Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln, Charles W. Whistler [most read books of all time TXT] 📗

We had, in a way that the honest sheriff did not guess, and I only nodded. But I thought that we had got rid of an enemy in him, and that Griffin had fallen in with him on landing, and known him, and taken him into his counsel about us. He would have gone down to see the vessel and collect the king's dues from her and from us at the same time. He had not come into the town till late, as we heard afterwards.

There was no time for asking more now, however, for the shouts of the men round the door ceased, and someone gave orders, as if there was a plan to be carried out. So I went and looked over on the side where the door was to see what was on hand.

It was about what one would have expected. They had got the trunk of a tree, and were going to batter the door in. But now we were all armed, for Raven had brought Havelok's gear with him when he fetched his own. He had thought also for Goldberga, and she was sitting in the corner of the tower walls wrapped in a great cloak that she had used at sea, with her eyes on her husband, unfearing, and as it seemed waiting for the end that her dream foretold.

I called the rest, and we looked down on the men. They saw us, and an arrow or two flew at us, badly aimed in the moonlight.

"Waste of good arrows," said Havelok; "but we must keep them from the door somehow."

"Would that the jarl would come," growled Biorn, "for I do not see how we are to do that."

"If they do break in," said I, "any one can hold a stairway like this against a crowd."

"I do not want to hurt more of these," answered Havelok, looking round him. And then his eyes lit up, and he laughed. "Why, we can keep them back easily enough, after all."

He went to the tower corner, and shouted to the men below. Four or five had the heavy log that they were to use as a ram, and they were just about to charge the door with it, and no timber planking can stand that sort of thing.

"Ho, men," he cried; "set that down, or some of you may get hurt."

They set up a roar of laughter at him as they heard, and then Havelok laid hold of the great square block of stone that was on the very corner of the wall, and tore it from its setting.

"Odin!" said Biorn, as he saw that, "where do they breed such men as this?"

"Here," answered Withelm, looking at the sheriff.

Now Havelok hove up the stone over his head, and a sort of gasp went up from the crowd below. One saw what was coming, and ran to drag back the men with the beam, and stopped short before he reached them in terror, crying to them to beware. But their heads were down, and they were starting into a run.

"Halt!" cried Havelok, but they did not stay. "Stand clear!" he shouted in the sailor's way.

And then he swung the stone and let it go, while those who watched fled back as if it was cast at them. Down is crashed on the attackers, felling the man whom it struck, and dashing the timber from the grasp of the others, so that one fell with it across his leg and lay howling, while the rest gathered themselves up and got away from under the tower as soon as they might.

Now no man dared to come forward, and that angered Havelok.

"Are you going to let these two bide there?" he said. "Pick the poor knaves from under the stone and timber, and see to them."

But they hung back yet, and he called them "nidring."

Thereat two or three made a step forward, and one said, "Lord, let us do as you bid us, and harm us not."

"You are safe," he answered, and Biorn laughed and said that this was the most wholesome word that he had heard tonight.

"Lord, forsooth! Mighty little of that was there five minutes ago."

But it was not the terrible stone throwing only that wrung this from them, as I think. They had seen Havelok in his arms, with the light of battle on his face in the broad moonlight, and knew him for a king among men.

They took the hurt men from under the tower, and then crowded together, watching us. And some man must needs loose an arrow at us, and it rang on my mail, and that let loose the crowd again. Soon we had to shelter under the battlement, but they were not able to lodge any arrows among us, for that is a bit of skill that needs daylight. Then they dared to get to the timber once more, and we saw them coming.

Havelok took his helm, and set it on his sword point, and raised it slowly above the wall, and that drew all the arrows in a moment. Then he leapt up, and tore the stone from the other corner; and again, but this time without warning, it fell on the men below, and that wrought more harm than before. But it stayed them for a time, though not so long, for now their blood was up, and the berserk spirit was waking in them. Already the third stone was poised in the mighty hands, and would have fallen, when there was a cry of, "The jarl! the jarl!" and along the path into the clearing galloped Sigurd himself, with his courtmen running behind him, and he called on the men to stay.

They dropped the beam at the command, and were silent. And Sigurd looked up at the tower, and saw who was there, and stayed with his face raised, motionless for a space. I minded how Mord had stared and cried out when first he saw Havelok, the son of Gunnar, in his war gear.

"Biorn! where is Biorn?" cried Sigurd, looking back on the crowd as if he thought he would be there.

"Here am I, jarl," came the answer, and the sheriff looked out from beside Havelok.

"What is all this?"

"On my word, jarl, I cannot tell. Here have I been beset in my own house, and but for your guests some of us would have come off badly. There were outlanders who fell on us, and, as I think, stirred up the folk to carry on the business, telling them that we had slain ourselves, as one might say, for it was the cry that we had slain the jarl's guests."

"O fools, to take up the word of a chance stranger against that of your own sheriff!" Sigurd cried, facing the people.

"Nay, but the steward said so likewise," cried some.

"Hodulf's steward?" said the jarl suddenly; "where is he?"

"Yonder. Biorn slew him."

"He was leading this crowd," said Biorn from above, "tried to force his way into the tower past me, and would not be warned."

"What of the outlanders?"

"All slain. Seven Welshmen they were."

Then I said plainly, remembering that the jarl would have known him, "Their leader was Griffin, who came with Hodulf at the first. What brought him here, think you, Sigurd the jarl?"

But Sigurd looked round on the people, and scanned them for a long time, and at last he said, in a hush that fell when he began to speak, "Men who mind the old days, look at the man whom you have sought to kill, and say if there is that about him which will tell you why Hodulf's men have set you on him thus."

Then the white faces turned with one accord to Havelok, as he stood resting the great cornerstone on the battlement before him, and there grew a whisper that became a word and that was almost a shout from the many voices that answered.

"Gunnar! Gunnar Kirkeban come again!"

Then was silence, and the jarl spoke to Havelok.

"Tell us your name, and whence you come."

"Havelok Grimsson of Grimsby men call me," he said.

And then men knew who he was indeed, for little by little the secret had been pieced together, if not told from the king's place, in the years that had passed. And at that there rose and grew a murmur and a cry.

"Havelok, son of Gunnar! Havelok the king!"

Then said Sigurd in a great voice, "Who is for Hodulf of us all? Let no man go hence who is for him."

And I saw two or three men cut down then and there, and after that there was a roar of voices that called for Havelok to lead them.

"Come down, lord," said Sigurd, unhelming and looking up.

So we went from the tower, and round Havelok the men crowded, kissing his hand and asking pardon for what they had wrought in error; and Sigurd dismounted and knelt before him, holding forth his sword hilt in token of homage, that his king might touch it.

"Only Havelok son of Gunnar dares call himself son of Grim also, and in that word all the tale is told. But I have known you from the first by the token of the ring and by this likeness. Yet I waited for you to speak, and for the time that should be best; and now that has come of itself, and I am glad."

So said Sigurd, as we went from the tower to the hall, with the townsmen at our heels in a wondering crowd. There were many among them who would show the wounds that Havelok had given them with pride hereafter, as tokens that they had known him well.

Then we stayed on the steps of the hall door, and the jarl called out man by man, and the war arrow was put in their hands with the names of those men who waited for the coming of Havelok, that all through the night the message that should bring him a mighty host on the morrow should go far and wide.

And the gathering word was, "Come, for the horn of the king is sounding."

Then Sigurd said, "Speak to the people, my king, and all is done."

So Havelok smiled, and lifted his voice, and spoke.

"Stand by me, friends, as steadfastly as you have fought against me, and I shall be well content. And see, here is the queen for whom you will fight also. There is not one of you but will play the man under her eyes."

Not many words or crafty, but men saw his face, and heard that which was in the voice, and they needed no word of reward to come, but shouted as we had shouted when the bride came home to Grimsby, and I thought that with the shout the throne of Hodulf was rocking.

Worn out we were with that long fight, and we all had some small wounds -- not much worth speaking of; and when these were seen to, we slept. Only my brother Raven waked, and he sat through all the rest of the short night on the high place, with his sword across his knees, watching, for he blamed himself, overmuch as we all thought, for the happenings of the attack.

"Trouble not, brother, for we were in the keeping of Biorn, and he could not have dreamt that foes could follow us over seas. It was not for you to be on guard."

These were Withelm's words, but for once Raven did not heed them.

"Would Grim, our father, have slept with a lee shore under him, leaving a stranger to keep watch? That is not how he taught me my duty; and I have been careless, and I know it. I should have thought of Griffin when I saw the ship come in."

So he had his way, and the last that I saw ere my eyes closed was his stern form guarding us; and when I woke he was yet there, motionless, with far-off eyes that noted the little movement that I made, and glanced at me to see that all was well.

In the grey of the morning the first of the chiefs to whom the arrow had sped began to come in; but the jarl would not have Havelok waked, for he was greatly troubled at the little wounds that had befallen this long-waited guest. So the chiefs gathered very silently in the great hall, and sat waiting while the light broadened and shone, gleam by gleam, on their bright arms and anxious faces. It was not possible for those who had not yet seen Havelok to be all so sure that it was indeed he. They longed to see him, and to know him for the very son of Gunnar for themselves.

Presently there