Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln by Charles W. Whistler (free children's ebooks online TXT) 📗

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Nay, wife," he said; "you cannot understand."

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

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

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

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

"It is well said, Leva, my wife," my father answered.

From that time he was cheerful, and told us how it was certain that we had been brought here for good, seeing that the Norns7 must have led the stones to the haven, so that this must be the place that we sought.

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

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

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

But before long there rode from one of the farmsteads an Englishman of some rank, who had been sent for, as it would seem, and he came with half a dozen armed housecarls behind him to see what was going on. Him