welcome, friends,” said he. “I owe you thanks.”

“Thanks, king?” said they.

“Aye: for maybe you had rather sit at table with earls and famous men,
drinking to the gods, than walk here with such as me?”

They said that they were glad to walk with him, and thought it no loss
to leave their drinking. “Hush,” said he, “say nothing over loud; for
here in Norway folk must do as folk do. Maybe where you come from, the
gods are honoured with drinking after supper, and with sacrifices at the
Thing, and so forth?”

They said it was so, among most: “But,” said Thorstein, “though I know
not if thou, king, wilt take it in good part, many of us are no great
sticklers for the old faith, and some of us—”

“What?” said the young king eagerly, but in a whisper, and looking round
to see that none were by. “What, lad?”

“I was but saying that some of us think maybe he they call White Christ
is a stronger god after all than old Redbeard and the rest of them.”

“And thou?” said Hakon, looking earnestly at him.

“King,” said Thorstein, “my father was a prime-signed man, and often
has he told us the story of King Athelstan and his priest, and the good
words they gave him, and how his own mind was one day to forsake the
sacrifices. But he was a Godi among his neighbours, and it was not easy
to be open about it, and then he died in battle.”

The young king looked at him sorrowfully, and thought awhile. “It was not
easy to be open about it,” said he, “—and he died in battle. Where, think
you, is he now?”

“Nay, king, who can tell? He was a good neighbour, and gave every one his
due, and died like a brave man.”

“Ah, but,” said Hakon, leaning back against the tree, “I have heard from
a book they have in England, Whoso denieth me before men, him will I
deny. That was what the Christ said. Oh lads, it is an awful word. It
comes to me in the night as I lie awake: and then I sleep and seem to
hear one saying to me, Hakon, I died for thee: what wilt thou do for
me in all this realm of Norway that I have given thee? And then I have
spoken to earl Sigurd, and he was angry with me, and bade me hold my
peace, or lose everything. Oh, it is hard to be open about it, and yet—”

“King,” said Thorstein, “I am but a youngster, and I have never heard
sayings spoken out of books, nor even talked with a mass-priest. But I
have a dear friend, and she had a cross that she prayed to: and one day
she sold the cross for my sake when I was in danger. And when I asked
her how she would pray, seeing she had no cross to pray to, she said that
there was an old man whom she had seen after she had sold it, who bade
her take comfort, for, said he, the God of the Christians, they call him
the Lord, looketh at the heart. These were the words.”

“Aye,” said Hakon, “that is in the book.”

“Is it?” said Thorstein. “Well, king, and if thy heart is with that Lord,
is not all right?”

The lad Hakon took the lad Thorstein in his arms, and kissed his cheek.
“Brother,” he said, “I brought you lads here to preach to you, and you
have preached to me a better word than any since I was taken away from
home to be a stranger among my own people, and an outcast from all kindly
Christian men among the heathen. You have preached to me; will you pray
with me?”

They understood nothing of what he said: but he knelt in the twilight
on the grass, hidden among the orchard trees, while the shouting of the
Bragi-cup was heard from the windows of the hall. They knelt beside him,
and he said in a low voice, and as if sobbing, the Lord’s Prayer.

Then he stood up radiant and joyful. “Brothers,” he said, “stay by me
here, and help me. I will give you all your heart can wish, only stay and
help me in this terrible loneliness. We together will win the realm for
the Christ; or, if we must, die like the blessed saints and martyrs, and
go to be with him in heaven.”

Thorstein looked at the beautiful face, aglow with earnestness.

“King,” he said, “I will slay thy foes for thee, and spend my heart’s
blood for thee. And I will take thy faith, and break Thor down from the
temple yonder, if thou wilt.”

“Hush, dear lad,” said Hakon, suddenly bethinking himself, and looking
round with the old fear: “Hush, not yet. Oh, it is hard to know what to
do. And there is no one to tell me. We must be gentle with them, and win
them one by one: we must speak to them the words of life, and pray for
them, and teach them.”

Thorstein shook his head. “I could fight them, or some of them,” said he.
“But as to words of life, king, if they be the teaching of priests, I
know nothing, for I am not even prime-signed.”

“Ah, I forgot,” said Hakon. “I am hasty. But you will not betray me. I
thank you for your good will, and I love you for your good words: but it
is other help I need. You are going to England, lucky lads. Do an errand
for me.”

They said they would do anything for him.

“Then go to Bishop Aelfheah at Winchester; and tell him that his son
Hakon remembers his teaching, and that he has sent two brothers of his to
be christened. Take this token” (and he gave them a little cross which
he drew out from his bosom) “and he will receive you. And then, if your
mind is to come hither again, think of me and the work I have to do.
Again and again I thank you. Come to-morrow; but not a word to any soul
of our speech together, if you love me.”

They went to their quarters for the night, and though they saw the king
again it was only when others were by. In a few days came some of the
king’s men with a rare gift for them, and a message bidding them take the
fair wind before it fell. So they made ready and sailed out of Throndheim
firth, and down the coast: and when they had coasted Norway they stood
out West over sea and sailed for England.




CHAPTER XXXII.

AT LONDON.


At last they were come to Grimsby at the mouth of the Humber, and thence
the way is plain, what with river and what with road, to York, and over
the Keel into Cumberland, and so home. And indeed the lads had a thought
to lay up their ship and take the journey forth and back to see how their
folk were getting on, and Thorstein especially to ask after Raineach. But
for three reasons they determined to withhold themselves: first that they
had resolved to sail all round Britain and never go home until they could
tell their tale: and next that king Eric Bloodaxe, the new king of York,
who kept the place under king Athelstan, was no friend to Hakon, and
awful tales were told about his queen, Gunnhild the witch, so that they
had no desire to put themselves in his power: and last, that they could
not for shame forego their errand upon which Hakon had sent them.

So they sailed round the coast until they came to the Thames, and up to
London. Off Billingsgate they were stopped by the boats of the officers,
who brought them before the port-reeve: and when they had told him their
names and business, and paid toll in four silver pennies, they were free
to dwell there. As it was now late in the year they sought a lodging
in the house of a Northman whom they met: and in order that they might
buy and sell, and go freely among the Londoners, he brought them to a
priest at the door of a church, who made upon them the sign of the cross,
so that they should be prime-signed men, until they might find bishop
Aelfheah and get christening at his hands.

At Yule was the Witan held at Westminster, and earls and thanes and
bishops flocked together; and among them the man they sought. Then they
had their desire and did their errand to him, giving him the token of
the cross and the message of the young king. The bishop wept over the
tale, for joy that Hakon still bore in mind his teaching, and for sorrow
that he should be out there alone among the heathen. “And yet,” said
he, “is it not written, Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves?
May the Lord grant his young child the wisdom of the serpent and the
harmlessness of the dove, and in due time give him to see of the travail
of his soul.”

Then the lads asked that they might be christened: and the bishop gave
them in charge to one of his priests, who taught them as much as it was
needful to know: and afterwards they were baptised. But when they spoke
of going back to Norway, he smiled and said, “It is other help than yours
that Hakon needs. You have done well in bringing this message, and no
better news could be brought. As for his heart’s desire, I take you two
as the first-fruits of it. Do you depart in peace, to be shining lights
in your own land. Without doubt when Hakon is established in his kingdom
he will send for priests fitted to teach his people, and never fear but
there will be labourers for the harvest.”

And here we may say that old stories tell how the bishop died some seven
years after this, and was worshipped as a prophet and a saint. But the
young king spoke first to one and then to another of his own friends
and those about him in Norway, and without any other help of man, won
them over to the Christian faith: and when many were thus converted
he ventured to send for priests, and to hold open worship. But he was
overborne by the common people, who would have nothing to do with the new
doctrines. So for many a long year it was a struggle between them; and
every man that the king won over he counted gain; and every time the
Throndheimers forced king Hakon to come to their sacrifices and share
their feasts they reckoned it gain to their side, even if they had done
no more than make him smell the steam of the horse-flesh aboiling in
Thor’s kettle. But for such backsliding as this the king blamed himself
in secret, and went on in life-long fear of the doom of a castaway;
hoping from year to year that things would turn out so that he might lay
aside his crown, and become a monk, and end his days in penitence. But
his rule was so good that his people would not let him go; and yet he
still found it hard to be open about it, and at last died in battle, and
was buried by the heathen with a great burial as if he had been one of
them.

Now when the spring was come, Hundi and Thorstein took their leave, and
sailed out of the Thames and round the South coast, calling as they went
at one port and another by the way, and always increasing their store;
until they came at last to Bristol, which was the great slave-market
for the Irish trade in those days, and a thriving city. And thence they
sailed down the Severn to those settlements of Northmen at Tenby and
Milford and Haverford; and so up the coast of Bretland, as they then
called Wales, in whose firths, as in those of Morecambe and Solway, many
a viking had refuged, betwixt Lund-ey and Orm’s Head. From Orm’s Head it
was but a short passage to the bay of Morecambe: and by now they were
wearied of seafaring, and longed for home.

And as they sailed briskly by the shores of Amounderness over the tossing
green waves, Thorstein felt himself already in the arms of his lass;
and the spray from the bows where he sat, with half shut eyes, seemed
like her hair blown about his face. At last the Black Comb rose over the
sea-line higher and higher, and then the green woods, and then the yellow
sands. There was Ravenside, there was Barehead’s-edge, there was the
bonny Leven between its dear old hills.

“Eh, mother and Orm and all, its right good to be home again:” says
Thorstein heartily; “but where is—she?”

Orm turned on his heel and went out. Unna kissed Thorstein. There were
tears in her eyes.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

THORSTEIN’S WELCOME.


Spilt milk, they said. His mother assured him of it. Orm nodded aye, it
was so; and the thralls, men and maids, cried “What, master Thorstein
is bad to suit: there’s mays in plenty and bonny ones too, for a
well-favoured young man like thee to light on.”

Raineach had run away, and Orm, the good brother, had followed to fetch
her back. He had tracked her with difficulty to the ship-strand near
Ulfar’s town. There he had seen her aboard a merchant ship, and there
he had spoken to her, and she had laughed and waved her hands. And that
very night a storm had come, and the ship had gone down with all aboard:
not a doubt of it there was; he could ask any one about the great storm
two winters ago was haytime; and as for this ship, why folk at Ravenside
were still using the wreckage of her for fire-elding, or were doing so in
winter. And the worst of it was that the finest of Thorstein’s clothes
and jewels, the things he had saved and left under Raineach’s charge
against the wedding, were all awanting, to the amount that a body might
bundle up and carry off without other hands or help.

Again the mother said “She bade me farewell:” and the servants said “We
spied her start:” and Orm said “I called to her on board, and she would
not come back:” and they all swore to the storm and the ship-wreck as
matters of common knowledge.

“Humph,” said Hundi Snail. “I didn’t think she’d have done it.”

Thorstein was quite beaten down, and had nothing to say. He went to
Ravenside, and saw folk burning bits of the wreck that ran upon their
sands two years ago last haytime. They remembered it well, and how
the ship folk yelled, and what a crowd of corpses drifted ashore next
morning; and oh aye, there was a lass with red hair among them no doubt:
aye, bonny lasses and all.

“She’s gone, sure enough, poor thing,” said Hundi: “but I don’t
understand it, somehow.”

“Nor I,” said Unna.

“Maybe,” said Orm, “she had some notion of meeting with Thorstein. She
was always having inklings of one thing and another, what with dreams,
what with fancies. And maybe she was taking the gear to make her wedding
with him, for she seemed a bit nicked in the head. I wouldn’t call it
stealing: what’s mine is thine, the saying is.”

“It’s kind of thee, Orm, to speak up for her,” said Thorstein: “above
all, when I think she didn’t suit thee over well.”

“Humph,” said Hundi, “very kind of Orm.”

When the seafarers’ tale was told, and all their goods shown, who but
Hundi and Thorstein were the pride of the place? Folk came from far and
near and they said that it was none but their own lads would go up and
down the round world, starting as youngsters with nought to speak of, and
landing home great strapping men who had supped with kings and fought
with earls—

“And courted the kings’ daughters, and kissed the earls’ sisters,” added
a saucy voice.

“And brought home a shipload that would be worth, I reckon, about twice
their father’s stock, beasts, thralls, and all.”

“Well, father, we always said Thorstein Sweinson was a good lad and
would turn out well.” For here was mistress Asdis Asmund’s daughter of
Asmundarlea over the fell, as blithe as ever, and bonnier, if that could
be: anyway more womanly grown, with a little motherly manner towards
Thorstein, as if she were very sorry for him,—least said soonest mended;
but she would make him forget it after a while, and then. There was
nobody but was thankful to her: for they had been dreading the day of his
return and fearing how he would take it. But Asdis was that clever, she
twisted them all round her fingers, and him in particular, as wankle as a
wet sark.

If Thorstein was moody and dismal, and he was that, Hundi was jolly
enough for both. To be home again after a three years’ voyage, and to be
made much of wherever he went, and to be master of his half share in that
rich cargo, let alone the ship and boat-stock, all this made him welcome
at every neighbour’s. As to his christening, they said he could suit
himself; it seemed that it meant money anyhow. And so it was no surprise
when Hundi begged his brothers to don their best clothes and come with
him to Mansriggs a-wooing: nor when, after the handfasting, he took land
up the Crake, and began to build him a house against the wedding.

Thorstein was glad of the job, and worked right hard for Hundi: and
before Yule they had the rearing-supper, and at Yule the wedding-feast;
and started housekeeping merrily, with a full larder and the best of good
will from all. Thorstein went to live with them as foreman of the farm,
and there was a deal to do this winter, clearing land and getting ready
a thwaite for tilling. In the spring Hundi meant to buy beasts, and
pasture them in the fell; and meanwhile he had plenty to live on.

Halldora Mani’s daughter was the name of the bride. She was a right good
sort; and Hundi was that fond of her, and she of him, that Thorstein
could not but laugh, many’s the time, as they three sat together by the
new hearth of nights. But if he laughed, he would fetch a deep sigh, and
then take a turn up and down the floor: and Halldora would get off the
knees of her goodman and go to Thorstein and bid him pluck up heart: and
she would take his arm and walk up and down a bit with him. Then Hundi
calls out from the hearth, laughing, “Now, mistress, no carryings on with
my brother: it’s me is thy man!”

“Never fear,” she answers coming back to him. “The poor boy is sore at
heart. And pity it is, when the finest lass in the country-side would
take him at the first word.”

“What? Asdis?”

“Aye would she. Many’s the time she has told me that she meant to get
him, too. And I am sure there is no cleverer, nor bonnier, nor better
bred. He might do a deal worse.”




CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE WOOING OF ASDIS.


Who knows what plots and plans were laid, and all with the best
intentions? The upshot of it was, one fine day appears Asdis herself,
with men and maids, come to visit her dear friend Halldora in the new
house. For three days it was “O Thorstein, how well you boys have
managed! what a fine house! what bonny gear! what a sweet spot!” and so
forth. And everything was Thorstein’s doing, as if he had built the fells
and rigged the very sky overhead.

“Heigho!” she sighed, when Hundi and Halldora had left them alone, “it’s
bad to be illfavoured.”

“Who’s illfavoured?” said Thorstein.

“Not Halldora, in her own house at home: and with a man of her own fit to
kiss the ground she steps on.”

“I warrant Hundi is a lucky fellow: but the mistress of Asmundarlea must
be ill to suit if she waits a day longer than she likes.”

“That’s your London talk, Thorstein: thou’st gitten o’er fine for us
hereaway.”

“Never say so. Nay, Asdis: there’s not an earl of the Northmen nor an
English thane would be o’er fine for thee.”

She rewarded him with a very sweet smile.

“What, we are old friends, lass, are we not?”

“Aye, neighbour Thorstein,” and she gave him another smile and a blush.

“And I always spoke well of thee, even to her—to her that’s gone.”

“Nay, was it so? Poor lass, she’s gone. Often have I wished I had managed
to make friends with her: it was my fault.”

“What was thy fault? That you were not friends? Nay Asdis: it was thou
that was good to her, but she, poor thing, she couldn’t understand.”

“Ah, Thorstein, if there’s goodness anywhere it’s in thee. And well I
know that after her the rest of us are nought.”

“My dear, it’s years she’s gone; and it’s months I have greeted for her:
and now my heart is like a stone.”

“Poor lad.”

Her voice was like the cooing of doves in the wood, and the tears were in
her eyes: for she was as fond of him as she could be of anyone. And then
she was so pretty.

It was a few days after Asdis was gone that Hundi was late in his
chamber, though their porridge stood ready for breakfast: and when he
came, “What, man,” cried Thorstein, “it’s no Thing to-day: and thou with
thy best clothes donned.”

“Well, lad,” answered Hundi, “it’s a fine morning, and I just thought
mayhappen we might be riding over to Asmundarlea, and I might as well be
ready first as last.”

Thorstein blushed. “I don’t care if I do,” said he.

“Well said,” cried Halldora clapping her hands. “Here, sup thy pottage,
Thorstein, good lad: and then don thy red silk kirtle that ye bought in
Londonburg. No lass could say nay to thee in that.”

So by noon they were at Greenodd door to ask Orm to go with them. For it
was the custom when a man went a-wooing to take all his folk with him;
not only to show that everything was fair and above-board, and to have
witnesses of the word given on both sides, but also to show what good
friends and kinsfolk he had to back him. For in times when wealth was
held only by the strong hand, the best of havings was a good following of
friends and friendly neighbours who would see one righted if need was.

But Orm said he was throng and could not come: and when they pressed him,
he would not; and Unna said there was no need, for she warranted the
job was no hard one to manage. So Hundi and Thorstein, with all their
ship-crew, and all the farm servants that could be spared, rode over the
fell, and knocked at Asmund’s door.

They sat in the hall, and Asdis served them meat and drink, and Asmund
sat in his high seat and talked of this and that, as though nobody knew
on what errand they might be bound. It was an open winter: they settled
that. And king Athelstan was dead: they talked that over. And folk seemed
to take the new king, Eadmund they called him, a deal quieter than was
expected. “Aye,” said Asmund, “now is the time for decent quiet folk to
be setting up house and settling down.”

“Well, master,” says Hundi, “it is a job of that make brings us hither.
My brother Thorstein here has made up his mind seemingly to take land
and build house, the same as I have done: and he has the money, and the
means, and all he wants is the mistress. And we were just thinking that
if thy daughter could be spared, and if she would take to it kindly, she
might happen do worse than settle down with my brother: and I am sure
there’s nought but he would do for her to make her happy; and as to money
matters, ye can suit yourselves.”

Then master Asmund put on his sober face, and hemmed, and said, “Well,
neighbour, it’s a fair offer: but it’s not for me to say aye or nay until
we have spoken with the lass.”

By this time the servants had fetched in Asdis, who had slipped out, as
was proper, when things began to look like business. And there she was,
blushing and rosy, standing by her father’s seat, and plucking at her
apron.

“Well, lass, and what are we to say? Wilt thou take the young man
Thorstein Sweinson? For that’s the job they have come about.”

“Nay, father, it’s not for me to say.”

“Come, come, lass: that means aye?”

“As you please, father: and as it pleases Master Thorstein Sweinson. I am
sure it is a great honour for the likes of me.”

Then Asmund sent out to the neighbours, bidding them to a handfasting
or betrothal feast, which should be held next day: and until then Hundi
and Thorstein and their company were well entertained at Asmundarlea. In
this while they talked over the dowry that Asdis should have from her
father, and the settlement she should have from her husband, and when
the wedding should be, and so forth.

When the neighbours were come, they bade them listen to the business on
hand, and told them what had been done on both sides. Then Thorstein
went over to where Asmund sat, and Asmund put his daughter’s hand into
the hand of Thorstein, who said aloud, “We call upon all to witness that
thou Asdis Asmund’s daughter dost lawfully pledge thyself to me Thorstein
Sweinson, with dowry due and holden hands, to finish and fulfil our whole
agreement both trusted and true. This handfasting is fairly done.”

And so the wooing of Asdis was accomplished.




CHAPTER XXXV.

HOW THORSTEIN TOOK LAND.


Hundi sat on his own howe, and Thorstein with him. They were looking out
for neighbours who were to come by the old path from Broughton beck to
Lowick, and to the new household where Hundi and Halldora were master and
mistress.

“Dost thou mind when we were barns, brother, how we sat here and parted
hence? Seven winters have gone since we planned to keep house away
yonder;” and he pointed up-bank, where the Crake came down between the
crags on the right and the Blawith, the blue wood as they called it, of
dark firs mantling the long slopes of the lower banks, on the left. And
far beyond were the great fells that surrounded the head of Thorstein’s
water, this Coniston lake that he, first of Northmen, had found.

The neighbours for whom they waited were coming to be witnesses to
Thorstein’s landtaking. It was the custom for settlers of uninhabited
land to go round a tract of country, as much as they could encompass in
a day, carrying fire, and lighting from point to point beacons which
might be seen one from another. And when this was done with proper
witnesses like any other deed of law, the land became the possession of
that landtaker and his heirs for ever. Now up the Crake valley, above
Lowick where Hundi had settled, there were no inhabitants at this time:
whatever fell-folk used to hunt in the woods and fish in the waters
dwelt upon the moors on either hand. It was Thorstein’s mind to take all
that upper valley between Lowick and the water-foot; and he had bidden
his neighbours, from Asmundarlea especially, and from Mansriggs, and
round about, to come and bear witness, so that there might be no dispute
thenceforward, and that he and Asdis and his heirs might dwell there
undisturbed in lawful freehold.

[Illustration: Crake and Coniston Fells from Lowick

A PICTURE OF THE LAND TAKEN BY THORSTEIN.]

It was early in the morning of a bright frosty day, when the days were
already a good bit longer than at Yule, that Thorstein and Hundi and his
neighbours were already out, and at the bounds of Hundi’s land before
the sun was up. There was a company of half a score or so, dressed in
their woodland dress of rough homespun, with axes in their hands; and
Thorstein himself carrying an iron pot with burning peat in it. They
stood by the brink of the stream a little above Lowick force, and stamped
their feet on the crispy sedges of the marsh-ground, until the sun should
be up; munching the remains of the hasty breakfast they had left, in
order to be in good time and to make the most of the winter day. When the
edge of the fell to the eastward blazed, and the sun began to get above
the silver fringe of trees, a shapeless point of fire, “Away with us,
friends,” cried Thorstein; and they made a move for the fell where the
sun was standing, and started up-bank through the trees that clothed it,
and over the scree that lay between. Here and there they had to hew their
way through the underwood, and where that was not needed, they marked
the trees with great notches, in order to leave no doubt of the boundary
they had beaten.

As they passed along through the forest, where every leaf was laced with
rime, and the frozen twigs crackled underfoot, beast and bird fled before
the noise of their axes and the loud talk and laughter of the merry
company. “A grand hunting-spot for Thorstein the hunter,” says one. “Oh
man,” says another, “there went somewhat I’d be fain to follow.” “Never
heed it, friend,” said Thorstein; “business is business. Wait till my
house is built, and then I’ll show thee a day’s hunting, and the tricks I
learned with the fell-folk.”

When they came out on the ridge, they could overlook the whole valley,
and down into the next where Colton stands, and southward away to
Legbarrow. Here some of them began to cut elding and logs to build a
balefire, and others rolled up a huge boulder to be planted on end for a
meer-stone or land-mark. And when the fire blazed up, they lost no time,
but set out again along the ridge, up and down, until at last they came
to a high place overlooking the foot of Thorstein’s water. To most of
them the sight was wholly strange, well known as it was to him. The mere
was just as he had seen it seven years before; just as quiet and as wild;
only now it lay dark blue between its white promontories; the shores were
disguised with shelves of ice that stood far out into the ripple, and
countless birds flew screaming about over the open spaces, or dived and
settled in flocks.

On this high point, for the morning was beginning to wear, they built
another balefire, and set up another meer-stone; and then picked their
way down to the water-foot, where they came about mid-day, travelling
but slowly, for the way was hard to find, and rough. At the crossing of
Crake, where mere ends and beck begins, they ate hastily the bannocks
they had brought with them; and Thorstein, wading into the shallows with
his fire-pot in one hand and a brand lighted at it in the other, cast
the brand into the water; and as it floated hissing, cried out, “I take
you to witness that this water and all its shores, oyce and ere, dub and
deep, are hereby in my holding.”

Then they started again along the western bank, and so up into the moor,
where they built another beacon and set another meer-stone. But here
Thorstein bade them turn, for he said that thence-beyond he reckoned
he would be within the bounds of old friends, namely the fell-folk of
Heathwaite. And he would have no disputes with them. “For we Northmen,”
said he, “have land enough in the wooded bottoms, and can well afford to
leave the moor-tops to the wild folk who dwell there.”

So they came round in a great half-moon under the brow of the moor,
leaving the heather and enclosing the woods: and at last by sunsetting
they were back again where they started from. Thorstein took them to
witness that he had lawfully carried fire around untenanted land, and
the land was thenceforth his and his only. And so after due feasting at
Hundi’s, the neighbours went their ways: and Thorstein, with such as were
in his service, began the building of his house.

On the slope of the great blue fir-wood, that rose to a howe behind and
fell to the Crake in front, beside a little beck, they cleared a thwaite,
and made the timber of it into a house. It was no long job to skilled
wood-wrights, and with plenty of hands; for Thorstein’s wealth got him
all he wanted, what with buying thralls, and hiring free men who lay by
the fire for the most part in winter. The house was like the Greenodd
house; a great hall with little chambers built along each side of it
for bed-chambers; high roofed and thatched with broom; and the walls,
where the roughly squared logs left chinks open to the wind, daubed with
clay and roughcast. A few out-buildings, byres and sheds, were put up to
begin with; and round about the whole a turf wall was raised, to keep out
wild beasts and to make some stand against enemies, if such should ever
appear. But who would expect foes in so lone and peaceful a spot?

By cuckoo-tide, or Gowk-month as the Northmen called it, the house was
standing, and wanted but little; and that chiefly what a body might do
after the flitting. And on the right flitting-days, that is to say about
Whitsuntide as we should call it, they began to move goods into the
house, carrying in first of all the salt and meal, and starting a fire
upon the hearth. Since beds and benches were built there as fixtures,
there was little to carry in the way of moveable furniture, and what
there was came in kists on horseback. And when all was flitted, there was
nought to hinder the wedding.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE WEDDING OF THORSTEIN.


On the day appointed, Thorstein and his men, dressed in their best, to
make all the show they could, and carrying food and drink, rode out a
good way from the house to meet the bride, who came riding with her
father and kinsfolk and bridesmaids by the old path to Lowick. At the
border of Thorstein’s land they met, and alighting from their horses ate
and drank to the good luck of the place they were come to. Then they made
their procession, two and two on horseback, by the woodland path that led
them through the Blawith. The bride and bridegroom rode together at the
head of the procession, and right glad was Thorstein to think that at
last he would have house and wife of his own.

“Well, sweetheart,” said he, “and now it’s home.”

“Is it always like this?” said she. “One would say it does nought but
rain in your fells.”

“No such thing,” said he; “whiles it snows. But never mind; there’s a
warm hearth hard by. Thy riding cape will soon dry on the rannalbalk.”

“Like a man! to put my cape in the soot indeed. And what for a road call
you this? Who will ever come to visit one, away here?”

“Oh, there’s Halldora; she’s a good neighbour, and no pleasanter visitor
could we have.”

“I’m thinking there’s been a deal of Halldora lately.”

“Well,” said he, “come, Asdis, it’ll be all right when we get there. See,
yonder’s the little house.”

If the day was dull and cheerless, bright lights were shining through the
windows that evening, and a plentiful feast was made in Blawith hall. In
the chief high-seat was set Master Asmund, and beside him the neighbours
who had been bidden to the wedding. Over against him the bridegroom sat
in his high-seat, with his men on either hand: and on the bride-bench,
set across the hall at the upper end, was the bride, all dressed in white
linen, with a high white cap and a white veil hanging down her back,
with a silver brooch on her brow, a gold necklace at her throat, and
housewife’s keys clattering at her girdle. Beside her sat the bridesmaids
and her friends, with Unna and Halldora on the right hand and the left.

After they were set and the feast was well begun, Thorstein rose and went
across the hall to his bride, and gave her for a bench-gift a cloak lined
with rare furs and richly embroidered. Then they drank to him and his
bride, wishing them luck and long life, and with all the lights lit saw
them to their lock-bed chamber; at the door of which her father Asmund
gave her with a fitting word into her husband’s keeping.

The next morning, as the custom was, the marriage settlements were
finished. Thorstein made over to Asmund the gifts that had been agreed
upon, and Asmund put them in the keeping of the bride, to be her own
property. And folk said that Thorstein had done well by Asmund’s
daughter, and that no lass of those parts could wish for a better
husband. Then they went on to keep the wedding for three days with
feasting and games and every pleasure that could be got for them. But
still it rained, and they took to playing indoors, mating men, and
wrestling in the hall, and skin-pulling across the fire spot, and
draught-playing, and story-telling, and song-singing, and all that a body
might do to pass the time.

But before the three days of the feast were well over, came a loud
rapping at the door, and there stood a man holding the arrow to bid them
to the mid-summer Althing, which was to be in some three weeks. They made
him welcome to the wedding, for they were fain of somewhat new.

“Nay,” said he, “I reckon you will think twice of your welcome when you
hear me out.”

“Why so?” cried they all.

“For the reason that our bonny bridegroom here will have to choose
between a far journey and a fair bride, unless he stands out of the play,
and I doubt he will never do that. At last, neighbours, there is a chance
of some ado, and that speedily, if you take the counsel of them that
sent me. You must know that when King Athelstan died, no hand was raised
against him that followed, Eadmund etheling that was, king that is: and
all things seemed to be even as they had been. But why or how I know
not, Eadmund could never abide Northmen, and in especial he hates king
Eric, him they call Bloodaxe, whom Athelstan had set over York. So when
the word came to York that Eric was like to be turned out of his place,
he never waited for Eadmund, but went forth and sailed away out of the
Humber: and men say that he has gone north to Orkney where Arnkell and
Erlend Einarsons are his friends.”

“Like to like,” says Thorstein; “and a good riddance too.”

“That’s as it turns out. For it’s ill mending bad with worse. The York
folk seemingly think any change lightsome, if its nobut out of bed into
beck, as the old body said. What have they done but send to Dublin
bidding Olaf Guthferthson—”

“Plague on it,” says Thorstein: “if it had been old Thorfin, or young
Hakon, but a Dane!”

“Hear me, I say. Olaf the Dane, being of the old stock of Ivarsons, is
bidden to take the power: and that speedily, before the young king can
step in. And as Eadmund is but a lad of eighteen winters and no more,
it is thought the Danes will have a chance of setting up once again in
England. Now the Cumberland Welsh mislike it, and our friends thereaway
mislike it: but they look to see the whole job done in the twinkling of
an eye. And for you, if you have anything to say about it, now is your
time.”

So they asked what was to be done: and he said that it was likely
Olaf would come in with no very great following, by the old road from
Ellenburg through Cumberland; and Domhnaill was to be there to meet him,
but whether as friend or foe was yet to be seen. And if the Northmen
wished to have a hand in the matter, they should be at their Thing-stead
at once, to take counsel with themselves and their neighbours, and to be
ready for Olaf by the time he came into the defensible road among the
fells.

“What, Thorstein,” said Asdis, “you are never going on this fool’s
errand, and me nought but half wed?”

“Why, lass, it is but a three days’ run, and I’ll be back again in a hop,
skip and jump.”

Something seemed to come before him as he spoke: as when in a dream one
says, “All this I have dreamt before.” Then he remembered; and turned
away.




CHAPTER XXXVII.

THORSTEIN SEES GHOSTS.


“And so, friends,” said King Domhnaill, ending his speech, “we betake
ourselves to the great road under Blencathra, and if the men of
Athacliath come in peace, it shall be peace: but if in war, war let it
be.”

Then all the Northmen took their weapons and shouted aye to what he had
said: and the meeting broke up, and men moved away in groups towards
the deep dale that led northward from Legburthwaite. Some sought their
horses, and some were for lading their gear: and everything was in hurry
and turmoil.

“Hundi,” said Thorstein, leaning on his brother’s shoulder, “Seest thou
yon fell? they call it the Benn in their tongue, the fell-folk: and
up yonder are the houses where the beauty lives: and behind it is the
giant’s castle, where I was with—with her that’s gone. Little did I think
when we fled away over fells and dells and mountain moors, how it would
end with all of us.”

“Leave thy maundering, man, and come to see what uproar is yonder,” said
Hundi; for among the men left behind by the main guard there were shrieks
and shouts, that seemed to mean no good. It was but a step, and they
found among the rough followers of Domhnaill, struggling and crying, who
but Aluinn? whom they rescued, not without hard knocks. But still she
went on like one wild, and it was long before they could get reasonable
speech out of her. As they led her away, sore against her will it
seemed, in spite of the mishandling she had got, they heard her story bit
by bit.

What came out was this;—that she had gone like any other to the camp
where the Welsh king lay, and coming to his tent door was for marching
in. Who but she had the right, indeed? But within was another woman, with
two sturdy lads at her knees, and a fair woman too. “Who is this?” says
the woman. “Who is this?” says Aluinn, and shows the collar of gold that
certain lover once gave her. With that the wife bids her begone for a
slut; and then Aluinn gives her words, and gets to blows: when in comes
Domhnaill with little love in his looks, and to make short work of it,
turns her out to his rascals.

“The nithing!” cries Hundi. Thorstein said little, but set his teeth and
growled, remembering what was heard and said at Alclyde.

But when the fell-folk that dwelt about Armboth heard the tale, Aluinn’s
own neighbours whose pet and pride she was, you may guess if they vowed
vows and threatened threats. As they shook their weapons Hundi plucked
his brother by the sleeve. “We do no good here,” said he, “and may come
to harm. Hie thy ways along with me, or we are shamed men at the tryst.”
So they got off without leavetaking, and footed it down the dale that now
we call the vale of St. John: for their nags were gone in the tumult,
and not a soul in sight.

Along the old road they passed, bemired as it was with the trampling of
man and horse in that foul weather, and at every wath the beck was a
torrent. But since the track lay fairly high on the fellside it lay dry,
if aught was dry, and was not lost in swamp like the flats in middale. In
the space of an hour or two they spied a great flickering of weapons and
things waving under Blencathra, and guessed that the kings had already
met, and spoken each other fair, and were now settling down for the
night: for they could spy tents going up and smoke starting. And so in a
while they were among their friends, supping and singing round a fire in
the open, until men dropped off one by one to sleep where they sat.

But Thorstein slept little for thinking of Aluinn and her wrongs. She
was as it were a ghost of his old life come back from the dead, and
little ease it was to think of those times, and then again of these. For,
thinking of Aluinn, he could not but think of Raineach who was dead:
and how he had loved her, and how fain he would be if he could but get
the sight of her face once more. “Ah my dear,” he cried, half aloud,
and opened his arms and turned over on his side, for his heart was sore
within him. But only the heap of snoring soldiers lay around, under
Blencathra and the lowering cloud. And yet, what was that face that
flitted over the heap, gleaming in the red glow?

His blood ran cold to the finger-tips, and he clenched his hands. He had
wished, and his wish had come to pass. It was her ghost, he thought: for
ghosts come when they are called. The hair tingled on his head, he was
so terrified. Then he shut his eyes tight, and drew up his knees, and
doubled his arms over his face, and lay there for a while, still as a
hedgehog when it is scared, and curls itself up.

At last the terror began to die away. He said to himself that it was but
his own thoughts his eyes had seen; and he could not help looking again.
There was a gap in the clouds, and a star. The fire was not so bright.
Nothing did he see beyond the men who lay around, though he fixed his
eyes on the spot where the vision had been, as if he dared it to come
again. But it came not. By and by there was a stir behind him, as of the
wind rising in the trees. He turned sharply round, and there!

But it was gone again: and once more he lay quaking, with cold in all his
limbs, and in his heart an agony which he could not understand, like a
child when it is beaten for something it has not done, and cannot tell
the truth: blank misery as when one is utterly spent with sickness. He
lay staring at the black cloud overhead, and it was an ugly thing coiling
over him. He shut his eyes and dreamed over the days of long ago: of the
wild, proud slip of a girl that hunted and fished with him at Greenodd:
of the poor little ugly, blubbered face that leaned over his, when he
was a child captive in the giant’s hut on the fells; the tears that made
dirty water-courses among the freckles,—how he remembered them, and every
eager feature he had loathed at first and loved ever after. He brought to
mind how he had opened his eyes after his sickness, wearily and lazily;
and then!




CHAPTER XXXVIII.

RAINEACH’S STORY.


“Hush,” she said, “don’t crush me, or we shall stumble over yon snoring
swine. Hither, lad: away with me. Into the wood. It was always our
hiding-place,—dost thou mind, Thorstein? Why, what a man thou hast grown!
But I knew I should tell thee among them all, wolf-dark as it was. Kiss
me, Thorstein. Am I woman enough for thee now? Am I bonny? Folk say so;
but I’d have none but thee, heart of mine. Thorstein, Thorstein: my boy,
my little hurt beaten boy! Ah, but I will comfort thee. Laugh lad, never
greet: kiss me. Oh Thorstein, kill me not: I am only a woman, and thou
art a great strong man.

“The queen told me about thee. They say she wept for a day and a night
when thou wast gone, until Olaf the carle gave her a slap and bade her
be merry. If thou could’st but have stayed until I got there;—it was but
a few days. Silly lads to run away from friends! And yet thou would’st
have loved the bonny queen, and poor Raineach was but her bower-may: but
fain, ah fain to serve thee and her, anywhere, any way. But it was so
long a-coming, lad!

“Oh me, I am losing my wits. Only have patience, and I will tell thee all
as it happened. There, loose me awhile, and let me think.

“Orm, it was. Orm said I must tell nobody, but I’ll tell thee,
sweetheart. Orm said thou wast oversea, and bade me come. So I went. I
took all our bravest things to make a show at the wedding. He set me on
shipboard, and bade the skipper have a care of me, and signed farewell
off the shore. And then the waves beat and the wind blew, and eh, my
head worked, and the eyes came out of their pits. They thrust me down
among the bulk, and among poor wretches that howled and groaned in the
bilgewater, and I could see nothing for sickness. The ship whirled, and
flew, and fell into the depths of the sea. Oh, lad, I was sorry for thee
in those terrible ships; and I prayed and prayed to have thee safe on dry
land. And there were poor Welsh lasses and a two or three Saxon ones,
worse off than I, with hands tied: and I loosed them, I did. And then
came the skipper and clouted me over the head, and tied us all again, and
I was mad with him, and begged and shouted; but he laughed, like Orm when
he kicks his thralls, and bade me be at peace, or he would throw me to
the fishes. Eh, it did hurt to have one’s hands tied. Did’st thou ever
have thy hands tied, Thorstein? and kick and scream at people? The other
poor wretches laughed at me, and said things, but I could make nothing of
their talk. And so I was still, for anger and weariness, all that night.

“Well, when it was day, I was no more sick, the water was lound, and the
men were rowing us to shore. Then they gave us food, and the skipper said
I was to look bonny, or I would fetch nothing on Dublin strand, and shame
it were if all his labour and all the money he had spent and the care he
had taken of me should be thrown away. He said we should be very thankful
to be there at all, for in the storm of that night other ships had gone
to the bottom of the sea. I could not hit him, for my hands were tied,
so I spat out the food they put in my mouth, and I looked as ugly as I
could; and he beat me. Oh man, I was angry.

“Then they shoved us over the side of the ship and set us down in a great
crowd of people, but I was too dazed to take notice. At last came a fine
lady; that was the queen, understand. King’s folk have first weel of the
wares in Dublin town. I was the wares, Thorstein: think of that, lad. I
couldn’t think: but I cried to her in my own tongue, I am not a thrall, I
am not a thrall: I am Thorstein Sweinson’s sister.

“‘What girl?’ said she: and I said it again.

“Then there was a deal of talking with the skipper, and my hands were
untied, and they tingled all over, and I could feel nothing with them.
But I made shift to creep after the queen: and she led me to the king’s
house, and oh she was good to me: and it was a bonny spot, if it had not
been for the men-folk plaguing. There’s none of them like thee, lad. I
could tell thee things about yon Olaf—but what’s the good? I am woman
grown now, and bonny; and I can sew and bake and brew and everything. Thy
mother will be pleased with me now, and Orm, won’t he be surprised? Are
they all hearty, Thorstein? And that young lass, does she still play her
tricks on folk? how did they call her—Asdis?”

Thorstein’s arms fell and his knees smote together.

“What’s to do, lad?”

“Three days since—I wedded her.”

“Thorstein!” she cried in a terrible voice, and thrust him away from her,
and fled. He fell backward, like one that has got his deathstroke.




CHAPTER XXXIX.

ORM PAYS.


It was high day, and he lay there slowly coming to himself; and recalling
that dreadful nightmare, as it seemed, bitter-sweet. At last he staggered
to his legs, and drank at a beck that ran through the wood. Every one was
gone from the spot where the camp had been: and whither? He only knew
that Orm would be with the Northmen faring homeward. He loosened his
sword and thrust it back again, and stumbled forth along the road he had
come but yesterday.

At Legburthwaite the Northmen had halted, to hold their Thing once more,
to talk over the business that had passed, and finish the work they had
on hand. On the mound the chiefs were assembled, within the hallowed ring
that no man might profane.

Thorstein leaned on the hazel rods, that stood as bars from stake to
stake to encompass the place. Some one was speaking in slow, steady
tones, and men were listening, in the rain, with grave faces, intent upon
the speech.

“Orm Sweinson, come forth. News for thee: ha! ha!” cried a voice,
breaking the quiet of the assembly: and there was a haggard man with
bloodshot eyes, beckoning strangely.

Forth stepped Orm: “What now youngster?” said he.

“Raineach is come again, and that’s for thee!” screamed Thorstein,
lashing his sword through the throat of his brother, where the coat of
mail left it unshielded.

“A wolf, a wolf in the temple!” they shouted, and rushed forth. But he
was gone headlong down the bank and across the lake-foot and into the
woods on the other side, on the rugged slopes of the Benn.




CHAPTER XL.

A DOOR-DOOM.


Under Blawith roof-tree sat dame Asdis, fresh and fair as a daisy: and
when she had broken her fast she looked to her outdoor servants and set
them their tasks: and when she had put them all in order, she came in,
at the time folk take their drinkings: and she drank a horn of ale,
and ate sweet cakes, one after another: and then she washed her hands
at the trough by the porch and got her a clean apron and sat down in
her high-seat, and took to her sewing; and if the day was hot, and she
dropped off to sleep while one might count two score, it was no shame to
her, now she was wedded woman and ever a house-wife of the most notable.
And then she wished Halldora would come to pay her a visit. For it was
nought but dull in these backwoods, and news was worth whittlegate. So
she went to the door to see if the weather was holding up: and sure
enough it had brightened, as it does sometimes at mid-day after stormy
weather, and the lift was lighter than heretofore. The rain had stopped,
and the beck was roaring white.

“Who comes tramping over the lea land? Hey lads, a stranger. Run for your
weapons. What, not Thorstein, surely? and all so draggled and dabbled?
Wenches, here’s the master, and a pretty pickle he is in. A bath is the
next thing; but fetch me the ale-tub and the biggest horn first.”

For you see she knew the ways of men-folk to a tittle, to treat them high
and low as they should be treated.

“Well, Thorstein,” says she, as he came up to the door, “here’s a conny
mess. Sit in the porch, man, and the ale will be here gey soon. Thou art
not fit to touch before a bath and a shift of clothes: and I can’t have
that filthment of a kirtle on thy new high-seat bolster, thou know’st.
Eh, these men, they are nought but great barns. Now, Thorstein, what hast
thou been doing?”

He leaned back and drank off the ale, and looked at her strangely.

“I have killed Orm,” said he.

“None of thy jokes, lad. Say a better word. How is this? That the bonny
bridegroom could wait no longer; eh, lad? and made more haste worse speed
homeward?”

“But it’s truth,” said he.

“What’s truth? Gods forbid. And when, and where?”

“At the Thing,” said he.

“Killed Orm at the Thing?” she cried. “Is he daft? It’s outlawing!”

“Then I am outlawed,” said he, drinking again.

“Thorstein! how darest thou? and me but new wed. Man, this caps aught.
Unsay it, lad, and never torment me.”

“There is nought to unsay; it was his due: and I’d kill him again if he
came to life.”

“Came to life? Folk never come to life,” said she, scornfully.

“They do, though.”

Asdis was pale as grass, staring like a stone woman for a while. Then
she was red as blood, and looked this way and that, and at last muttered
something about the ale being over strong on an empty belly. Thorstein
looked at her in wonder. Then she burst out:—“Who has come, then? Nay, I
care not for thy hints nor thy threats, thou false thing that never was
true to me. Away with thee! who will believe a word from a wolf’s head?
Who dare say I had a hand in it? What have I done, tell me that? What did
Orm say, the liar?”

“Orm said nothing. Maybe Asdis has said a word too much,” answered
Thorstein, rising from his seat and going into the house.

“Thorstein, my dear, Thorstein!” said she, “I meant nought: I said
nought.”

But he slammed the door of his lock-bed in her face, and shot the heavy
bars, and would not come out for all she cried.

It was late in the afternoon that horses clattered into the garth, and
there were Asmund and Hundi and a dozen of neighbours, who three days
ago had been the wedding guests, and had ridden away from Blawith to
the Althing. Asdis came out to meet them, with the smile she always had
ready, and ale was standing in the porch. But they would not drink, and
she was outfaced and browbeaten by their stern looks.

“My poor child, it’s ill news we bring,” said Asmund. “Is Thorstein
Sweinson within?”

“And what’s to do with Thorstein Sweinson, father?”

“I fear me he will be man of thine no more, if peace-breaking gets its
due. We are here,—thou knowest, child, it is sore against our wills,—to
summon him for breaking the peace of the Thing by slaying his brother
Orm; and we would know, in all kindness to himself, for what cause he did
the deed.”

“What, father? this caps aught! It cannot be.”

“Nay; as to the deed we were all in a way to witness; for it was done
hard by the Thingbounds. But what was said none heard.”

She clasped her hands until her fingers cracked, and caught her breath:
then she broke out, “the villain to kill his brother. Oh me that I am
wedded to such a man: a wolf’s head that is to be. Oh father, take me
away and get me free of him.”

“What, is he here?”

She pointed to the door of the lock-bed: but no man stirred, for they
might not enter with the strong hand until doom had been given. So they
cried out to him, but got no answer.

Then stood forth Asmund, for he was chief man amongst them, after Orm who
had the priesthood at Legbarrow since Swein was gone, and after Hundi who
might happen inherit, but now hung back. Said Asmund:—

“Neighbours, a foul thing has been done, no less than the breaking of the
Thing-peace. Ye know our old use and wont: for how could we have law or
counsel else, unless the Thing were hallowed from all violence and the
peace-breaker put out of the peace of all true men. And this is doubly
foul, for he that was slain was our Godi and chief: and trebly, for it
was his brother slew him unoffending, so far as we know, and unprepared
as you all saw. Now stand we here over against the door of his house, and
give doom.”

So they drew a few paces back to give room for the accused to stand with
his friends at his door, if he would appear: and for a loaded wain, so
the old custom was, to pass between the two parties. And they named
Asmund their lawman, and he named six to give judgment, who took oaths
that they would judge right. Then he stated the case, and shouted aloud
to Thorstein to come forth, and speak up for himself.

But when no answer was given, Hundi stood up and said “Friends, you are
too hasty. It is never our way to doom a man unheard: and if any has
the right to speak it is I, who stand here between brother and brother.
Of him that is dead, I would speak no ill: but ye knew him. Of him that
lives I have no ill to speak. Ye know him not as I do; and here I say
that against all seeming I hold him sackless and sinless.”

With that there was a shouting against Hundi, that he was always in a
tale with Thorstein, and both were runagates and had turned Christians
abroad, and there was no trusting them. Shame it was to Hundi that
he would not take up the vengeance for his brother, and do right by
the laws. Some cried out that he should be charged with abetting the
manslaughter.

“Nay,” said Asmund, “peace, friends. Hear me. This let us do. Put Hundi
in keeping, and harm him not; but let the jury give doom.”

So they encompassed Hundi and bore him down with their shields, and took
his weapons, and led him out and bound him; while the six men gave their
doom that Thorstein Sweinson had broken the Thing-peace, and slain his
brother their Godi, and for that he was put out of law.

Then Asmund gave out their finding, and said moreover that he put the
wonted price of a hundred of silver on the wolf’s head, dead or alive.
And then, for the sun was nigh its setting, they pressed into the house,
no man withstanding them, and made for the door where he lay, to kill
him, as the law was, while it was still day. They brought a great beam of
wood and battered it against the panels, swinging it between them; while
others ran round to keep the back of the house.

All this while Thorstein lay quiet, and gave no sign, like a fox in
its bield while folk twine the screws to draw him out: and still they
battered, for the door was new built, and strong. And still Hundi lay in
bonds without, struggle and shout as he might.

“And thou, Asdis,” he cried, “shame on thee to leave thy husband to his
slayers—shame and evil on thee! Ill befall the finger that betrayed
him, and the tongue that spoke never a word while they doomed him; and
mischance on the gear that thou art shifting from his house. I see thee,
woman, and thy tricks: thou robbing and thy kin murdering. Shame and
scathe on the scrow of ye!”

For Asdis had bidden her servants carry out all her goods, seeing very
clearly what was forward, because she was a wise woman. By this time she
had loaded horse and man with bales and arks, and away down the road
homeward, saying nothing to Hundi’s curses; which was the easier, for
by now the door was battered in amid great tumult, and Thorstein was
standing there, at blows with his pursuers. One lay on the ground at his
feet among the wreckage: and a couple more sat in the hall, out of the
fray, nursing ugly wounds.

“Hold, boys,” shouted Asmund, “we are but spending good stuff.” They
drew back, seemingly as eager to keep Thorstein in, now, as they were to
get him out before. They began to drag tables and benches to block the
passage and pin him down, and then they got fire from the hearth and all
the elding they could compass, and cast it among the splinters of the
burst panelling and the lockbed-door. And soon the bed was ablaze, with
such a smoke that they were glad to get out of the house: and there they
stood in the twilight, watching the flames catch the roof, and grimly
waiting for Thorstein to rush out and get his death wound, or to hear his
last cry in the fire.

The wind had shifted to the north-west, now that the weather was holding
up; and it drove the smoke of the new green wood in a great whirl by
the door of the house, which was set, as always, to catch the morning
sun. The men were forced to give it a wide berth; but sure they were
that he could not escape, and so fierce against him that not one of them
had a thought but burn and kill. They got victuals from the out-bowers,
remnants of the wedding feast, and emptied the ale-tub from the porch,
and rubbed their hands while the long tongues of flame wavered into the
air against the stars, and the forest behind showed every branch and leaf
in the glow: the crackling and spitting dinned in their ears, and the
smoke was red in coils against the black sky.

There they watched until the fire died down: and said Asmund, “Lads, we
have done a good deed, for to ash he will be burnt in yon cinder heap. As
for the price, as we have all shared the work, let us share the pay. Come
home with me and see if I keep my word. And thou, Hundi Snail, never show
thy face again, unless to thank thy best friends for ridding thee of thy
worst foe. I take all to witness that justice has been done, and nought
but justice.”




CHAPTER XLI.

WOLF’S HEAD.


Foredone with his anger, Hundi crept home to Lowick by the dawn of
the day, and told the grewsome tale to Halldora. She, good soul, wept
bitterly for Thorstein, and most of all for the part she had taken in
mating him with that false and heartless minx. When she had her fill of
weeping, she looked up and ran forth of the house as she was, like one
bewitched.

The day was far spent when she came back, queer to look at.

“Is there any quarrel between thee, Hundi Sweinson, and thy brother?”

“Nay,” said he. “Would not I have saved him, but I was bound?”

“And if he had fled?” says she, between laughing and crying.

Aye, there he was, at the door, bemired and bloody with wounds, and the
hair of head singed off him, and his eyes nigh bleared away with the
fire through which he had fled. But she had found him in the woods, and
comforted him, and wormed a true tale out of him, and led him home. There
he was and there he stayed in safe hiding, for Lowick was an outlying
spot, with no passing: so they nursed him for weeks until he was whole
again.

But if his body was whole, his heart was hardened, and never a word would
he speak of good or ill, after that first talk in the wood with kind
Halldora.

Now Halldora’s one hope was to see this wrong righted; all the rather
because she could not help blaming herself for the hasty wedding. But it
was not easy. For there sat Thorstein like a log, and if he showed his
face it would be death to him and shame to them. Hundi was a good boy and
no fool, but he was not to be sent on ticklish errands, she knew that.
And now she was tied, for there was a lusty urchin, Thorstein Hundason by
name, in her arms, with a face as round as the harvest moon that rose up
night after night over Colton fell.

So one fine day came to Greenodd door the Lowick folk, with a led
horse, bidding Unna to visit her first grandchild, which she could not
refuse. And when Halldora had got her as pleased with all as she could
be, out came the story of Thorstein: not easily, for at first Unna was
woe and wrath at her son’s death, and would hear nothing to excuse the
slayer. But who can say nay to a mother with her first babe newborn? and
Thorstein was ever the best loved and longest lost of the three. Unna’s
eyes were opened, and when she came upon her boy, so beaten down and
disheartened that he scarce knew her, she could do nothing but weep over
him. And going home she sent for her brother Raud and set the case before
him, and made him a promise of the priesthood, which had now fallen into
her hands to bestow as she liked. And so he was brought into the business.

And then Halldora sent for her father, Master Grimkel Mani, and won him
over likewise. And they plotted that when the autumn Thing was held at
the Greenodd Legbarrow, Raud should be made Godi, and be there with a
great following. Then Mani should come with all he could bring, and a
round sum of money, which Unna would find, to get Thorstein’s outlawry
taken off; and Hundi should confirm the true tale, and back up the suit.

But in the meanwhile, what with all this going and coming, and the
tattling of thralls, it leaked out that Thorstein was not dead after all:
and that the men who had burnt Blawith were but fools for their pains.
Asmund sent a furious message to Hundi to warn him of the danger of
harbouring an outlaw: and bade him look for visitors some night when he
did not want them. Hundi was greatly put about, but Halldora laughed, and
said that she knew Asdis would never forgive Thorstein for finding her
out. Grimkel Mani sent some of his biggest men to bide at Lowick, in case
they might be wanted: and they slept with one eye open.

Well, the day came for the Thing: and folk were there from far and wide
in their feast array, and everyone that could be spared of Thorstein’s
kin together with their people. Before the meeting, Unna feasted the
elders and householders at Greenodd, and sat among them in her widow’s
weeds; and after the tables were cleared she bade them to witness that
through her son’s death the Godord had fallen to her: that, alas, one of
her sons was outlawed, and the other was ill looked upon by neighbours,
so that she could name neither of them to the office: whereupon she would
give the place to her brother Raud, who lived hard by, and was an able
man, and would see that the Thing was kept up with due offerings to the
gods, and entertainment to all comers, and so forth.

Now this was not just what the other party would have liked, but they
could not gainsay it, and away they moved to Legbarrow. Then Raud, as
the custom was, killed a ram, and reddened his hands in the blood of it;
taking at the same time the oath of a Godi: and so after due hallowing of
the spot, sat him down on the topmost seat.

Then stood Asmund on the one side and Mani on the other, each claiming to
be heard. The new Godi ruled that Asmund should have the first word: for
he thought it wise to let them talk it well out. So Asmund set forth that
his daughter Asdis being wedded to a man who had been outlawed, claimed
to be released from him, and to take all that belonged to her, namely the
third of land and goods.

For you must know that in those heathen days, among the Northmen, the
wife was master. She had her own goods and land to herself, and could
sell them for her own use: even against the husband’s will she could
make away with the full half. And yet he had to manage it all, and to
manage it well; and to defend it and her in every way. They were grand
times for the women-folk. A wife could turn off her husband like a hired
servant, for almost anything that displeased her. And there was nothing a
man could do in law that the woman could not do as well, or better. Now
Asdis might have just turned off her husband, with a word, when she left
him: but she would not then have had a claim on his land. So being a wise
woman she held her tongue, and now brought this suit against him.

There were witnesses to the outlawing at the door-doom, and there was
little defence made; for nobody of Thorstein’s friends wished to bind him
to the woman; and as for land, there was plenty more to be taken, if she
made a point of holding to a bit of uncleared timber.

This business being done, the other put in his plea. He was a hearty
carle, was Grimkel Mani,—Master Moon we might call him by interpretation.
With his great grey beard, and his tall figure somewhat barrowbacked,
he was well listened to at meetings, and much respected by high and
low, but no great hand at cunning and trickery. When he began to speak
of Thorstein there was a disturbance. At last Raud got peace, and the
suit went forward. Mani told how Thorstein had not been heard in his
defence,—how could he, standing alone and all his foes about him? And
then he went on to tell the other side of the story; how Raineach had
saved Thorstein as a lad, and had been received by his people as a
sister: how Orm had been a rough kinsman to all his house, and a hard
master to his folk: and how he had tricked Raineach into thralldom, and
made up a lying tale about it.

So far so good: though it was no new story for a stranger, man or wench,
to be sold off as useless or troublesome rubbish. But then Mani went
on to complain that the doom of outlawry had been unlawfully given;
for the crime was done at the Althing, said he, and to the Althing the
case should be taken. He said moreover that so great a penalty as full
outlawry should not have been laid at a door-doom, which was meant for
little cases, such as the distraint of goods from a refractory debtor,
and such like. Then he said that the attack had been continued after
sunset, and therefore if they had killed Thorstein it would have been
murder. “And all this,” said he, “comes of the folly of men I see sitting
over yonder, who have let themselves be led on from bad to worse by a
wicked woman.”

Then there was a terrible to-do. Men ran for their weapons; and the only
way of saving the Thing-stead from blood was for Raud to break up the
meeting, and draw off his friends; begging them to be guided and to save
their strength for another chance.

Thorstein at Blawith heard the news as one who heeds little. He thanked
them for their kindness, and said he must be going, for he would not
bring them into straits. And so Hundi set him on his way across the
Leven to Raud’s-ey, and Raud kept him for a night, and asked him whither
bound. Thorstein said he had a mind to go far. It was in his heart to
go in search of Raineach, even if he had to lait her at York and in the
house of King Olaf: but after her anger and the falsehood of one he had
trusted, he feared and doubted, though he said nothing.

“Kinsman,” said Raud, “take my counsel. Things have gone against thee,
but the tide will turn. Thou hast friends, and good ones, at Mansriggs
and at Greenodd, at Lowick and here; and when the truth gets ground and
springs up, it will bear fruit, never fear. We were in error to open the
case anywhere but at the Althing; but we shall try again and get thee
cleared at last, in spite of that woman and her witch-face. It is only a
fool that throws his oars overboard because his tiller snaps. Now go not
far. Over yonder in Cartmel is out of our bounds. None of our Northmen
will touch thee there: but when good news is to be sent, thou wilt not be
hard to seek.”




CHAPTER XLII.

CARTMEL CHURCH.


Cartmel was a queer spot, then-a-days. It was a little village of wattled
huts, heavily thatched above, and daubed with clay, round the miry green
where children played in the sunset. On one side of the green a beck
ran up, and on the other side a beck ran down; and between the becks
was a big house, not unlike the rest except that it was big and they
were little. That was where the Reeve of the York priests dwelt. In the
midmost of the green was another house, daub and wattle and thatch,
standing all alone, with a cross on the gable-end of it, and a wooden
tower of open work wherein a bell hung.

A man in a long gown was pulling at a rope and ringing the bell. It
tinkled in the quiet air, above the shouts of the children on the green,
with a pleasant music that seemed to well over the fields of the broad
valley, and their quickset hedges and flagged walls, to the brown woods
of the hills that lay around, and up into the golden evening sky.

It was but a twelvemonth ago that Thorstein had been christened and
taught the faith: but since then, what things had happened? Dare he now
enter the church, he who had kept no day holy nor heard mass, nor even
latterly said the prayers he used to say night and morning? It had come
to this that his stony heart was shut to man and God alike. When Hundi
and Halldora knelt, for she had learned her husband’s faith,—when they
knelt to their cross, he would walk out of the way dowly enough. If his
brother’s blood was on his hands, that was little in an age when few
men’s hands were white: but there came over him a vague and terrible
fear that he could not name to himself,—the conscience of backsliding,
the haunting of Hakon; and the words of the applegarth at Ladir rose up
in his mind, “Whoso denieth me.” He could not say what he had then said
to Hakon, nor take the answer. “You have preached to me,” said the poor
young king: and here he was, a castaway.

The bell stayed ringing, and there was a voice within, the sound that he
knew well, of evensong. He sat down by the church door, rudely pillared
in wood with some rough notching on it to imitate the carving of the
great churches he had seen: and sitting without, listened while Amen
followed Amen like the noise of a beck in a gill. The children left
playing, and stood round him out of arm’s reach, to stare.

By and by the droning within stopped. A hand was laid on his shoulder.

“Who art thou, son?” said an English voice. But there was no answer.

“Who art thou, son?” it said again in Welsh.

“A wanderer.”

“Returned?” said the priest.

Thorstein knelt before him and burst into sobs. The children had crept up
behind the priest, and two or three were holding by his gown.

“Children, run home: it is supper-time for all of you,” said the priest,
making the sign of blessing over their rough white heads. “And thou, son,
give me thy heart. It shall be in safe keeping.”

He led Thorstein into his dwelling and set food before him, and bade him
rest. In due time the lad’s heart was opened, and he told his tale, or
somewhat of it; so much as let it be known that he was born a heathen and
baptised a Christian, but had fallen back; and that all was wrong with
him now.

“Aye,” said the priest, “for thy sin’s sake. I spare thee not, for it is
written, Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. But I smite thee not, for it
is written again, Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

“Father,” said Thorstein, “I have learned enough to know that a man may
be made clean with penance from many a crime. Is there a penance strong
enough for such as me?”

“Son,” said he, “for every sin the church has penance, and for ever
sinner she has room. To confess thy sin is the first thing; to weep for
it is the next; and what more is there but to bring forth fruits worthy
of repentance? For thy backsliding I bid thee dwell henceforward with
Christians, and forsake the heathen and their ways. Fast and pray as it
is commanded. And for the man-slaying thou hast done, if thou have told
the truth about it, God alone will be thy Judge. It is not for me to bind
or loose.”

Thorstein slept that night, and awoke with a new heart. After matins were
done the priest brought him to the Reeve, praying that something might be
given to put him in a way of living among Christian folk, for he was a
penitent and a brand plucked from the burning.

The Reeve, a burly Englishman from York, and to all purpose lord of
Cartmel, looked the stranger up and down.

“Well, my penitent,” said he, “this is church land, and churchman’s
word is law here,” said he. “But by thy looks I should name thee a
church-robber, and no lamb of our flock. However,” said he, “since father
John there stands for thee, knowing the risks, I’ll see to it. What
can’st thou do, man?”

Thorstein said, very humbly for him, that he would put his hand to
anything to addle whittlegate: that he knew something about beasts, and
smithying, and such-like.

“In a word,” said the Reeve, “man of all trades and master of none, or
thou would’st not be here. But come thy ways, and I’ll prove thee.”

Sure enough he set him one job and another: and if Thorstein was willing
at the muck-heap, he was clever at the stithy: until the Reeve laughed
again, and clapped him on the back saying, “Good lad. I never knew yon
thieving, murdering rascals could turn out such a fellow!”

So he guested him in his house that winter, and took on with him as never
was. And to cap all, when the spring was come, “Young man,” said he,
“folk can’t be always on hand,” said he.

“That they can’t,” said Thorstein wondering.

“And when they are gone they would like to lie easy, by the church
yonder, and see things done right by the land?”

“That they would,” said Thorstein.

“Well,” said he, “I am but the servant of the blessed Minster of York,
and of the abbot yonder: but I think they owe me somewhat; and what with
father John’s good word and all we might manage it. Now, look here.
There’s none of these fellows fit to hold a candle to me and you, and
none knows the land as they that live on it. Reason is when I drop off
the best man should follow me; and the abbot, he would say aye to that,
if we got the soft side of him. Now, Master Thurstan, I’ve a daughter.
She is a fine girl, though I say it who shouldn’t; and a right good one,
and the apple of my eye. But what, lad, thou hast set eyes on her. What
then?”

Thorstein thanked him kindly, and said it was more than he deserved.

“Not a bit, lad. There, think it over, and I’ll answer for the wench.”

Thorstein went to father John, for he was very thick with him, and never
missed his church, fast-day or feast-day.

“Father,” said he, “I would go on pilgrimage to York. Maybe a sight of
the blessed Minster would do me good.”

“Well said, my son: go in peace.”




CHAPTER XLIII.

AT YORK.


York city was a wonderful place as one came upon it by the old North
Road. From afar its towers rose up above the green tillage of the plain,
beyond the winding Ouse: and as the traveller drew nearer, he saw the
great high mound that encompassed the garth of houses, set with its
bristling stockade above, and parted from the fields by a water-ditch as
broad as a broad river. In the midst of this great wall was the North
gate, through which the road ran; and within were houses and houses, some
high, some low, some mean like the cottages at Cartmel, some stone-built
and grand with painting and carving: but all cheek by jowl, as one may
say, along the narrow winding streets, thronged with people and wares set
out to sell, and foul with the refuse and rubbish of a thickly inhabited
town.

Above the house-roofs rose a great building, the famous Minster: with its
towers standing high over gable and pinnacle, graceful and slender. Up
there the bells clanged above the din and hurry of the town in those dark
deep streets, like deep roaring gills and whirling torrents below.

But it was not for the Minster that Thorstein was bound, as he elbowed
through the crowd, and picked his steps over the unpaved lane that was
more gutter than path. He hardly dared question the wayfarers, such a
stoore and a stir there seemed to be. But he knew that somewhere in the
heart of the houses he should find Olaf’s palace, the new castle that had
been built after Athelstan destroyed the old Danish stronghold,—the great
hall where King Eric had sat with his witch-wife, and skald Egil the
swart had sung the lay that won him his head.

So he went forward along the streets, with a beating heart and pale lips,
towards the midmost of the city where the great towers rose. When he came
before the castle there was an open space, and the houses fell back like
trees from a green glade in the forest. But instead of coneys skipping
in the grass, here was a great crowd gathered and a tumult going on. Out
of every window round the place was a head thrust, and folk fringed the
house-roofs a-straddle on the thatch-rigging, and all shouting at once.
Stones were flying; and the shopkeepers at the corner, where Thorstein
came into the square, were scrambling their goods under cover and
shutting their shutters. It seemed as if the townsfolk of the baser sort
were trying to force the castle doors: and whoever came out of the narrow
streets, like rats out of their holes, thrust themselves on their fellows
in front and shoved and shouted; and ill luck it would have been to have
tripped in the midst of that scrimmage. Over heads and fists many a
stick was waving; and here and there an axe, and here and there a sword,
flashing in the sun-gleam, that now and then broke on the square through
the rain-showers. On they came by hundreds; aye, by thousands, swarming:
for the old books say that in those days no less than thirty thousand
souls were crammed within the narrow walls that girt the city of York;
so you may well believe there was no lack of hands in a townsfolk mote,
whether for peace or for fighting.

“What’s to do, friend?” says Thorstein to a neighbour, who by the look
of him was no Saxon, but a Dane; and a right hearty, well-to-do looking
merchant man he seemed, now that he had got his goods shifted, and
shutters up, and stood there with one hand holding his door ajar, and
with the other gripping his axe.

“What’s to do?” repeated the Dane; “why, it’s the old story. A stranger,
eh? none of the Saxon folk anyhow.” For Danes and Northmen talked the
same tongue, and foregathered among strangers.

“Nay,” said Thorstein, “no Saxon, though a traveller from over the fells.”

“No offence,” said the Dane: “but one can’t be too careful, with Southron
spies all about. Our kinsmen, thou knowest, friend, have no bed of roses
in this bonny burg.”

“I know nought,” said Thorstein. “What is forward?”

“What thou seest, and I hope they may break the castle. For if the great
doors yonder hold, they will sack the shops for want of a job. Thou hast
heard, maybe, rumour that king Olaf is dead. To-day it is assured. It
was somewhere in the North, Tyningaham I think they called the spot. Look
out, man!”

There was a rush towards the door, and stones flew. The Dane plucked
Thorstein into the house, slammed the door, and made it fast with stout
bars. Then he cast an eye on the bolts of his window, and laughed as they
stood in the shop, lit only through the cracks in the shutters.

“It is a pretty stiff bit of oak,” he said. “We shall hold out awhile,
unless they take to fire-raising, and that would risk their own kennels.
Well, as I was saying, Olaf being gone we must have a new king. Some
of these Saxon rubbish would be glad to see the Southrons in here: and
anyhow they mean to make hay while the sun shines.”

“So they are trying to plunder the king’s house?” said Thorstein.

“That’s it: but never heed them. I have seen three or four such ados in
the last few months, and one gets hardened. Though indeed if it were not
for business, I should be glad to be safe again over the seas. It’s a
fine town, is Dublin. Thou wilt not be from thereaway I reckon?”

“Nay,” said Thorstein: “but I was there a while when Olaf Guthferthson
was king, and indeed I was guested in the king’s house, and it is now for
nought else but to have speech with the queen that I am in York.”

“Then, my lad, thou art a bit late: and a good job for thee too, if those
rascals—how they shout!—get into the castle.”

“She is gone then? What, is she dead, poor thing?”

“Nay, not so bad as all that. You see it was something o’ this way. Olaf
owed a deal to Earl Orm, for without him he would never have halved
England with Eadmund. And Orm is a good business man, and looks ahead.
Says he to Olaf, If anything happens now to Eadmund, thou wilt be king of
all England: and what shall I get that helped thee thereto? Says Olaf,
What wilt have, friend? Says Orm, There’s my Aldith should be wed: queen
of York is not bad, and queen of England is better. Says Olaf, Well, says
he, king Harald Fairhair had more wives than one. Nay, nay, says the
Earl, that’s out of fashion nowadays, and I doubt if the Minster-folk
would stand it: the king of York is a good Christian now, my lord, and
behaves as such: eh? So Olaf he goes to the Irish queen and My dear, says
he, a sad unhealthy spot is York city; better go back to Ireland. Says
my dame to me,—but come in, man, and make thyself at home. Any news from
Dublin will be welcome to the mistress.”

So he brought Thorstein into the living-room behind the shop. It was
crowded up with their goods, and looked like a poor place after the great
halls of the Northmen: but everything was rich and rare. Such hangings to
the beds, such carved work in the tables and stools, such shining copper
pots and pans! And the merchant’s wife was dressed as grand as a queen,
Thorstein thought, with brooches and rings for a dozen. The children
even were finely clothed, though they would have looked but blue and wan
alongside of the applecheeked rogues from the Northmen’s homesteads.

“Dame, it’s all right; the doors are well barred, and if they break them
there is the earth-house to hide in. But see, here’s a young man has been
in Dublin.”

“Welcome, friend,” said she, “and what news of the old country?”
Thorstein could see with half an eye that the Dane’s wife was Irish, and
so he replied in the language he had learnt among the fell-folk, saying
that it was a good while since he was in Ireland, but he was now come to
speak to the queen, who had been friendly with him once. At which Master
Dane screwed up half his face and winked, and his wife shook her head at
him, and said the queen was a good body, and sorry she was for her, and
pity it was they had not gone back together with her to Ireland.

“Nay, nay,” said the Dane: “business is business. Keep your shop, say I,
and your shop will keep you.”

“Well then,” said the wife, “keep thy shop, my lad, and this young man
will take a bite, and be the readier to lend a hand if needed.”

So she set food before him, and he ate. And while he ate he turned over
in his mind the chances about Raineach. Soon he burst out, “Mistress, is
it true, as the master says, that all the queen’s folk are clean away
and out of the castle?”

“Aye,” she said, “and a burning shame it was: but better for them maybe.
They got a good ship to sail in, and good pickings. They were stinted of
nothing.”

“They would be a deal about the town before leaving York, and well known
to all?”

“Oh aye, it was always in and out; they coming to our shop and we at the
castle. Not so bad to do with, they weren’t, for king’s folk.”

“And did you happen to know a great lass, a bonny one with red hair, a
bower-may that the queen made much of, Raineach by name?”

“And what of her?” asked the dame.

“Oh, she was just one of them in Dublin.”

“Was she that? Ah, she was a sad one if ever there was. Hey, man, hark
here! The young man would have news of that great, strapping, red-haired
wench, her that the castle-folk were always fighting about.”

“The minx!” shouted the merchant from the shop. “Never heed her, lad,
wherever she is.”

“All the men were after her,” went on the dame, “and never a one would
she take. And that proud with folk, she might have been a king’s
daughter. I’ll be bound she was no good, though the queen was always
abetting her. Olaf would have let them stone her for a witch, one time,
but the queen got her off. She’ll be gone with the rest.”

It was little help he would find there, Thorstein said to himself: but
angered as he was, spoke fair: and said he would take a turn at the
look-out while the master came to his supper. But the tumult had died
down, and the rabble was dwindling as speedily as it had gathered. The
stir was over like a summer storm, and evening had come. Thorstein
asked where he could find a lodging for that night, and said he was not
penniless. The Dane merchant said he would be glad to board him, but one
might see there was little room for guests in house or shop. Nevertheless
there was close at hand a house of priests called St. Peter’s, where
travellers were lodged, and he would set the stranger on the way when all
was quiet.

So Thorstein came to St. Peter’s (the place that was afterwards called
St. Leonard’s Hospital) which Athelstan had founded not long before,
giving to the Minster priests a thrave, that is twenty sheaves, from
every plough-land in the bishopric, that they might entertain strangers
and do good to the poor and sick. There he was received, and no questions
asked: and they gave him supper in the great hall, and a place to lie
down for the night among other wanderers and wayfarers. Some of them were
decent folk, some ugly-looking enough to make Thorstein feel for the few
silver pennies he carried, and tuck his poke well into his sleeve, and
loosen his weapon in its sheath, before shutting his eyes. But he slept
safely, still seeking even in his dreams for Raineach, who was now
farther away than ever.

When day was come, and the doors were opened, the priests’ officer gave
each wayfarer a cake of bread and bade him God speed. Thorstein stood
there in the doorway with his dole in his hand, and sore doubt in his
heart which way he should turn. East or West was all one to him. The
Minster bells broke out into a chime, and pealed through the air. Sweet
and sunny it was after last night’s riot and unrest. He bethought him
that this was the Lord’s day; he could not leave York without at least
hearing a service, now that he was a Christian man once more.

People were going all one way in the streets, but quietly now, and very
unlike the crowds of yestereven. He followed them and went with the
stream into the shadow of the Minster tower and up the great steps,
gaining one at a time in the throng at the porch. Presently he was
carried through the dark door, and inside as into some sudden astonishing
turn of a dream. For it was wonderful broad and lofty in there; the
walls betwixt the arches and above the ranks of columns were inlaid with
polished marbles, painted with long processions of deep-robed saints and
emblems of glory, lit with glimmering, flower-like windows of glass,
and ceiled with canopies of carven work, with beams and bosses wrought
curiously. It was the building of archbishop Aelberht not long since
finished; the new church risen on the ruins of the old church that
Halfdan’s Danes had burnt; witness to the life and might of the faith, a
noble monument of craftsmanship. Its gilding was yet untarnished and its
rich colours were as if fresh from the hands of the artist; a marvel to
behold, even for a traveller who had been in many lands and had seen the
dwellings of great kings, and temples both of the old faith and the new.

Thorstein knelt on the paved floor, and beside him and around him knelt
the people, men and women, rich and poor: maybe among them many who last
night had been foremost in the tumult, side by side with those they had
attacked to rob and slaughter. Far off, in the twilight of the choir,
re-echoed from roof and aisles, came the sound of the singing and the
solemn voices of the priests: the very psalms and prayers that were heard
in little Cartmel church among the mountains, and in every church of
Christian folk from thence throughout the round world. Everywhere the
same, and in every age. For to think of the abidingness of it all! Kings
came and went, nations rose and fell, but the church drooped its head
only to raise it more gloriously. Year by year, while battle and plague
were raging without, within the Minster welled, as from a healing spring,
the same unending litany for peace from poor folk to the poor folk’s God.

No prayer said Thorstein as he knelt thus, while the voices from the
choir rolled forth like gathering thunder, or murmured through the
aisles uncomprehended like the wind in winter trees. It was enough
for him that he was in a holy place, in the palace of God, in the very
presence of the King of Heaven. Surely the Lord Christ there, somewhere
in the dim bewilderment of gold and gloom, amid those cloudy odours and
mysterious answerings of music, surely He was looking forth. And what was
the word? The Lord looketh at the heart. Peace, then.




CHAPTER XLIV.

WOOD-BIDERS.


Very home-sickness, and nothing else, drew Thorstein back to Hougun. He
stayed awhile in York, hoping for news; but the only news was of Olaf’s
death, sudden and strange,—the hand of God manifest, folk said, and St.
Balthere’s vengeance on the church-burner. So all was fear and flight in
the old city and throughout Deira.

Then Thorstein took leave of his friend the Dane merchant, and shirking
talk with the Minster-priests, won his way back over the Keel, and
wandered homewards.

Out of the Northmen’s land he was free from their laws. But in those days
a stranger was a stranger, in whatever land he abode. If he had no strong
friends he was nought. So that between wandering abroad and wood-biding
at home there was little to choose.

Now the way of the wood-biders was this. When a man was utterly outlawed
no friend might receive him, under pains and penalties; every enemy
had the right to hunt him like a wild beast, and to get the reward for
killing him, if reward were offered. So there was nothing for it but to
stay in the forests, hiding in some cave or secret hut of tree-boughs and
turf, and living on what he could hunt, or maybe rob from the neighbours
who had put him out of law. In this manner, not so long afterwards,
William of Cloudeslea and Robin Hood fled to the green-wood, where the
king’s sheriffs could not take them. And even to these days, men who have
been in trouble with the law have been known to hide themselves in the
wide woods that cover the Furness fells, skulking by day and prowling by
night; sometimes friendly enough with the poorer sort, and troublesome
only to the gentle-folk and greater farmers of the neighbourhood, whose
stock they pilfered: and their hiding-places are well known to those that
know the country well. In the end these wood-biders either got their
peace with the law, or were hunted down, or died like wild beasts in the
wood.

Thorstein was not without hope that his business might be done by his
friends, whom he never doubted. But when he came one morning to Lowick,
risking his neck for the sake of news, he heard that things were no
forwarder.

“But,” said Halldora, “hark to this. Two days ago, as I was sitting in
the sun—it was bright autumn weather—and the child was kicking about
on the grass, I heard him crowing and chuckling; and I looked up from
my sewing, and there he was, staring at somewhat, and laughing. Then I
was ware of one among the trees hard by,—for it was on the edge of the
wood,—looking eagerly at us though the branches. I could see nothing but
the gleam of an eye, and a white hand. I made no stay, but caught up the
barn and ran for it. And yet by the white hand, I reckon yon was a woman;
and none of the folk hereabouts, be they fell-folk or farm-folk, by the
same token. But by the gleam of eyelight, I reckon she was gradely tall
for a woman. What dost make of that, lad?”

He went straight to Greenodd, caring nought who might meet him. Into the
hall he strode, and “Mother,” said he, “where is Raineach?”

She was not so very far to seek after that; nor so very hard to suit when
he found her. The true tale had come out on both sides. Unna had told
her of Orm, and of Asdis, and of Thorstein’s beguiling; and Raineach
had given her own story,—how she was carried to York, after finding
that Thorstein had left thinking of her; and then of her adventures at
Olaf’s castle there; and then how they were sent away, and sailed round
by Pictland and Orkney and the South-isles; and then how the wind had
brought them to the Cumberland coast, and how she wept at the sight of
her fells again; and how the queen was sorry for her, and said at last,
“There, wench; hie away with thee, and have better luck than to be a
king’s castaway.”—“And maybe,” said Raineach, reddening, “she was a bit
weary of me, for there was always some stir forward, and she had no man
now to keep her folk under. Any way, by dint of this and that, I made
shift to get clear of them all; and short was the way hither, for fells
are easier to pass than foes.”

O but Raineach was grown great and strong, and more than womanly, for
she was such a one as a giant’s daughter should be; but as fine spoken
and as fair-skinned as a princess, with her three winters of court and
castle-biding. She had got used to outlandish doings and unkind havings,
one could see that by the very way she supped her porridge. But when
Thorstein told her to think twice before she took him,—and he did so,—how
she laughed! The rose-red came and went, up and down the bonny slim
cheeks. She reached out both her hands, and held his. It was good to feel
that firm grasp.

“How many times dost thou reckon I have thought of it, lad, before now?”

They walked together over the fells by woodland paths where none could
spy them, to a little village near the shore of Duddon firth. There they
found the priest whom Raineach had known of old, he who had given that
counsel to her when she sold her cross to the wood-wrights. He was a
strange figure, with high shaven brow and hair long behind; the beard
thick above his mouth, and cropped below. And his little church was more
like a hut of the fell-folk than the clay daubing at Cartmel; for he was
one of the old sort, and of the rule of those Irish priests who came over
sea and settled up and down the Cumberland coasts, building them stone
cells, and there serving those Irish saints, like Patrick and Sanctan and
Bega, whose names are still known hereabouts, and were known long before
the York Minster-priests came to that land.

There was no grand wedding, with neighbours to feast and gifts to
scatter. They knelt alone in the bare little cell before the priest,
and in his own speech he blessed them in the name of the Father and Son
and Holy Ghost, and bade them be one heart and soul, world without end.
It was no wedding at all, the heathen Northmen would have said, this of
the outlaw to the stranger, unwitnessed and unwarranted. But then, to
the Christians the bridals of the Northmen were nothing, no more than a
manner of partnership in trade, that could be on and off like any other
bargain in worldly matters.

It was Thorstein’s hope to rebuild his own house at Blawith, if he had
to do it with his own hands, none aiding him. And if he could but settle
there again and hold his own, far away as it was from the neighbours and
buried in the woods, he thought the turn of the tide would come, and
after a while he would be once more a free man among his own people. So
he knocked up a shed among the ruins, and gathered together such trifles
as he could save out of the wreck. But they had not been a week at work
on the new home, when before daylight one morning the dogs awakened them,
and they fled into the wood, only just in time. Their little cot was
ablaze, and a band of armed men was slashing about, and hunting for them
up and down.

[Illustration: PEEL ISLAND]

But they would not leave hope, so fully persuaded as they were that
better days were coming. It was the back-end of the summer by now, and
winter was upon them. It would not do to risk another door-doom; and
as they cowered in hiding—wood-biders well skilled in the craft—they
talked out a plan to put more than dry land between themselves and their
enemies, until the time should come when they might get peace.

In the midst of Thurston-water there is a little island, lying all alone.
When you see it from the fells, it looks like a ship in the midst of the
blue ripples; but a ship at anchor, while all the mere moves up-bank
or down-bank, as the wind may be. The little island is ship-like also
because its shape is long, and its sides are steep, with no flat and
shelving shores; but a high short nab there is to the northward, for a
prow, so to speak; and a high sharp ness to the southward, for a poop.
And to make the likeness better still, a long narrow calf-rock lies in
the water, as if it were the cockboat at the stern; while tall trees
stand for masts and sails.

The island is not so far in the water but that one can swim to shore,
nor so near that it would be easy to attack it without a boat: and at
that time boats there were none on these lakes, except maybe a coracle
or two of the fell-folk. For fishing, no spot could be better, nor for
hunting, if one wanted a safe home and hunting-tower. And if need were to
run down Crake to Lowick for news or victuals, that could be done with
little risk. This should be their hold and their home, they planned. Here
they would make themselves secure, and let the storm drift over their
heads.

So said so done. By nightfall they were on the island, with little goods
indeed, but with a fire alight, and a rough lair of branches wreathed
to shelter them. Into it they crept, and cuddled together as when they
were children, laughing at their makeshifts and eager over their designs.
Through the shivering, falling leaves the moon shone, patterning the
grass of the glade in their dell, and dying out as the clouds raked by;
flashing again, and fading. The woof of the waves against the rock-wall
of their castle, and the voice of the wind flying past, booming in the
great forest that rose steep over against them on the eastern shore,
and then shrieking in the branches overhead,—all these touched them not
in their shelter, and only made their peace more peaceful, and their
security more secure. It was the old time come again for both of them,
and they were as lightsome as children in their new happiness.

“Hark to the wind,” said Raineach, “afar and away there: it will be down
at the water-foot now, ruffling the great oak trees as if they were
barns’ curly heads. It is coming up-bank. Ah, it is catching the nab end:
hark to the dash of the waves on the shore and on the rock in the water.
Here it comes. That was a big one, Thorstein: it made the ground shake,
like a ship-deck. I had liefer be here than on shipboard, though. Shall
we hold, thinkst thou?”

“Oh aye; the trees sway a bit and the roots jar in the mould: but we are
snug enough here. It’s not the wind will harm us.”

“Nay, the wind is bonny. It sings. They used to sing a deal in Dublin,
the bards, and there were your skalds, they called them, in York: whiles
they sang me songs all to myself. They were fools. It was like this:—The
red fern is tall and fair. She sways in the autumn breeze. Swords flash:
blood flows. The red fern heeds them not.—Nay, nor I didn’t. Not I. They
sang nought. But yon wind, what does it sing? Home again, child: home
again, old playfellow: home!—Make a hole, lad, through the bield to spy
at. There’s no window in our island palace: and I want to see the fells,
and count them. Nay then; it’s no use: we are all umbered up with trees.
Aigh! it is wolf dark: pull the boughs again, Thorstein; the wind blows
at me through the spy-hole.”

“The pet of Dublin and the pride of York has got over nice and nesh with
her queens and earls and such like, I doubt, for a bield in the wild
wood. Nay, don’t nip like that, Raineach: it hurts, thou great rough
minx!”

“I’ll be named no names then. Did I hurt thee? Truly? Beat me. But thou,
Thorstein, never cast up against me what was none of my doing. I did
no wrong to thee, of all people. None. The wind knows. Hark, it begins
again. What is it saying?—The red fern grows round the tall great stone,
out on the fell: on the fell. And it grows and it grows, and it hides it,
and it smothers it, and it chokes it, all in its red red hair!”

“Oh let be, lass; I am that weary. What is the night for but to sleep? It
will be up and doing, over soon.”

“There, then, shut eyes. Bad lad, they are not shut. I can see them,
I can see them in the dark, shining.—Dost thou mind the wild cat,
Thorstein, and how angry we were? Now we are never to be angry again, are
we? Shut eyes and snore, I say, or I’ll beat thee.”




CHAPTER XLV.

ON THE ISLAND.


Here as the days went on they made their home. It was no great job to
build a cot in the gap between the two ridges, the twin backbone of the
island: for the rock on either hand is steep like a solid house-wall
for more than a man’s height, and runs thus maybe two hundred feet,
now choked with ruins of the old building that once stood there: but
formerly a deep and sheltered trough.

They had only to roof it over with poles, which they cut from the trees
growing on the spot, and to thatch it with boughs and turfs like one of
those huts the woodcutters and bark peelers make themselves even nowadays
in the woods. Then they built up the ends, leaving doors and windows,
and there was as snug a home as might be in all Lakeland. Nor so long a
task was it, either, for a lad like Thorstein, who many a day before had
enterprised to build a house for the folk of Heathwaite fell.

And then he bethought him of a bit of a boat, to make the shoreward
journey easy. For himself, he could swim like a duck: but to ferry
another, and to fetch such things as kind friends might give, not to
say for fishing and fowling, and for watching the shores of his mere,
something more was needful than swimming-strokes and a wet sark.

The fell-folk had their own old way of boat building, which was this.
They cut a tree, and trimmed its ends with the axe; and then, heating
cobbles in the fire, they burned out the heart of the log and hollowed
their canoe. But a Northman born, who was no mean woodsmith, thought
scorn of that ancient makeshift. And yet to save time, he was content
with bent boughs, and withys to bind them into a framework, and skins
stretched around all: making a coracle light to lift and easy to drive,
even when the water was none so lound. For our lake-waves never run high
like sea-billows, though the strength of the breeze and its sudden gusts
sometimes give a rower hard work to keep head to wind. And the many sharp
rocks and cobbly shoals upstanding beneath the water-line are somewhat
dangerous for a heavy boat under way: but with a light craft it is light
work. And no sweeter life could be dreamt by one to the manner bred than
this fishing and fowling on a teeming mere, aboard of a handy little
thing that answers every touch and wish of the rower.

So thus they lived as if life were one holiday: safe from prowling
beasts and far from mankind. Now and again Thorstein would travel down
Crake to his friends, who helped him willingly with goods and tools and
porridge-meal for housekeeping. And yet it was little they lacked, to
be as well off as they used to be in early days among the fell-folk.
There was the same hunting ground; firewood and the sweetest of water
in plenty; and well they knew, if any did, how to make the most of the
wilderness and all it held, and when that was done to be content.

For a long while nobody meddled with them. It seemed as though they had
been forgotten. And just to be let alone, and to be together, was enough
to make the morning bright and the evening merry. Winter was not so
sharp, down there by the water, as it was on the fells. The lake freezes
over but seldom, and even the hard weather was friendly to them, for it
sent beasts and birds down from the high lands to milder grounds, and so
to their larder; and the warm feathers and furs were welcome for clothes
and bedding.

When the spring came, and lilies made the shores all golden, and the snow
on the great fells dwindled into delicate lacework, white in the blue
air, then Raineach was glad of the sunshine to sit in, at the land-locked
harbour, plying her needle, while Thorstein was away in the boat fishing.
He was never so far but she could climb upon a rock and spy him out, a
speck upon the broad water-line. Then she would wave to him, and if he
was not busy with a fish he would wave back. So it was not lonely. After
the worry and weariness of the court, where there was no true friend to
count on, it was the merriest company. The loneliness was when she was
lost in the crowd.

But when the bluebells lay thick upon every rock ledge of the island,
sweet smelling and bluest blue in their fresh green leaves; when the
cuckoos called loud from shore to shore, and the sun was strong, looking
down into the depths of the still water and counting every different
stone, laid clear and fair in its crystal bed, and the minnows flickered
over them; then sometimes she would weep a little to herself as she sat.
She could not tell why, if it were not that she was in dread of the time
when he would be again among his own people, and hers the less: when she
would have to be as any other house-mistress, and his the less: judged by
their words and fettered by their ways. Then life would no longer be so
free and so loving as it was to the wood-biders.

But when the spring flowers were all gone and the nights were sultry
and dark again, she wept no more: for she had new company: a little
thing that reached out its hands to her from the bundle of furs where
it lay, and that made such quaint faces as were a wonder and a lasting
gazing-stock. There was time now for nothing but to watch it, and fondle
it, and feed it: and if at first the island was a sweet home to her,
now it was more lovely than ever, to be there with her big man, and her
little man, and none to let or hinder.

After a while they made a great journey over the fells, and came to
Duddon side again, to the strange old priest, that he might christen
the child. They called it Swein after Thorstein’s father, as in duty
bound, though the priest halted somewhat at the name, so outlandish and
unchristian as it seemed to his way of thinking. However he blessed the
child, and bade it prosper, and they took their way home without mishap:
and the journey gave them talk for many a day to follow.

[Illustration: Raineach on the Island]

So they won through the second winter, with never a thought of wearying
either of one another or of their home. Now they cleared a little thwaite
of land over against the island, and kept a goat or two, and sowed a
patch of oats, so that their porridge-stuff need not be so far to seek,
and milk for the barn should be plenty. And the summer went by in game
and glee, and they had no fears for the winter.

For a Yule-gift they got another guestling, whom they carried in a while
to the priest, tripping through the woods with him in his mother’s arms,
and the sturdy Swein on his father’s shoulder. They called the baby
Thorstein: and when they saw him and his brother wax and thrive, they
laughed a bit sometimes to think of the day when they should take their
piglings that Unna had foretold, to show the grandame at Greenodd.

Yet with all this well-being there was somewhat wrong. What with his own
labour and his strong friends, Thorstein got all he wanted for bed or
board: and with a sweet wife and bonny barns he was set up with the best
of company. Over and above which, he knew in his heart that he was now no
outcast of holy church, though seldom he saw priest or heard those words
of life he had stumbled at long since. Nowadays, what talks he had with
Raineach, and reasonings of unknown things, piecing together his scraps
of learning with hers, as an old wife plans patchwork: for all the bits
must fit into the pattern, whether or no they matched.

And some bits would not fit, such words as told folk to be at one among
themselves, and that promised peace between mankind. There was he, out
of law and no man’s neighbour. Peace with God his heart told him he had;
but peace with man was still far to seek: and if all he had done, and all
his friends had done, gave him not that peace, how could God command it?
how would God provide it?

And being no dreamer, but a man with his eyes open, he knew right well
that, if to-day was fair, to-morrow might be foul. So far his foes had
given him a wide berth; but says he “When I am gone, who will take my
lads by the hand, and give them their place among their fellows, and
assure them land and living?”

“Heed it not,” Raineach would answer. “Are not they as well as thou in
God’s hand?”

“Who heeds it?” he would say. “Not I. And yet!”

“Oh man, speak fair and be thankful.”

“I do speak fair, and I am thankful,” said he: “and yet!”




CHAPTER XLVI.

UNBIDDEN GUESTS.


But what about Asdis, all this while? She was never the worse off,
whatever happened. She was too wise to spoil her looks with weeping,
and too pretty to sit long at Asmundarlea waiting for a new husband.
She lighted on her feet, like a cat, wherever she fell: and before many
months was purring by another fireside, with the cream of the milk to
lap. But as she blinked in the fireglow, she was only watching her mouse.

The land was not so bare of people as it had been twenty winters since.
Bit by bit, as the days went on, the dales were cleared and inhabited.
From the low country one after another went up to take land among the
fells. For the Northmen could never abide close quarters. They hated
towns, and loved a free life: a spot to themselves, with elbow-room; a
seat on a howe overlooking broad fields and fell-pastures, with the smoke
of the next neighbour’s hall rising far away through the green wood. It
was one thing to have good friends within hail and call, but another to
be thrust among folk in one of those stinking swine-styes, said they,
where the Saxons herded. And so their biggings crept up from the shore
of Leven and Duddon, and from nook to nook the house-reek rose, like
bale-fires lighted to tell the world that this Lakeland was the land-take
of the Northmen.

Therefore all the coming and going of Thorstein could not fail to be
spied, and the tale sped from mouth to mouth, time and again, and lost
little in its travels. In a while it came to dame Asdis, where she sat
with black anger in her heart against Thorstein, and against the wild
she-wolf of the fells who had stolen him out of her arms. And in all this
she blamed herself never one whit, and folk came to look on her as a fair
woman with great wrongs to avenge.

In a time of quiet, when ill men are aweary of peace, and stirring men
hanker after the adventures of old days, no great work was needed to egg
on rough fellows to the job she had on hand. A gang of lads and louts was
drawn together, and some silly vow got out of them that they would rid
the land of the wood-biders: and all as if it had been some great deed.

Now the island was but very little known to the North-folk at the back of
the fells; but one thing they knew, and this was that they could not come
at it without boats: and if they stayed boat-building they would be spied
and foreset. But said Asdis, “Wait until the apple drops. Why build a
boat to cross a bridge?” At which they gaped, but she bade them watch the
birds and the bushes.

For that third winter began to be a hard winter. The swallows went
early, and the wild swans came in flocks from the north. Choups and
holly-berries reddened the hedges; and after Yule the fells were
creamed over and the becks dwindled. As the days lengthened so the cold
strengthened, until even the sunny shores of Leven and Duddon were frozen
fast; and when a high tide came, it burst the floe, and left the sands
and mosses strewn for many a mile with huge blocks and tables of ice,
piled one upon another like peats to dry. Then Asdis rubbed her hands and
said, “Now, lads, your bridge will be built.”

So they set out and away through the snowy woods until they came to
the waterside of Thurston-mere; and there was a sight. Still as death
the white fells stood around. Still as death the lake spread, white and
black; white where the snow hid it, and black in great reaches that could
hardly be known from standing water, but that its soft ripples stirred
not, and the picture of wood and fell lay upon them clearer and quieter
than the shapes in a tarn on a summer day, for all the north-wind’s
blowing. The only thing that moved was a wreath of smoke on the fellside
over against them, and the likeness of the same wreath in the glassy
field below. And where the two wreaths met was a crag, standing up from
the flat; an island no longer.

They adventured from the snowy shore, hardly knowing when they were on
land and when on lake, until suddenly, beneath their feet, deep down,
they saw the stones lying at the bottom, clear in the sunlight, through
the wonderful floor, such as the floor of Heaven may be to them that walk
upon it, and look down upon us thence. Slowly now and warily the men
went, for the ice was smooth and slape; and if it was roughened at all,
it was not with waves, but as if stars and arrowheads of crystal had been
inlaid in glass, like the silver a smith inlays in steel.

Then as they walked there arose a strange turmoil in the stillness.
Far and wide the ice began to crack and settle, with groanings and
thunderings that roared and muttered from shore to shore. Across the
black, clear deep there flew white, ragged lightnings, on either hand,
before and behind, as when one watches a thunderstorm in the valley
beneath a lofty mountain. Then a great crack flitted screaming right
under their feet, and half the company turned and scattered, crying out
there was witch-work in it, and they were lost. But as they staggered and
slid and fell others cursed them for fools, and kicked them up again, and
egged them on; showing them how to set feet together and shove themselves
along with their spears thrust hard behind them upon the ice. And so they
won a mile or so to the island.

But before they were half way over, the smoke shot up into a thick cloud,
and flames flickered; and over the waste of white and black, above the
moaning and groaning of the ice field, arose the deep note of a horn,
stifled and quivering at first, and strengthening into a hollow peal,
that suddenly stayed. As suddenly it was answered from the fell; and then
again from the Beacon hill behind; and then again far down the valley;
and then again far up the lake; until the sky was ringing with it. They
stood in amaze to listen; and the flame blazed higher, and the smoke
rolled in coils, brown against the white moorland. Again the war-horn
pealed, and the answers came; and when the last had died away, another
answer, over and above the echoes, a faint clang, far down the Crake.
And then there was only the groaning of the ice to hear; and the island,
when they came to it, was nothing but a snowy rock, untenanted, for aught
they could see, and lifeless, but for the great fire.

All round the brink the slape ice shelved away, by the settling of the
lake, so that footing was bad to get. The rock went down sheer into the
smooth floor, grey and bare beneath and heaped with pillowy snow above,
from which hung fringes of icicles, like teeth of a dragon in northern
deeps. They scrambled up the shelving slide, and grasped at the rocks
to break away the icicles and beat down the snow, for hand-hold and
foot-hold. But as they strove up the lower rocks, half smothered with the
mealy drift, two heads came out upon the top of the crag, and two great
stones rolled among them. And those they fell upon cried but once.

Then began a storm of stones from above, to which they could make no
reply, for the defenders were hidden behind the highest ridge, and safe
from shot. Even if the attackers could make a shift to use bow and dart,
and that they could seldom in their eagerness to win upward, and in their
unsteady footing, their weapons only rattled down among them again from
the icebound rock. And so this went on for a while, until many had been
maimed, and some killed outright. The nearer they got, the steeper and
more dangerous were the battlements of that castle built without hands:
a long wall, high enough and steep enough to be difficult any day, but
hopeless in this snow and frost, with the great stones plunging down,
well aimed from above.

They drew off to the open and held council. In a while they broke into
two bands, and went round the island to try for scaling spots, and to
break in on both hands at once. Now the ends of the island are less brant
than its sides, for there is a way up between the ridges, both to north
and south. But nobody who meant to hold the place would fail to stop
those doors with some stockading at least, if not a good stone wall:
and so they were brought to a standstill here as heretofore. The north
end was not only well blocked, but the rocks there are stiff and steep
for this work; and of the two defenders one followed each company round
about, never leaving them alone, what with stones, what with hand-strokes
when they tried the wooden palings. And if fire was hot within the hold,
it was all frost without, and never a spark to set the doors alight.

So now they met together at the south end, where the twin harbour lies
between the calf and the crag. They began to swarm up a buttress that
makes a narrow ladder to the top, easy enough to climb if it were not for
the ice that sheeted it, and for the rough welcome that awaited the first
man on the sharp and perilous crest. By this the far-away fells stood
rosy red and dim around; the sky was like fire behind Beacon fell, and
the cold floor of ice seemed to be all one lake of blood. The bale on the
crag reeked and roared, and out of the smoke came a sword that lopped the
first comer like a bough, and sent him rolling down the unbroken rock for
many an ell. Then they were aware of the wood-biders standing over them,
each with a weapon. They took heart and shuffled up the harder, shouting
curses, and what they would do when they won to the top. But the next
comer rolled into the bay with his brains knocked out. That was the doing
of a big stick that swung round and about in the hands of Raineach.

“Well done, lass,” shouted Thorstein, who kept his distance from her,
however. “It’s not for nothing she’s a giant’s daughter,” he laughed, for
he was warming to the work.

But then the children waked behind them, stirred by the noise; and they
screamed. Raineach was scared lest some of the rascals had got in the
back way, and she flew to seek them. The carles below set up a jeer, and
three or four flung in at once. One was down, and another was down; but
Thorstein’s sword bent; and as he kneeled on it to straighten it, the
others were at him. They had him on his back, and a stroke would have
done their job; but out came Raineach with such a swingeing batt of her
club on the one of them, as broke his backbone like a rotten stick; and
she gripped the other by the throat and hauled him off. She lugged and
tugged, and fairly lifted him off his feet, and bundled him over the
edge among his fellows. Up springs Thorstein with a great shout, and she
beside him; and every mother’s son that could stir a limb scattered off
the edge in a flock. The weight of them all coming down together broke
the ice where it was rotten from the warmth of the flat rock, that caught
and kept the morning sun; and they went into the hole like corn into the
miller’s hopper. It was deep there: the rock goes down at once into the
lake, and rises again in ugly teeth, bound to cut a swimmer’s knees, let
alone the edges of the broken ice. He with the lopped arm, their leader
in the assault, after a few wild strokes went down in a red spot. The
rest struggled out, to the nearest shore, and shouted themselves hoarse
with their anger.

Thorstein and Raineach went up to look at the man whose back was broken.
He cried for water, and she gave him to drink. Thorstein stood over him,
fierce and stern.

“Who sent thee, man?” he said.

But they got nothing out of him, and in a while he died.

And then, when all was over, Raineach burst into a blurt of weeping.
“What, lass! what, lass!” said Thorstein, as she shook and sobbed in his
arms; “hold up, my little one; all’s right now. I warrant we see no more
of them. There’s not a scratch on thee, and I am none the worse but for a
bruise or two. What’s there to greet for?”

“It’s not that,” she sobbed.

“Here, then; take the barn: hark how he is crying on his mother.” Then as
the sobs shook her, and the baby at her breast, said Thorstein, staring
at them, and biting a twig, “Eh, queer things women are. Aye, and,” says
he, “there’s women and women.”

And so Asdis goes out of the story.

When the stars were shining, they had more guests, not unbidden, though
late to the play.

“Kinsman,” said Hundi, as he panted and caught his breath, between
draughts of milk in the cot on the island; “Kinsman, no more of this.
To the Althing thou goest this mid-summer, if I drag thee yonder by the
scruff of the neck.” And “Aye, goes he,” said the half score of men that
had come hot-foot from Lowick.

“Never saw I woman more scared than Halldora when thy horn sounded.”

“Scared was she,” said one of them: “but for a scare, oh boys, the master
capped all. Snail? says I, as I peltered after him. Hare! says I,—Hundi
Harefoot’s the word!”

Hundi caught him by the hand, laughing. “A forfeit,” he cried, “to fasten
the name! But Thorstein, my man, get thy peace, and let us share it. Life
is not worth living, with this horn-blowing to look for.”

So when mid-summer was come, Thorstein set forth alone, sorely as
Raineach grudged his leaving her. She said it was for no good he was
going. But he kissed her, and said she should be mistress of Blawith
before the summer was out. “That may be,” she said, “but never so happy
as here.”




CHAPTER XLVII.

THE HOST OF WEIRD.


Thorstein travelled over the fells to the water-head of the great lake we
call Windermere, meaning to stay there for the night, and so to come upon
the Althing when folk were at their meeting about mid-day. But when he
was at the door of the Welshmen’s cots, in that old ruin of the Romans,
there was a great noise within; and he spied a many Northmen sitting
there at drink, and among them some faces he knew and misliked. They too
were on their way to Legburthwaite: and no sooner did he darken the door
but they leapt up and ran at him. He had no mind to redden his hands with
them, just when he was going to sue for his peace: and away he went, out
of the great road and into the woods again.

This was a part he knew but little, and yet he found a track that led
him up a steep dell and over a hause where was a wonderful big stone,
like a kirk, by the way side, with high fells running up on either hand.
Before him lay the great deep valley, reaching away northward, and all
its forests and crags purple and golden in the summer afternoon. Here
and there was a gleam of water; and far in the distance, smoke rising
as if from the houses of men. The path led onward and downward, rough
and steep. He followed it for a good while, and came to a tarn which
afterwards the Northmen called Brotherwater, from the ancient road that
passed by. Then he was on the floor of the valley, with the steep heights
all around and above: and it was but an hour or so to the village of
Patrickdale.

This was another of those few spots in the fell country where people were
found before the Northmen came into Lakeland. The dwellers were mostly
like the rougher sort of fell-folk, and their cots were of the poorest,
scattered, and buried in wood. And yet they had a church in their midst,
if it were no more than a cell; where a kind of hermit priest lived, and
in the one little chamber slept upon the ground, and ate his crust, and
performed the holy service, with nothing but a rough stone for his altar
and another for his pillow.

Thorstein sat down weary and hungered at the church door, and knocked
upon it. Presently in the quiet village there was a barking of dogs that
echoed from crag to crag around: and then the church door opened, and the
priest came out with a thumping big stick upheld in one hand, while he
unbarred the iron-hasped door with the other.

Thorstein bade him have peace, for it was a Christian and a wayfarer
who begged for alms. He spoke in the fell-folk’s tongue, reckoning that
whether the priest were English or Irish he must speak so in his cracks
with the country-folk hereabouts. So the priest let him into the church
and from an ark brought out a bowl of sour milk and a cake of rye bread.

“Maybe now,” said Thorstein, “this is all thou hast.”

“All I have here,” said the priest. “But there are good neighbours.”

So Thorstein drank the milk at a draught, and ate the cake in two
mouthfuls.

“I am no stranger in these parts,” said he, “but I never was here before.”

“Like enough not,” said the priest. “We call this St. Patrick’s church,
for on this spot many a lifetime back the glorious and blessed Patrick
preached: and in the well hard by christened both men and women that
heard him. And here in this desert, unworthy as I am, I strive to keep
the lamp alight, as those that watch for their Lord.”

They talked together awhile, for the priest seemed right glad of a
friendly face other than those of his rough flock,—goats he called them,
“for lambs they be not indeed, but very mountain goats. And yet God
forgive me for saying an ill word of them,” added he: “for I mind me of
the days when I was in the world. There was as much hardness of heart and
stiffneckedness among our townsfolk yonder at Dacor—”

But now there was a noise without, and the dogs barking again. More than
that, eager voices. Out stepped the priest to hear what the news might
be, bidding Thorstein stay where he was, or he would not answer for him.

There was a couple of men,—fighting-men of Domhnaill’s they seemed by
their weapons; but no great champions, by their faces. Around them a knot
of rough villagers, half clothed in skins, and shaggy-headed, with staves
in their hands. They all talked long and loud. Thorstein could just hear
something about an army and flight and slaughter; but he deemed it wise
to do as the priest bade him, lest he should be mis-kenned and mauled by
that rabble.

“Lord help us,” said the priest coming back into the church: “God and all
blessed Saints protect us. Ill tidings, young man. Awful tidings. But as
the mountains stand round about Jerusalem, even so the Lord stands round
us who fear him.”

Then between prayers and sighs he told the news. These were two men
of the dale who had gone to fight in Domhnaill’s army, called out but
lately. It seemed that Eadmund the English king had been warring in
the North against Domhnaill’s people in Strathclyde, and against the
vikings in Galloway: and having wasted far and wide, he was entered into
Cumberland where Domhnaill, though he had fled from place to place,
thought to make another stand: and so had called out every man he could
levy. But still he got the worst of it, and fled before the Saxons: and
no wonder, for with the Saxons there were Malcolm king of Scots and
a host of his, and Llewelyn of Wales with his men, a terrible great
multitude. Last night they lay at Penrith, and Domhnaill was pressing his
men forward towards the fell-country, hoping either to escape into the
mountain fastnesses, or to entangle his enemies in some strait pass among
rocks and swamps, and so destroy them. But, before these men fled from
his army, it had been given out that he aimed at the mountain road to the
city of Helvellyn.

“What,” cried Thorstein, “beside our Northmen’s meeting place? Aye,
father, though I am Christian, I am a Northman born, and neither Dane
nor Saxon. Tell me, oh man, tell me how I may come to them and give them
warning. Is there a way over yon crags? It cannot be far: and yet the
rocks stand up like walls of heaven.”

The priest took him to the door and pointed out a deep dale that runs up
into the fells: Grizedale we call it now. When he was at the head of that
dale he would find a tarn: then he was to take the valley to his right
hand, and it would bring him to the hause above the city of Helvellyn.
“But,” said he, “it is trackless forest: none rougher in our mountains.
And it teems with wild swine. If it were for a boar-hunt with a party of
stout fellows, no place could be fitter. But for a lone traveller, at
speed, and a stranger, I doubt the end of the journey might be nearer
than its goal.”

“Path or no path, boars or bears,” cried Thorstein running back into the
church for his weapons, “I must try it and that hastily.”

“Stay,” said the priest. “There is another way, if thou canst climb the
rocks like a wild cat, and keep a cool head while the eagles scream
around thee. I know this only by report: but men have climbed above
the woods where all is open grass or naked rock, and so across over
Helvellyn. They say it is a fearful place: no otherwise than when one
mounts a ladder against a castle-wall: but that this is terrible in its
loftiness and horror beyond any high tower or deep sea-crag. And the
night is at hand.”

“The night,” said Thorstein, “is fair, and never wholly dark at this
season. As for crags and the dangers of the fells, I have fared through a
many before now. Point me out the way, father.”

It was the clear gloaming of summer midnight when he had forced his way
through the woods that clothed the valley side, and that crept up the
crags like moss on a stone. He was on Striding-edge: forest and fell
around him were black, a tossing surge of darkness; in which gleamed ugly
and strange the great lake, that reached away into distance of slaty
gloom. On the ridge there was light from the north, a brown light, no
more than enough to see footing and hand-hold. But when his foot slipped,
and a great stone rolled from under it, there was a crash and a roar that
raised the echoes all round the cove, as the stone whirled and leapt
towards the round tarn that he could hardly discern in the blackness,—how
far below he could not reckon. And on the other hand it was no less
steep. Pinnacles of rock stood up along the abyss, and in front a great
mass, a wall it seemed in the uncertain gloom, unapproachable. With the
falling stones the eagles were roused, and sailed screaming about him: so
that he clung to the ridge, and drew his sword.

[Illustration: STRIDING EDGE & HELVELLYN]

Then he came to a place where the rock fell away into darkness: and he
sat doubting the priest’s guidance, and scanning the black wall that rose
overhead before him: for he was weary by now and began to be faint with
hunger. He cast overboard his shield that he had carried so far, and it
fell down the rock but a little way, and then caught. He followed it and
found it, and then scrambled up the wall; which turned out to be no more
than a scree-slope, though it was one of the stiffest.

From Helvellyn top he saw the arch of light in the north again, sunset
and dawn in one, streaked with black bars of cloud. But underneath them,
strong against the meshes of faint daffodil colour, and the lowest band
of dusky red, stood out the lines of Skiddaw and Blencathra, the shapes
he knew right well of old, and welcomed joyfully. He ran along the brown
and rounded grassy summit, forgetting his weariness, until Thirlmere
gleamed beneath him,—the winding lake with its steep shores, and the
crags where he had first met Aluinn and Domhnaill. Then, how high that
mountain eyrie of theirs had seemed: but now it was nought but a heave in
the dark land that was spread out before him like an embroidered garment
cast upon the floor.

Then, as he went forward, wary of the swamps that lie among the grass of
those great mountain-backs, he saw a man come up on the moorland, but
from some point farther north; and run, as he had run, across toward
Thirlmere. “He will be another of the fleers,” said Thorstein to himself.
“He is bound for the Northmen’s camp, like me.” And he shouted, and tried
to overtake him, but in vain. Then came up two or three others: they
were dimly seen and grey in that twilight: but he could make them out
enough to know that they carried weapons, and fled in haste. He shouted
again; but no answer. Then more followed: and he could see that among the
newcomers were pursuers as well as pursued: and now one fell, and was
killed outright before his eyes. But there was no sound of shouting: and
as he ran toward them he seemed to come no nearer, whether it was that
the twilight put him out of his reckoning, or what. And then came a flock
of men marching forward with banner and spear, aye, and horses among
them, and chariots, on the bare mountain-top, with pathless crags behind
and in front, where no army could have marched in order, nor waggon have
gone upon wheels. But still they crossed over, a very great multitude,
under the broken light that held his eyes fixed to northward. He stayed
running, and listened. The waterfalls roared beneath: but not a sound was
there of living men; neither tramp nor shout: and still they passed.

Terror was upon him now, and his knees shook. He looked behind him, and
out of the deep blackness a few great stars shone, and around was the
moorland with its strange forms, and he knew not what else, crowding upon
him. With a cry he fled down the grassy slope. It fell away steeper and
steeper. He stumbled among the hidden stones: but he could not stay his
feet; and down he rolled from rock to rock, into the thunder of Helvellyn
gill.




CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE STORM OF THE LAWBURG.


At Legburthwaite the morning was wild. The wind had risen in the night
and brought rain. The clouds were low, raking along the fell sides, and
one could hardly see the crags across the valley for greyness.

The Althing was not yet hallowed, for the Northmen were not met together.
Some early comers had arrived and spent the night in their booths,—rough
hut-walls, unroofed, put up of old to serve for lodging at these summer
meetings, and covered, when the time was, with tent-cloths cast over
them. A group of elder men sat talking in the rain: others were setting
up the bounds of the doom-ring, driving in the posts with pick and
mallet, and cutting hazel poles in the copse hard by, to lay across from
stake to stake. Others were repairing the winter’s damage to the turf
seats within the ring, where the chiefs and the jurymen were to sit.

Down from Helvellyn side, through the driving rain, crept a battered
man, slowly working his way among the boulders of the slope. He dragged
himself up to the group of elders, and they saw that he was newly
wounded, and foredone with toil and travel.

Then said one, “This is Thorstein Sweinson of the Mere: he that slew his
brother. Away, fellow: the place is not hallowed yet; there is no peace
to be got now for such as thee.”

Said another, “Let be: the wood-bider is not here for nought, and maybe
has a story to tell.”

But he gaped upon them and could not speak. So they gave him to drink.

“Thanks, friend,” he said. “Neighbours, do with me as you will, but hear
me. Domhnaill is fleeing before the Saxons. He is upon us even now. Last
night I saw two of his men: they had fled to their home in the fells.
They said that Eadmund the English king was at Domhnaill’s heels, and
with him Malcolm the Scot and Llewelyn of Wales with a great multitude.
Domhnaill was for leading them hither, to entrap them if he could; or to
escape into the mountains. I have fled night-long over yon high fells to
bring the news. And I have seen them. On the top of the mountains I saw
the hosts pursuing and pursued. Whether it was a vision I cannot tell:
but the tidings are truth.”

“Here be fine dreams,” said the first speaker, “and mid-summer madness.”

“Dreams or no dreams, the man is spent with travel and battered, and he
gives his head into our hands for the sake of the tidings. We shall soon
see whether they be true. Meanwhile, my lad, come into my booth and be
fed.”

Thorstein had hardly brought hand to mouth, when there was a stir
without, and the foremost flyers of Domhnaill’s army came by. They were
the guard of the king’s wife and children, and a troop of pack-horses
with them, heavily laden, maybe with treasure. They made no stay, but
for a hasty word, and away toward the city of Helvellyn.

The Northmen, taking short counsel together, agreed to draw out of their
booths, and to make a stand upon the Thingmount, and so abide what might
happen. Why they should thus meddle, when they might have escaped with
the foremost flyers, or easily hidden in the woods, who can say?—except
that they were bred fighting-men, and thought scorn to leave their own
Thing-stead without so much as a stroke.

So there in battle array they stood, on their mound where the four dales
met, and the great crags around. Over against them the path crept by the
skirts of the fells; on this side the Greta and on that Helvellyn beck:
and the clouds flying low, and the rain driving.

Out of the mist came the flyers, horse galloping and foot running;
whoever was sound and unwounded outpacing his fellows, as they streamed
up the road and into the mist again. Then came the wearied men, some of
them wounded and some scant of breath and half blind with toil and with
watching under arms, pushing and pressing along the narrow path; here and
there one falling with a groan, and kicked out of the way into the river,
or screaming as the horses stamped the life out of him. And so they swept
past, while the Northmen cried to them across the dale to turn and stand
by their friends.

Then there was a pause, and the sound of the pursuers shouting along the
vale of St. John; and presently their van-guard was seen pressing along
the road,—Welsh they were of Llewelyn’s company, to whom the foremost
place had been given in this enterprise because they were mountain men,
and led where the Lowlanders, with all the fire of the chase, sometimes
held back from following.

When they came to the place where they could see the Northmen in array
on the howe, they were brought to a standstill: and fresh comers behind
them crowded at their rear, like the wreckage of a streaming flood, when
one great bough is held fast at a force-head. Then they crossed the flat
field, and stood on the bank of Helvellyn beck, and cried to the Northmen
to come down and yield themselves. But the Northmen shouted in answer,
and gave them a flight of spears: and when spears were spent, stones and
the turf of the Thing seats, and everything that was handy. Soon the
Welshmen, seeing how few they had to deal with, and how many of their own
men had come up by this time, took heart, and rushed up the bank shoulder
to shoulder. But along the bank top it was shield to shield, and a line
of whirling blades: and down the wave rolled again.

By this time the main army was coming up, and the cry was for bowmen. For
in those days it was not as it was in later times, when every English
foot-soldier carried his long-bow. Spear to throw and axe to hew with,
were their main weapons. The Welsh stood aside, and a file of archers
passed through the host, and formed in a line on the Thing-field, while
the rest ransacked the booths. Together the bowmen drew their bows, and
at a shout of command to let fly, the Northmen fell flat under their
shields, and the flight of arrows hurtled over them.

But while this was going forward, behind the line of archers other
companies crept this way and that; and through the cover of the wood
on Great Howe other bowmen climbed up to take advantage of the higher
ground, and to get the Northmen below them. And soon there was a rattling
on shield and helm and coat of mail. When the enemy saw that they were
beginning to be discomfited, spears were levelled, and up they rushed in
a thick throng on all sides at once, man pressing man from behind, so
that there was no turning nor fleeing. Down went the first comers all
round the line of red blades: but the shield that Thorstein had carried,
and lost, and saved again, was burst through, and a broken shaft left
in it, and the strap was riven. He took it in both hands and hurled it
edgewise: and shouted when it caught a big fellow in the teeth and drove
him backwards into the thick of the crowd below.

“Well thrown, wood-bider,” said his next neighbour. “I’ll be thy
shield-man this holm-gang:” as he caught a stroke on his target, and
Thorstein leapt out from behind him and cut down the man who had given
it. So it was hand to hand and sword to spear for a while, over the ring
of fallen bodies. But the Northmen shook them off, and thrust them down
the brink again.

Then one upon the Thing-stead began to sing, and then another, in staves
of verse that seemed to set their fellows’ hearts on fire. They shouted
at their foes, giving them every ill name and stinging jest that might
prick them to a new attack. But the only answer was the hail of arrows
from above: and if the rain washed the Northmen white, there was red
enough running to need it. Hardly one among them but had some hurt.
Thorstein, who was no whole man to start with, and ill clad for this
play, was the worse for more than a scratch.

“Neighbours,” said he, “why are we standing still to be shot down like
deer?”

Then forth he leapt, and down the slope, hewing right and left, and
leaving a lane through the crowd. His friends followed close in a band,
and the enemy drew back before them, and closed behind them. The Northmen
were like a wild beast in a net.

“Look you there,” said Thorstein, holding out a bladeless hilt: “was ever
such rotten iron?”

“It has done a day’s work,” said his friend with the shield.

“Nay, not a forenoon’s.”

He sat down upon a stone. His friend took him under the shoulder to lift
him on. “We shall win through yet,” said he.

But Thorstein fell over on the red grass.

“Let be,” said the elder who had known him at the first. “He has got his
peace. Forward all!”




CHAPTER XLIX.

DUNMAIL RAISE.


King Eadmund stood upon the brink of Thirlmere, and scanned the shore on
either side. His enemies had vanished as if by art magic. There lay the
path, running down to the ford, and up again on the farther side, and it
could be traced winding under the terrible crags whose tops were lost in
clouds, and away into huge headlands and shaggy promontories plunging
into the water, one beyond another, until they faded afar in the rain and
mist.

On this hand king Malcolm, and on that hand king Llewelyn, were instant
to go forward and follow the road: but the Lowland king, brave as he
was in fight and bold in counsel, hung back from the attempt and from
following unseen foes into unknown fastnesses.

While they talked, across the wath came two or three men, gaunt and
red-bearded and clothed in skins. They waved their hands above their
heads as if to signify that they came in peace: and the king bade bring
them before him. At their first words, “King,” said Malcolm, “these are
folk of mine, or should be: for it is our tongue they have. Let me be
interpreter.”

Then the fell-folk told the kings that Domhnaill and his men were lurking
in the woods, ready to roll rocks upon their enemies. But they could show
the Saxons how to get the better of the ambush.

Asked by what device, they said that fell-climbers could reach the top of
the brow under which Domhnaill lay; and once there, a few men could roll
rocks on him as he had meant to roll rocks upon the Saxons: and then the
main army could pursue them along the road, which was no worse than that
by which they had come.

“And a good counsel it is, king,” said Malcolm, when he had interpreted:
“and one that we use often in our mountain warfare. Give the business
into my hand, and you shall see them swarm out of the woods like ants out
of a stirred anthill.”

“But what faith can we put in the word of these savages?” asked Eadmund.

They said proudly that it was so as they had spoken, and they were in
the hand of the kings to reward or to slay. “And beside that,” said one
of them with a scowl, “we have an old grudge of our own to settle with
Domhnaill.”

So the army moved over the wath, and the main body halted on the road,
ready for the chase when the game was beaten out of cover. Malcolm
with a band of mountain men, guided by the red folk, climbed the brow
of Armboth fell: and when they were at the top, set to work heaving
rocks over the edge. There was a crashing among trees, and shouts and
shrieks; and presently men were beheld fleeing down the screes among the
woods, and the great stones whirling down after them. Such as got away,
streamed out into the road, and fled along it up and down, like worms
out of a dunghill when it is beaten to get baits. Then the trumpets
were blown that should signal to the men above to leave their work: and
forth marched the army in hot pursuit, along the path and along the low
foreshore of the lake, and then mounting over the crags where they were
high, and descending again among rocks, and cliffs, and wild wood, that
overhung the length of the lake. And at last they looked down upon the
city of Helvellyn.

Here for a while they were brought to a stand: the walls of great stones,
and the swampy flats on one side of it, threatened to hold them longer
than they liked. The day was wearing, and if the nut were cracked the
kernel was not eaten yet. So they took up their stand on the high ground
between the city and the fell, and the trumpets sounded an assault.

Then was there shouting, and a terrible cry that rose to Helvellyn top,
as the Saxons clambered up the rugged wall in throngs, and leapt over,
bearing down the defenders and slaughtering all before them. Domhnaill’s
wife and his two children were taken; but for the rest it was kill and
slay, as men ransacked the rude cots within the walls for their enemies,
and hewed them down where they found them.

But while all this was going forward, a band of men was spied making away
along the fell side. They had escaped by the farther gate and along the
road; and the freshest of the Saxons who were still outside the walls,
and the fleetest of their horsemen, were sent in pursuit. But the road
was rugged and difficult as ever, and if they came up with one party, and
brought it to bay, it was but to waste time, and the rest had the better
start of them. And so the battle went on, at every beck to be forded, and
every rock to be passed: and especially where the great tongue of land at
the foot of Steel fell stands across the valley, like a twin wall of huge
earth-works cast up by giants long ago.

The foremost of the flyers was Domhnaill himself, running for dear life
up the long slope of the pass. He was alone now, and on foot. One horse
after another had fallen under him, and of all the army he had led out
to its ruin not one was there to stand by him. This man had come between
him and the spear that threatened him: that one had turned back to keep
the hunters in play. They were gone now: but he was still a king, if the
crown on his helmet could make him one. And he bethought him of hiding
among the moors and rocks, anywhere, like a wild beast: and he peered
this way and that through the rain as he ran, with none following,
escaped, he hoped, at last. He neared the brow of the hill: soon it
would be down-bank and away; surely some woodland dweller would harbour
him.

Under a hawthorn tree at the summit sat a woman, with long golden hair
lank in the rain, and green gown wet, and clinging to her sides: hard
featured, and fierce she looked: strange, as she rose and stood before
him in the way. He dashed at her blindly with his sword, but she caught
his hand; and as he stumbled at her feet, the crown fell from his helmet,
clattering on the stones of the path. She took it up, and weighed it in
her hand.

“Domhnaill,” she said, “it is mine at last, then?”

“Oh, Aluinn,” he cried, “save me, hide me!”

She led him by a roaring stream and up a steep narrow gill, away from
the valley and the shouts of the pursuers, aloft into the cloud. It was
but a step, and they came to a black water, shoreless, beyond, for the
rain-mist. As he sank down, out-wearied, she flung the golden thing into
the dark tarn.

“It is safe, there,” she said.

And there they say the crown of Cumbria lies to this hour, in the depths
of Grizedale tarn.

[Illustration: INTO SAFE KEEPING]

Domhnaill passed away into the cloud and was seen no more in these parts.
Folk might well believe him to be dead, or gone to fairyland. Whether his
flight was spied by some of the Northmen coming over Dunmail raise toward
the Althing which they never held, or howsoever it might have been told,
the place kept his name, changed but a little in alien mouths; and still
haunted, they say, by the fleeing king and the fairy maid flitting before
him.




CHAPTER L.

THE PEACE OF THORSTEIN.


Terrible was the tale brought to Hougun about the storm of the Lawburg
and the death of Thorstein and his fellows. Though indeed not all of them
perished. Hopeless as it seemed, some of that band had cut their way
through the Saxon army and escaped into hiding among the rocks and woods
on Brackmere bank: and some that had been left for dead had been found by
their friends when the storm was over, and taken up and healed of their
wounds. But not Thorstein. He lay where he fell, within a step of the
spot where he had slain his brother. They gave him his peace, late as it
was: for it was not too late to let his children inherit the land he had
taken around Thurston water.

Hundi and Raud, Mani and the rest of their kinsmen and neighbours came
together and rebuilt the homestead at Blawith, freely giving their labour
as the custom was; and over and above their labour, each comer gave a
share toward the things that were needed to keep house and farm. So that
with what she had and what she got, Raineach lacked neither servants nor
stock, furniture within nor gear without.

They brought her from the island, and bade her dwell in peace on the
land that was hers and her children’s. Many a time came to her one and
another who would gladly have cast in his lot with them for her sake: but
she said nay to all. After a while she sent for a priest, and built him
a church at Blawith, that she might bring up her household in the right
faith and fear of God. And before Yule she was the mother of a third son
to Thorstein, whom she called Gartnaidh after her father, for he was
red-haired and long limbed.

“Thorstein of the Mere will not want for sons to avenge him,” said folk,
when they came to see her.

“Nay,” she said. “He has found his peace. Let us keep it.”

But a twelvemonth had not gone by after the battle, and mid-summer was
not yet come, when they heard tidings of the death of Eadmund in his own
hall at a feast, by the hands of an outlaw. The North-folk looked at one
another, as much as to say it was but his due; vengeance had come upon
him already for the strife he had stirred up, and especially for the
sackless and innocent men who had fallen with Thorstein Sweinson in the
war upon Cumberland.

But the Northmen continued in their homes by firth and fell, spite of
York earls and Scottish kings. For yet a hundred years and more they
kept their freedom. Their own laws they made at their Althing, now in one
spot, now in another: shifted westward, maybe, to Little Langdale after
Thored’s ravaging of Westmorland, and southward after Ethelred’s harrying
of Cumberland. Even when the Normans had brought all this border country
under the feudal yoke, still for many a hundred years the dalesmen,
children of the vikings, used to meet at the Steading-stone by Thirlmere
wath, and kept alive some smouldering memory of their birthright in the
country Penalties of Wythburn. And everywhere they still have their old
manners and their old speech, changing little of either, and that but
slowly.

The Blawith house endured. Its children lived long in the land. When
they increased so that Blawith was too small for them, across the Crake
they built a strong place, and called it the New Burg, and the ground
that it stood in, Newburthwaite. Neighbours by-named them the Redheads
of Nibthwaite; maybe because they took after their kinsmen of the fells.
There they dwelt, a great family, for many a generation, and thereabouts
they dwell even to this day. For in these dales the dream of Unna came
true, that saw love abiding and labour continuing, heedless of glory and
fearless of death.


SO ENDS THE STORY OF THORSTEIN.




REMARKS ON THE NORSE SETTLEMENT: TABLE OF THE CHRONOLOGY: INDEX TO THE
MAPS: & NOTES TO THE STORY.


THE NORSE SETTLEMENT.

Popular attention was called to this subject about forty years ago
by Mr. Robert Ferguson, M.P., F.S.A., in his lecture and book on the
Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland. Following out the suggestion of
the great Worsaæ, he laid down the main lines of the ethnological map,
just as William Smith laid down the main lines of English geology. In
both cases the details had still to be more accurately surveyed; but, in
spite of much doubt and criticism, the hypothesis grew into a theory,
and the theory into an article of faith. Mr. Freeman accepted it in
his History of the Norman Conquest (vol. I. app. FF.), and Chancellor
Ferguson has adopted it in his already standard Histories of Cumberland
and Westmorland. Various local antiquaries have added to the subject,
especially in the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland
Antiquarian and Archæological Society; among which may be named the
papers of the Rev. T. Ellwood, M.A., comparing the language and customs
of Lakeland and Iceland; and the identification by Mr. H. Swainson
Cowper, F.S.A., of the Norse Thingstead in Little Langdale. Mr. Ellwood’s
“Landnámabók, as illustrating the dialect, &c.,” is published separately
(T. Wilson, Kendal, 1894).

Our antiquaries, however, have found us no Lakeland Saga. The reason
is simple. By the time when the Sagas were written down, the Norman
Conquest and the feudal organisation of England had cut these Norse
colonists away from their kindred, and had begun to assimilate them to
the condition of the Saxon villeins; while the repeated inroads of the
Scots in the 12th Century made life insecure, and reduced civilisation
in the Fells to its lowest terms. Whatever songs and stories of Viking
ancestors were then current in the mouths of the people found no scribe
such as Ari the learned, or Hall Gizurson. One would have thought that in
the abbeys of the district some native monk might have noted them down,
as the Icelandic folklore was noted down at Flatey, and Helgafell. But
the great abbeys hereabouts were founded by aliens, and their mental
life had no room for local patriotism. Jocelyn of Furness, our greatest
literary figure in that era, was busy with his Celtic legends of St.
Patrick and St. Kentigern; at Calder and Holm Cultram it was work enough
to live, and old tales were nothing to the stir of passing events. The
saga-period went by; and in another couple of centuries, when the age of
Border ballads had set in, there were new themes in plenty to sing about.
The old legends were out of mind, except for isolated traditions and
surviving names.

And yet, even at this day, enough of these remain to give us glimpses
of the past. We can picture the life of the Norse settlers from almost
contemporary accounts of Orkney and Iceland, checked and verified, in
details innumerable, by the dialect and customs of the district. Their
arts, wood-carving and iron-work chiefly, we see in the old interwoven
panel-patterns and spiral smith-wares, that seem to show a permanence,
through several centuries, of the ancestral habit of mind. Their public
institutions we can infer from a comparison of the remaining Lawburgs
here, with those elsewhere of which there are records in the literature
of the North. Their attitude towards neighbouring peoples can be surmised
from general history, which now and then throws a light into the
darkness. Even the very names of the colonists we can read in the map, at
the places they seized and settled.

And so to write this story of Thorstein of the Mere—the _eponymus_ of
our Thurston-water (Coniston Lake)—is only as it were to string afresh
a handful of broken beads from an opened cairn. There was a Thorstein’s
saga, no doubt, once upon a time; or at least ballads of the giants on
the fell, and the invasion of Eadmund. “Thus sung, or would, or could,
or should have sung” the local skald. And there were old folk of the
last generation who would sit in the chimney-corner telling tales of the
past, fragmentary sagas, that had come down from they knew not where,
but fixed in form, and delivered with animation and with all the richness
of the rolling dialect. They were belated sagamen. They had forgotten
the Norse stories, but they kept the Norse style. To put a Thorstein’s
saga into the mouth of an old “Statesman” would strain truth but little,
imagination not at all.

The belated Sagaman, however, needs a little editing. As usual with his
tribe, he assumes that you take his allusions without explanation and
his statements without reference; while with a laudable curiosity some
readers ask for more than he gives. To satisfy them, and to justify him,
the following pages are added.


CHRONOLOGY.

  876. Danes from York under Halfdan take Carlisle (see pp. 21, 55.)

  880, or thereabouts, the first Norse settlements on Solway and
    Morecambe after Harold’s invasion of the Irish Sea (pp. 33, 34.)

  913. Ragnwald attacks the Isle of Man (p. 2.) _Swein comes to
    Greenodd_ (p. 3.)

  916-918. Ragnwald king in Waterford (pp. 2, 25.)

  920. Sigtrygg, driven from Dublin, invades Deira (p. 21.)

  923. Ragnwald takes York (p. 25.) Eadward takes Manchester (p.
    24.) _Thorstein born_ (p. 3.)

  924. Eadward fortifies Bakewell (p. 26.) The commendation of
    Scotland and Strathclyde (p. 27.)

  925. Eadward dies (p. 30.) Succeeded by Athelstan, who marries
    his sister to Sigtrygg (p. 37.)

  926. Great aurora about Easter time (p. 38.) Sigtrygg dies
    (p. 39.) Athelstan takes York; Sigtrygg’s sons escape (p.
    40.) Peace of Dacre, July 12 (p. 56.) Eadulf expelled from
    Bamborough (p. 55.)

  927. Guthferth and Olaf Cuaran take York, and are expelled by
    Athelstan (p. 72.)

  929 or 930. Althing established in Iceland (p. 76.)

  930. Athelstan grants Amounderness to York (p. 73.)

  931. About this time or later Olaf Cuaran marries Constantine’s
    daughter (p. 74.)

  932. _Althing at Legburthwaite_ (p. 78.)

  933. Constantine and Owain revolt; Athelstan ravages Scotland
    (p. 79.)

  934. _Thorstein finds Thurston-water, and is taken by the
    Fell-folk_ (pp. 80-104.)

  937. Great revolt of the North (pp. 113, 118.) Battle of Brunanburh
    (pp. 134, 138, 147, 155.) Athelstan founds St. Leonard’s at York
    (p. 252.) _Thorstein’s escape and return to Greenodd_ (pp.
    134-167.)

  938. _Thorstein goes to sea_ (pp. 177, 180.) Thorstein Codbiter
    drowned in Iceland (p. 184.) About this time Eric Bloodaxe
    expelled from Norway by Hakon (p. 186,) and set over York by
    Athelstan (p. 192.)

  939. _Thorstein visits Iceland and Norway_ (pp. 184-192), _and
    winters in London_ (pp. 193-195.)

  940. _Thorstein comes home in autumn_ (p. 196.) Athelstan dies
    October 25, succeeded by Eadmund (p. 203.)

  941. Revolt in the North; Eric expelled from York (p. 214.)
    _Thorstein marries Asdis_, June (p. 213.) Olaf takes York
    (pp. 214-215.) _Slaying of Orm and Doordoom at Blawith_ (pp.
    223-233.) _Thorstein at Cartmel during the winter_ (pp.
    239-244.)

  942. _Thorstein at York_ (pp. 245-255.) Olaf Guthferson killed
    (pp. 247, 255.) _Thorstein marries Raineach and settles on Peel
    Island, autumn_ (pp. 255-264.)

  943. _Swein Thorsteinson born, August_ (p. 268.)

  944. _Thorstein Thorsteinson born, Christmas_ (p. 270.)

  945. _Attack on Peel Island, February_ (pp. 274-280.) Eadmund
    ravages Galloway and Cumbria, expels Domhnaill, and grants the
    land to Malcolm (pp. 284, 295.) _Death of Thorstein, June_ (p.
    294).

  946. Eadmund killed May 26 (p. 303.)

  960. Thored ravages Westmorland (p. 304.)

  975. Domhnaill dies at Rome.

  1000. Ethelred ravages Cumberland (pp. 37, 304.)

THE MAPS (pp. 32 and 50) are in the last degree tentative, and offered
only as graphic suggestions of the state of the country in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, rather later than the actual period of the story.

The Roman roads must have been more or less practicable, and though in
disrepair, like the ruined roads of China, the only available lines of
march for an army or of travel for trade. In drawing them, Chancellor
Ferguson (Histories of Cumberland and Westmorland, and sketch map in the
Archæological Survey, Archæologia, Vol. LIII.) has been followed, with
one or two expressions of uncertainty. Near Thirlmere the old road on the
western bank has been traditionally considered as the original track,
_via_ the Steading Stone, and the ford with the so-called Celtic bridge;
all of which is now destroyed. Some path thence to Threlkeld along the
vale of St. John seems reasonable. The road from Satterthwaite to Dalton
is doubtful; I have given alternative routes, after consultation with Mr.
H. Swainson Cowper, the district secretary of the Society of Antiquaries
and co-editor of the Survey. From the Thingstead at Fellfoot some path
must have been practicable southward, and a study of the ground has
suggested the straight course to Coniston. Thence the mines’ produce went
to Ambleside, West says; but the name Greetagate indicates a road from
Duddon Sands to Broughton, and towards Coniston, ancient, if not Roman.

As I have filled the maps with names I suppose I must explain
them. Those in capitals I take to be Celtic; a few such as Dacor,
Penningtun, Stank, are Anglian and pre-Norse. In Vídhborran, Glæsartún,
Kilvestravegr, Berrhöfudsegg, may be Celtic loan-words which I have
elsewhere discussed (“Some Manx Names in Cumbria,” Trans. C. & W. Ant.
Soc.) and rendered as Wide-ruin, Brook-town, Cell of the west road, and
Road-head’s edge. Alinskálar, formerly Alinschales, now Elliscales, and
Alinthveit, formerly Allinthwaite, now Allithwaite, may be connected with
“Helen,”—the chapel of St. Helen being near the former, the latter near
a Holy-well, and both on the Roman road; thus pointing to the patroness
of roads and wells in Yorkshire and Wales (see Elton, “Origins,” p. 322).
The rest are simply old Norse equivalents of the oldest known forms. In
reading them the old pronunciation must be given as far as possible.
Vigfusson and Powell (Icelandic Reader, p. 467,) give _á_ as in _father_
(though _Báss_ becomes “bowse,” and ásmundarljá becomes Osmotherley). Y
short is like the French _u_; ý long like the German _ü_. The diphthongs
_au_, _ei_, _ey_, have the force of the component vowels. V is our _w_;
_j_ our _y_; þ is sharp _th_ (_thing_;) ð is flat _th_ (_the_) or _dh_.
The terminal _r_ of the nominative was dropped in pronunciation. So
read, many names are identical with modern local forms; and few can be
explained at all except as survivals from the Norse.

 _Old Norse._         _Mediæval._       _Modern._       _Meaning._

 Alpt                                   Alps            Swan
 Angra-tún            Angertun          Angerton        Bay-town
 Armingja-vadh (_cf._ Ermyngthweit)     Armboth         Poor-folk’s-wath
 Arna-sídha           Arneside          Arnside         Arni’s hillside
 Aska-heim            Askhome           Askam           Ash-home
 Asmundar-ljá         Asmunderlawe      Osmotherley     Asmund’s lea
 Aur-gröf             Ourgrave          Orgrave         Clay-pit
 Baæsinga-brunnr      Bassingburne      Baisbrown       Outlaw’s well
 Bakka-borg                             Backbarrow      Bank-burg
 Barr-ey              Barray            Barrow          Barley-isle
 Bás-fold                               Bousfield       Byre-field
 Beyka-stadhr                           Bowkerstead     Cooper’s stead
 Birk-hryggr                            Birkrigg        Birch ridge
 Blár vidhr           Blawyth           Blawith         Blue wood
 Blá tjörn                              Blea tarn       Blue tarn
 Blátt vatn (or vatr)                   Blea water      Blue water
 Blá vík                                Blowick         Blue Bay
 Bleikr holmr                           Blake holm      Yellow holm
 Borgar-dalr          Borcheredale      Borrowdale      Burg-dale
 Borgar-tún           Borch             Broughton       Burg-town
 Brautar-kjarr        Bottocar          Bethecar        Road-copse
 Brautar-vatn         Broaderwater      Brothers-water  Road-water
 Brekku-myrr          Brackmere         Thirlmere       Motehill-mere
 Brim-fell (from its form)              Brim fell       Breaking-wave fell
 Brott-haugr                            Brotto          Road-howe
 Búdh                 Bowth             Bouth           Booth
 Bygg-land                              Bigland         Barley-land
 Dal-tún              Daltún            Dalton          Dale-town
 Djúpr dalr           Depedale          Deepdale        Deep dale
 Dökkrá               Docwra            Dockwray        Dark nook
 Drjúg-mýrr                             Droomer         Dreigh-mire
 Dunna-dalr(?)        Dundersdale       Dunnerdale      Wild-duck’s dale
 Dunna-holmr          Dunerholme        Dunnerholm      Wild-duck’s holm
 Elra-thveit                            Ellerthwaite    Elder-thwaite
 Eng                  (Hall-)inge       Ings            Meadow
 Epla-thveit          Aplethwate        Applethwaite    Apple-thwaite
 Esju-dalr     (_cf._ Eschedale         Easedale        Clay-dale
                         _I.o.M._)
 Fagrt fold                             Fairfield       Fair-field
 Fins-thveit          Finnesthwait      Finsthwaite     Fin’s thwaite
 Fjor-greina-gil                        Farragrain-gill Four-branches-gill
 Flat-skógr    (_cf._ Flascoo, _Holm_)  Flaska          Flat wood
 Flokka-borg          Flokeberew        Flookburgh      Host-burg
 Folks-fold    (_cf._ Foxdale _I.o.M._) Foxfield        People’s field
 Forn-sídha           Fornside          Fornside        Ancient seat
 Froska-vegr (? the road that jumps)    Froswick        Frog’s path
 Gafl          (_cf._ Gaflfell          Gavel           Gable
                         _Iceland_)
 Gardha-gröf   (_cf._ Grauff _I.o.M._)  Gargreave       Garth-trench
 Gardhar                                Guards          Garths
 Gardh-skógr          Garthscoh         Gascow          Garth wood
 Geirlods-vardha      Gerleuuorde       ?Ireleth        Geirlod’s beacon
 Godha-bjarg                            Goadsbarrow     Priest’s barrow
 Godha-thveit                           Goathwaite      Priest’s thwaite
 Gras-mýrr            Gresmer           Grasmere        Grass-mere
 Grettis-thveit       Graythwait        Graythwaite     Gretti’s thwaite
 Grísa-dalr           Grisedale         Grisdale        Pigs’ dale
 Græn hóp                               Greenup         Green inlet
 Grænn kambr                            Greencomb       Green crest
 Grænn oddr (or oddi)                   Greenodd        Green point
 Grænn skógr                            Greenscow       Green wood
 Gunnars-haugr                          Gummershow      Gunnar’s howe
 Grýtá, Grjotá        Greata            Greta           Stony river
 Grýta-gata                             Greetygate      Stony path
 Hafra-thveit         Haverthwaite      Haverthwaite    Oats-thwaite
 Hákonar-setr         Haukenshead       Hawkshead       Hakon’s seat
 Hall-stadhr                            Hallstead       Rock-stead
 Hamal’s setr         Hamelsate         Ambleside       Hamal’s seat
 Hát kot              Hawcott           Hawcoat         High cott
 Hauks-völlr                            Hawkswell       Hawk’s field
 Heidha-thveit                          Heathwaite      Heath-thwaite
 Hjalmr               High Haume _and_ Helm Crag        Helmet
 Hjörts-hóp           Harteshopp        Hartsop         Hart’s inlet
 Hlad-steinar                           Ladstones       Pile-stones
 Hol-bekkr                              Holebeck        Hollow-beck
 Hóla-kjarr                             Holker          Knoll-copse
 Hóll-thveit                            Hoathwaite      Knoll-thwaite
 Hörgs-hlídh          (_Same in         Arklid          Holy-place
                        Iceland_)                         fellside
 Hramns-ey     (_cf._ Ramsey, _I.o.M._) Ramsey          Raven’s isle
 Hramns-sídha         Rammesheved       Rampside        Raven’s seat
 Hreins-bjarg                           Rainsbarrow     Reindeer’s crag
 Hreysa-thveit                          Raisethwaite    Cairn-thwaite
 Hrossa-thveit (_cf._ Rozefell,         Rosethwaite     Horse-thwaite
                         _I.o.M._)
 Hunda-haugr                            Hundhow         Hound’s howe
 Hválla-thveit        Wallthwaite       Wallthwaite     Hill-thwaite
 Hválla-tún           Walletun          Walton          Hill-town
 Hvelps-sídha         Quelpsat          Whelpside       Whelp’s seat
 Ikorna-thveit        Yccornethewayt    Ickenthwaite    Squirrels’-thwaite
 Illt bál                               Ill Bell        Evil beacon
 Jarls-sídha          Yerlisyde         Yarlside        Earl’s seat
 Jatgars-hlidh        Eadgarslithe      Adgarley        Edgar’s fellside
 Kalfa-gardhr         Calvgarth         Calgarth        Calves’ garth
 Kaup-rönd     (_cf._ Cowper, _Cumb._)  Cowprond        Traders’ shore
 Keldu-rá                               Keldray         Well-nook
 Ketels-veggr  (_cf._ Ketelton, Kelton) Keswick         Ketel’s wall
 Kirkju-bær           Cherchebi         Kirkby          Church-farm
 Klapparnes-gata                        Clappersgate    Jutting-rock road
 Kleif                Clayf             Claife          Cliff
 Klifa-tún            Clivertune        Cleverton       Cliff-town
 Kolla-tún            Colton            Colton          Town on a peak
 Kolla-vidhr                            Colwith         Wood on a peak
 Kollr                                  Caw             Peak
 Konungs-á            Consey            Cunsey          King’s river
 Konungs-hæd          Cunningsheved     Conishead       King’s headland
 Konungs-tún          Connyngeston      Coniston        King’s town
 Kötts-stiga-kambr    (Casticand,       Catstycam       Cat’s-path-crest
                        _Camden_)
 Langidalr            Langedene         Langdale        Long dale
 Látra-bjarg          (_same in         Latterbarrow    Lair-crag
                        Iceland_)
 Laudha-fors   (_cf._ Lowther)          Lodore          Foam-force
 Laufa-veggr          Laufwic           Lowick          Leaf-wall
 Laun-skáli                             Lonscale        Lone-shed
 Lá-vatn                                Low water       Shallow water
 Leyni-brekka                           Lenibrick       Covert-brink
 Lin-dalr             Lindale           Lindal          Flax-dale
 Lög-hryggr           Lochrigg          Loughrigg       Lake-ridge
 Lög-berg                               Legbarrow       Law-burg
 Lög-borgar-thveit                      Legburthwaite   Law-burg-thwaite
 Lundr                                  Lund            Grove
 Lyng-mór             Lyngemouthe       Lingmoor        Ling-moor
 Mana-hryggr   (_cf._ Mansergh)         Mansriggs       Moon’s-ridge
 Mela-fell                              Mellfell        Bent-grass fell
 Mósi-dalr                              Mosedale        Moss-dale
 Mæri-höll                              Merry hall      Border-hall
 Mær-tún              Meretun           Marton          Border-town
 Nauta-dalr                             Naddale         Neats’-dale
 Ný-borgar-thveit     Newburthwait      Nibthwaite      New-burg-thwaite
 Ný-bygging           Newbigging        Newbiggin       New settlement
 Ný-tun               Neutun            Newton          New town
 Orma-thveit          Ormathwaite       Ormathwaite     Snakes’ thwaite
 Orms-gil                               Ormsgill        Orm’s gill
 Orröstu-hæd                            Orrest head     Battle headland
 Ösp                                    Esps            Aspen
 Öxna-fell            Oxynfelde         Oxenfell        Oxen-fell
 Polla-vík                              Poolwyke        Pool-bay
 Rá                                     Wray            Nook
 Raudhr völlr                           Rathvale        Red-field
 Rauds-ey                               Roudsey         Raud’s isle
 Raudh skrídha                          Red Screes      Red scree
 Reyd-á               Routha            Rotha           Trout-river
 Reynis-hals          Wreneshals        Wrynose         Pass of the rowan
 Rolfs-land           Rolesland         Rusland         Rolf’s land
 Rolfs-setr                             Rosset          Rolf’s seat
 Ruga-dalr            Rydale            Rydal           Rye-dale
 Runna-hæd            Ronhed            Roanhead        Grove-headland
 Sæta-haugr                             Satterhow       Chalet-howe
 Sæta-thveit          Saterthwait       Satterthwaite   Chalet-thwaite
 Sand-gate                              Sandgate        Path over sands
 Sand-skáli           Sandescale        Sandscale       Sand-shed
 Saudha-gata          Soutergate        Soutergate      Sheep-path
 Saudha-stadhr                          Southerstead    Sheep-stead
 Saur-bær             Sourebi           Sowerby         Mud-farm
 Seta-hóll                              Seatle          Seat-hill
 Skála-gil                              Scalegill       Shed-gill
 Skálar               Scales            Scales          Sheds, halls
 Skála-vidhr          Skelwith          Skelwith        Shed-wood
 Skardha-thveit       Skafthwait        Scathwaite      Gap-thwaite
 Skrídha-thveit                         Scrithwaite     Scree-thwaite
 Stafa-hlídh   (_cf._ Stavenerge)       Staveley        Staff-hillside
 Steina-hlídh         Staynerleth       Stennerley      Stony hillside
 Stein-tún            Steintun          Stainton        Stone-town
 Stein-vegr           Stanwick          Stenock         Stone-way
 Stikill                                Stickle         Peak
 Sumar-hóll                             Summerhill      Pasture-hill
 Svartr mór           Swartmore         Swarthmoor      Swart moor
 Svina-brekka         Swenebrec         Sunbrick        Swine-brink
 Sydhri-borgar-thveit                   Subberthwaite   South-burg-thwaite
 Tangi                                  Tongue          Tongue
 Thröng                                 Thrang          Narrow pass
 Thröng-kelda         _fons de_         Trinkeld        Narrow well
                        Trankeld
 Thorolfs-kelda       Thirilkelde       Threlkeld       Thorolf’s well
 Thyrni-thveit                          Thornthwaite    Thorn-thwaite
 Tjald-borgar-thveit  Tilderburghthwait Tilberthwaite   Tent-burg-thwaite
 Trödha-bekkr         Truttebeck        Troutbeck       Pasture-beck
 Ulfa-á               Ulfay             Ulpha           Wolves’-water
 Ulfa-dalr            Ulldale           Yewdale         Wolves’-dale
 Ulfa-knútr                             Woolknot        Wolves’-rock
 Ulfa-skardh                            Ullscarf        Wolves’-gap
 Ulfars-tún           Ulvrestune        Ulverston       Ulfar’s town
 Ulfs-vatn                              Ullswater       Ulf’s lake
 Urdha-veggr          Ursewic           Urswick         Stone-walls
 Vala-bjarg                             Wallabarrow     Hawks’-crag
 Vanga-thveit                           Wanthwaite      Garden-thwaite
 Vatns-hladha         Wattenland        Watendlath      Barn by the water
 Vedhra-hjalmr        (_clouded before  Wetherlam       Weather-helmet
                          rain_)
 Veit-heim                              Waitham         Ditch-howe
 Vé-skógr             (_near “Druid     Wescow          Temple-wood
                        circle.”_)
 Vidha-haugr                            Wythow          Wood-howe
 Vík-hús                                Wykehouse       Bay-house

Many of these names deserve further explanation and illustration, and
some may be thought doubtful. The confusion between _vegr_, road, and
_veggr_, wall; _hlídh_, fellside, and _hlidh_, gate; and that between
_setr_, seat, _sætr_, chalet, _sídha_, country-side, and _hæd_, head,
must be allowed for.


NOTES TO THE STORY.

_Frontispiece and Title._ The two pages together give the view from
Lake-bank at the foot of Coniston Water, to illustrate pp. 67, 68. Over
Thorstein’s head is the Old Man; in the middle of the lake is Peel
Island (p. 261,) above it, Fairfield, with Helvellyn (pp. 119, 288,)
to the left. Under Helvellyn is Yewdale crag, with the White Lady (p.
117). Between Helvellyn and Fairfield is Grizedale Hause (p. 300). Under
Fairfield is Nab Scar (p. 51). The lower points are easy to recognise.
The frames of the views are imitated from Norse doorways; the design over
the title illustrates p. 142.

P. 1. _Bardi Ottarson_: slain 913 according to the Ulster Annals
(Johnstone, Antiq. Celto-Normannicæ, p. 66) or 914, Sir J. Ware’s
Antiq. Hibernicæ (op. cit. p. 77). Skene (Celtic Scotland, I. p. 347)
reads Barid mac n-Octir, and explains “son of Ottir.” I suppose Barid
(Johnstone’s Barred) is Irish for Bardi; and that the headquarters of
this viking were near the scene of the action, _i.e._, in Man, which had
been deserted some 30 years before, in the time of Harald’s invasion
(Heimskringla, Harald, c. 22).

_Ketil Flatnose_ is named as one of the settlers in Iceland who had been
christened (Landnámabók). By other accounts he died in the South-isles
(Eyrb. Saga, c. 5). He is, however, by no means an easy subject for a
biographer; compare Skene (Celt. Scot. I. p. 312,) with Eyrb. Saga, c. I.

P. 2. _Unna_, Una, Unn. Aud, Ketel’s daughter, is so called by Dasent
(Burnt Njál, II. p. 240). Another Unn was her grand-daughter (Eyrb. c.
7). Another Una is mentioned in Grettis Saga, c. 3, as having a cousin
Konal; which connects the name with Ireland and suggests Fin McCoul’s
Oonagh and Spenser’s Una.

P. 2. _Ragnwald_, variously spelt and corresponding to Ranald, Ronald and
Reginald, was one of the grand-sons of Ivar, who play so great a part in
the period that it is perhaps worth giving a pedigree of the chief names,
for reference throughout the story. Ragnwald himself is important because
discrepancies in various accounts of his death have been used by partisan
writers to throw doubt on the Commendation of Scotland to Eadward. His
biography is, however, no more confused than any other for which we have
to gather materials from widely divergent sources.

                      RAGNAR LODBROK
                      845 at Paris.
                            |
       +--------+-----------+---+--------------+
       |        |               |              |
     IVAR    HALFDAN         GUTHORM         HUBBA and others.
   867 York  876 Carlisle.   876 baptised
    873 d.                   as Æthelstan.
       |
    daughter (Skene, I. p. 353) =? GUTHFERTH, k. of York 883-894
       |                             (Lapp. II. p. 60.)
    +--+----------+---------------+---------------------+
    |             |               |                     |
  IVAR         RAGNWALD       SIGTRYGG             GUTHFERTH
  903 Dunkeld  913 Man        to 919 k. of Dublin  920 k. of Dublin
  904 d.       918 Waterford  succ. Ragnwald       933 d.
               923 York       as k. of York             |
                              925 d.                    |
                                  |                     |
         +--------------+---------+       +-------------+------+
         |              |         |       |                    |
      OLAF CUARAN    GUTHFERTH  HARALD  OLAF                RAGNWALD
      952-980 king   950 k. of    |     933 k. of Dublin    944 at York
      of Dublin      Dublin.      |     937 at Brunanburh   with O.
      d. at Iona.                 |     942 d. Tyningham.   Cuaran.
         |                        |
     +---+-----------+          +-+----------+
     |               |          |            |
  RAGNWALD       SIGTRYGG     MAGNUS      GUTHFERTH
  980 d. Tara.   SILKBEARD    (Maccus)    977 k. of Man
                 1008 k.      k. of Man   986 d.
                 in Ireland.  977 d.

He attacks Barid at the Isle of Man 913 or 914: seizes Waterford 916
(Ulster Annals,) and is driven out by the Irish 918. He is, perhaps,
the Hroald (Ronald) who comes with Ohtor (Ottar jarl) from Brittany to
attack Wales, 918 (A.-S. chron.) or 915 (Florence of Worcester). Beaten
off, he goes home to Ireland, and hence with Ottar and Osulf Cracabam or
Cracaban, (“Kraki’s bane”?) he attacks Scotland:—Symeon of Durham (_Ed._
Hodgson Hinde, p. 63,) says he ravaged “Dunbline” in 912; the anonymous
history of St. Cuthbert (_op. cit._ p. 147,) makes him conquer the Scots
at “Corebricge”; the Ulster Annals give him an important victory, in
917 (_Ed._ Johnstone,) or 918 (_Ed._ Skene, “Chronicles of the Picts
and Scots”;) the Pictish Chronicle (same vol. p. 9,) makes the battle
at “Tinemore,” and Ragnwald beaten; the “wars of the Gaedhil and Gaill”
kill him off, along with Ottar; others let him escape. Skene tries to
reconcile these accounts (Celtic Scotland, I. pp. 347, 348,) but refuses
to make a similar attempt for the rest of the story.

Leaving Scotland he invades Bernicia and then Deira; and takes York, 923
(A.-S. Chron.) or 919 (Symeon, corrected and confirmed by Hodgson Hinde,
preface p. lii). The Saxon Chronicle says he was one of the kings who
commended themselves to Eadward, 924; but the Ulster Annals make him die
in 920 (Johnstone,) or 921 (Skene). Skene suggests (Celt. Scot. I. p.
350,) that Florence ante-dates the Commendation to get Ragnwald in; Canon
Raine (York, p. 37,) adopts the Saxon Chronicle date, but identifies this
Ragnwald with Olaf Cuaran’s ally 20 years later (R. Guthferthson, see
pedigree,) and accounts for his absence by an invasion of France (on the
suggestion of Lappenberg, following Frodoard).

In all this, real events seem to be reported by totally independent
chroniclers, each with his own partisan bias, and different system of
chronology. But one does not invalidate the other. Ragnwald may well have
won York, attended the Commendation, left York to his brother Sigtrygg,
invaded France and died within a short time; though whether this was
919-921 or 923-925 may be left an open question.

P. 4. _Norse house_, see Dasent’s preface to Burnt Njál. It may be said
here that the dress, manners, &c., of the story are based on sagas or
archæological evidence, compared with Lake District characteristics,
which it would be tedious to point out in every instance: as for example—

P. 5. _Chats_, twigs. Long logs: there is a story told of Coniston Hall,
and elsewhere, that when such a log had been three days burning, whoop!
out flew an owl.

P. 11. _Toy boats_ of chip. “Harald (afterwards Hardradi) was sailing
chips on the water. Olaf asked him what they were; he said they were his
war-ships.” (St. Olaf’s saga).

P. 13. _White linen sark._ Anderson (Scotland in Pagan times: Iron Age,
p. 30) shows linen smoothers of glass, used in getting up vikings’ shirts.

P. 18. _Howe_; Eyrb. 38, and Magnússon’s Note, p. 277. The path is
through the wood over the railway station.

P. 20. _Arnold’s-by_, Arnolby (_temp._ Ed. I.) Arnaby.

P. 21. _Sigurd’s hörg_ Sigarith-erge (_temp._ Ric. I.) Sizergh.

_Donal_: Duvenaldus filius Ede rex eligitur (Pictish Chronicle) _i.e._,
Domhnaill or Donal mac Aedh, brother of Constantine; reigned over
Strathclyde and Cumbria about 908-925.

_Cartmel_, given by Ecgfrith to St. Cuthbert 677, “with the Britons on
it.”

_Halfdan._ A coin of “HALFDAN REX” found at Castlehead, Grange, suggests
that his conquest was widespread.

P. 22. _Ketel_, supposed founder of Kelswick on the Solway.

_Dundraw_ (_cf._ Dunderrow, Ireland,) “hill of oaks.”

P. 23. _Sigtrygg_; see pedigree. In the English form Sihtric. “919.
Sigtrygg m’ Ivar by the Divine power was forced to leave Dublin” (Ulster
Annals); he came to Deira, and succeeded Ragnwald at York.

P. 24. _Manchester_ taken by Eadward 923 (A.-S. Chron.)

P. 25. _Bakewell._ Eadward “went into Peakland to Bakecanwell and
commanded a town to be built nigh thereunto, and manned. And then chose
him to father and to lord the Scots king and all the Scots’ people,
and Rægnald, and Eadulf’s son, and all those who dwell in Northumbria
as well English as Danes, _and Northmen_, and others, and eke the
Strathclyde Welshmen’s king and all the Strathclyde Welsh” (A.-S. Chron.
924; Florence, 921). As Freeman (Norman Conquest, I. p. 578) points out,
it is not said that the Commendation took place at Bakewell; but the
text suggests it, enough at least for the purpose of a story. Sigtrygg
is not named, but implied among the Danes. The mention of _Northmen_,
as distinguished from Danes, indicates that Norse vikings were already
settled in what is now the North of England, and such a settlement could
hardly have been any other than ours on Solway and Morecambe Bay.

P. 30. _Death of Eadward_, 924 or 925 (A.-S. Chron., &c.)

P. 31. _Pennington_: the Castle hill is described by Mr. H. Swainson
Cowper (Ancient Settlements, &c., of Furness, Archæologia, Vol. LIII.)
The name shows it to be Anglian, the settlement of the family of Pæninga,
Penning, Penny, and therefore pre-Norse. Swarthmoor is so named before
Martin Schwartz, though the origin of the name is only a guess.

P. 37. _Eathgita_, Roger of Wendover, 925.

P. 41. _Athelstan._ William of Malmesbury describes him (II. 6). In
this “saga” the Norse form is used instead of Æthelstan, as Sigtrygg
for Sihtric, &c. Eadward, however, and Eadmund correspond to the Norse
Jatvard, Jatmund.

P. 52. _Donal_, Donevaldus, d. 908, was the last king of Strathclyde
claiming Roman descent (Skene, Celtic Scotland, I. p. 346.)

P. 53. _City of Helvellyn_, Wythburn. The cyclopean wall of this
“wide-borran” is now partly submerged. One section of it is taken to
be the remains of a circle by the Rev. S. Barber, “Beneath Helvellyn’s
Shade.”

P. 55. _Picts of Galloway_, read “Gaels of Scotland,” if the view be
taken that all Picts were Ivernian.

P. 55-60. _Dacor_, Dacre, so spelt (Bede, Ecc. Hist. IV. 32,) to
disconnect the name from the false etymology D’Acre. The Rev. Canon
Mathews and the Rev. W. S. Calverley, F.S.A., (Trans. C. & W. Antiq.
Soc., Vol. XI. Art. 18,) are followed as to the origin of the Dacre
stone. The place of meeting, Emont, is a well-known _crux_. The initial
is from an original sketch, with the plait down the edge of the stone
turned into the curve of the D. Prof. George Stephens (Northern
Mythology, S. 13,) considers that the Hart symbolizes Christ. The
dedication of the church points to Wilfrith as founder.

P. 59. _Peaceful settlement of Northmen_, see the Rev. T. Ellwood
(Landnámabók, pp. iii, iv). The law of Athelstan is given in Wilkin’s
Leges A.-S., quoted by Baines (Lancashire, I. p. 52).

P. 64. _Signy and Sigmund_, Völsunga Saga, 7.

P. 69. _Anglo-cymric Score_, Rev. T. Ellwood (Trans. Cumb. Assoc. VIII.
p. 97.)

P. 72. _Thingstead at Fellfoot_, Thingvöllr on map, p. 50; described by
Mr. H. S. Cowper (Trans. C. & W. Antiq. Soc., XI. p. 1).

_Guthferth’s invasion_: A.-S. Chron. and Wendover, 927; Skene, Celtic
Scotland, I. p. 251. William of Malmesbury, II. 6, makes him G.
Sigtryggson, but Guthferth O’Ivar was then king of Dublin (Ulster Annals).

P. 74. _Olaf Cuaran’s marriage_, Florence, 938. It may have been brought
about by the invasion of Scotland mentioned under 931 in a fragment of
Irish annals (Chron. P. & S. p. 407).

P. 76. _Iceland Althing_ founded 929 or 930 (Landn.)

P. 79. _Ravaging of Scotland_, A.-S. Chron. and Wendover, 933; Florence,
934.

P. 92. _Heathwaite Settlement_, described by Mr. H. S. Cowper (Ancient
Settlements, &c., of Furness). He does not, however, accept the beehive
hut, which I think I see in one of the cairns: nor is he responsible
for the notion that the place was inhabited in the 10th century.
The legend—though legends are not evidence—suggests that it was
inhabited down to times of which local memory takes notice, _i.e._,
to the colonization of the neighbourhood by the ancestors of present
inhabitants. And the fell-folk of Heathwaite could not have been kin to
their neighbours in the dales, or they would not have been looked on as
giants. The Rev. F. Evans, of Ulverston, found calcined bones in the
“Giant’s Grave,” from which Dr. Barber (Furness and Cartmel Notes, p.
35,) thinks that it was a Viking interment. And yet there must have been
Gaels, as well as Cymry, in the district, especially in the wilder parts,
as shewn by a few Gaelic names; and these Caledonian Gaels seem to have
been distinguished by their tallness and their red hair, like Ironhook in
Kingsley’s “Hereward.”

P. 112. _The Brough_, Borch, Borg, at Broughton, possibly an early
fortress.

P. 113. _Confederation_ of Dublin Danes, Scots and Cumbrians, 937,
leading up to Brunanburh.

P. 119. _Armboth Settlement_ has been previously mentioned by Mr. W.
Wilson (Trans. Cumb. and West. Assoc., IX. p. 62). These rectangular
buildings, similar to others in the district, generally near Roman roads,
connected with cairns, and in this case with a British fort; certainly
not sheep-folds nor peat-sheds, seem to be post-Roman, and may have been
inhabited at this time by “poor-folk,” Armings; whence perhaps the name
Armboth.

P. 126. _Domhnaill_, so spelt to distinguish him from previous Donals, is
called by Roger of Wendover Dummail, and in local tradition Dunmail. The
legend is that he loved a “fairy” in the Thirlmere valley; exchanged his
torque for her ring; deserted her for a beautiful captive; and was led
to destruction by her vengeance. He was, historically, king from about
937 to 945 or 946, when Eadmund defeated him and put out his sons’ eyes
(Wendover, 946). He seems to have regained some portion of his power,
perhaps as sub-king to Malcolm or leader of Gall-gaedhil in Demetia
(Pembrokeshire.) He may be the Donvald, father of Andarch in 971 (Skene,
Celt. Scot. I. p. 367) and the Dufnall of Florence (corruptly Dusual in
Wendover) who was one of the Celtic kings at Chester in 973. St. Cadroe
visited him before his fall (Vita St. C. in Chron. Picts and Scots, p.
116,) and he died on pilgrimage to Rome 975 (Ulster Annals, and Annals of
Tighernac).

P. 127. _Mineralogy_ of Cockrigg gill. Of the Armboth and Helvellyn dyke,
Mr. Clifton Ward (Geol. of the Northern Lakes, p. 34) says: “In a dull
red felspathic base are numerous crystals of pink felspar and quartz,
together with sparsely scattered green mica, and some of the same soft,
steatitic-looking mineral as in the St. John’s quartz felsite.” He
mentions (p. 103) how this dyke creates “doors” or chasms.

P. 131. _The mysterious fire_, immense and yet unconsuming, is one of the
forms of the well-known Dalehead “Boggle”; like other such appearances, a
piece of widespread folklore, localized at this point, which is rich in
ghosts.

P. 141. _Birches._ Where heather is, birches grew, and the roots are
visible. The rolling forms of Kirkfell etc., are remarkable from
Ullscarf, as are the monstrous shapes of boulders and hummocks near
Bleatarn. But the blue railings of the Manchester Corporation boundary
discount the romance, unless you get very tired and hungry, and meet a
thunderstorm.

P. 162. _Fox and Geese._ I have taken some liberty with the pieces in the
picture. The “fox-game” was played with 12 lambs and a fox (Magnússon’s
Note to Grettis Saga, 70). The pieces were, however, carved as animals:
see figures in Du Chaillu’s Viking Age, II. p. 354, and elsewhere.

P. 183. _Orkney dynasty_: Orkneyinga Saga. I.

P. 184. _Thora’s connections_: Combining the above with Eyrb.
(Magnússon’s Genealogy,) we get the pedigree opposite.

P. 186. _Hakon the good._ For his life and character see Heimskringla,
Hakon, 6, 11, 15-18, 32.

P. 191. _Bishop Aelfheah_ or Elphege the Bald, a relative of Dunstan,
bishop of Winchester 935-951 (Florence). Roger of Wendover gives
legendary details.

                         KETEL FLATNOSE.
                              |
                             AUD = OLAF the White.
                                 |
                              THORSTEIN the Red.
                                 |
                    +---------+--+---------+
                    |         |            |
     =  THOROLF  = UNN    OLAF FEILAN    GROA = DUNCAN    TURF EINAR
     | MOSTBEARD |            |               |               |
     |           |          +-+-----+         |          +----+----+
     |           |          |       |         |          |         |
  HALLSTEIN   THORSTEIN = THORA   THORD     GRELAUG = THORFIN    ARNKEL
     |        CODBITER  |         GELLIR                          and
  THORSTEIN          THORGRIM                                    ERLEND
   SWART                |
                      SNORRI the Priest.

P. 192. _Eric at York_ has been thought unhistorical; but mention of
the fact is given by such independent witnesses as A.-S. Chron. 948;
Florence, 949; Symeon of Durham, Hist. Reg. 948; and Hist. Cont. sub.
ann. 1072; Roger of Wendover, 950; Heimskringla, Hakon, 3; Egils Saga,
72; Life of St. Cadroe (Chron. P. and S. p. 116).

P. 214. _Eadmund and Eric_: Hakon, 4. Invasion of Olaf, A.-S. Chron.
and Florence 941; and Symeon 940; from whose accounts it is clear that
Wendover is wrong in making the leader on this occasion to be Olaf
Cuaran. For the road by which the invasion was made see Skene, Celt.
Scot. I. p. 361.

P. 216. _Athacliath_, the Celtic name, which Domhnaill would use, for
Dublin.

P. 225. _Doordoom_, hence the dialect _durdom_, uproar. The regulations
mentioned are given by Magnússon. Note to Eredweller’s Story, p. 275.
_Whittlegate_, “knife-road,” free play to one’s knife; and (p. 243)
_addle w._ “to earn board,” from ödhlaz, to earn. _Hold up_, to clear;
_cf._ “das Wetter hellt sich auf.”

P. 230. _Hundred of silver_, _i.e._, 120 ells of cloth paid in silver;
about £4 10s. in our money, but worth much more where coin was scarce
(Dasent, Burnt Njál, Appendix).

P. 244. _Abbot of York._ The dignitary now called “Dean” was styled Abbas
(Raine, York, p. 166).

P. 247. _Death of Olaf_, Symeon and Wendover, 941.

P. 249. _Marriage of Olaf_, Wendover, 940.

P. 252. _St. Peter’s_, Raine, York, p. 187.

P. 253. _Aelberht’s minster_, built 8th century after a fire; restored
after the capture by the Danes (Raine, York, p. 148).

P. 260. _Peel Island._ The traces of building marked on the map have
been partly excavated by the present writer, but it would be premature
to offer any definite opinion on their age. The place seems to have been
fortified.

P. 288. _The Host of Weird._ A spectre army, as described in the story,
was seen on Helvellyn on the eve of the Battle of Marston Moor. On
Midsummer Eve, 1735, and again on Midsummer Eve, 1737 and 1745, similar
effects were seen on Souter Fell, to the immediate north of the Helvellyn
range. In the last case some of the rebel forces were exercising on
the Scotch coast, and it was explained by the _Lonsdale Magazine_ that
the movements of the troops had been reflected “by some transparent
vapour similar to the _fata morgana_,” (Survey of the Lake District,
Miss Harriet Martineau, in Whellan’s Cumberland and Westmorland). In
our story, Eadmund’s advance on Threlkeld sufficiently accounts for the
mirage.

P. 291. _Eadmund_, “with the aid of Leoling, king of South Wales, ravaged
the whole of Cumberland and put out the eyes of the two sons of Dummail,
king of that province. He then granted that kingdom to Malcolm, king of
the Scots, to hold of himself, with a view to defend the northern parts
of England from hostile invasions by sea and land,” Wendover, 946: the
A.-S. chron. and Florence make it 945: Welsh annals give 944 and 946. All
suggest that the whole business was a punitive expedition to clear the
north-western coast of Viking settlers, and to provide against attack
from that quarter in future. That it was unsuccessful is seen from
the fact that a similar invasion was made 55 years later. In 924 the
_Northmen_ swore to Eadward; in 945 their settlements were the object of
Eadmund’s attack; in 1000 they were again attacked by Ethelred. These
are the points at which the Norse settlement of the Lake district comes
into contact with general English history, and is corroborated by it. The
third point is accepted by Mr. Freeman and others; the first two I think
worth consideration.

P. 303. _Eadmund’s death_, St. Augustine’s Day, May 26, 946, at the hands
of Leof the robber. In a saga, the hero must be avenged before the story
comes to a close.

P. 304. _Penalties of Wythburn_, the bye-laws of an ancient parish
parliament held at the Steading Stone: penalties for turning out too many
sheep on the fell, allowing horses and cattle to stray, defiling the
beck, &c. “A copy of this document is at present (1883) in the possession
of Mr. Graves, ex-Mayor of Manchester,” (Mr. W. Wilson, Trans. C. & W.
Assoc. IX. p. 64).

_The Redheads._ Throughout the Middle Ages the villages of High Furness
were inhabited by clans, as in Scotland. Records show that in Henry
VIII.’s time at Nibthwaite all were Redheads (West, Antiq. of Furness,
Ed. 1822, p. 32).



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