Erling the Bold, R. M. Ballantyne [best black authors txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «Erling the Bold, R. M. Ballantyne [best black authors txt] 📗». Author R. M. Ballantyne
A brisk walk of half an hour brought him to Ulfstede, where he found the men of the family making active preparations for the impending journey to the Thing. In the great hall of the house, his father held earnest discussion with Ulf. The house-carles busied themselves in burnishing their mail and sharpening their weapons, while Ada and Hilda assisted Dame Astrid, Ulf’s wife, to spread the board for the evening meal.
Everything in the hall was suggestive of rude wealth and barbarous warlike times. The hall itself was unusually large—capable of feasting at least two hundred men. At one end a raised hearth sustained a fire of wood that was large enough to have roasted an ox. The smoke from this, in default of a chimney, found an exit through a hole in the roof. The rafters were, of course, smoked to a deep rich coffee colour, and from the same cause the walls also partook not a little of that hue. All round these walls hung, in great profusion, shields, spears, swords, bows, skins, horns, and such like implements and trophies of war and the chase. The centre of the hall was open, but down each side ran two long tables, which were at this time groaning with great haunches of venison, legs of mutton, and trenchers of salmon, interspersed with platters of wild fowl, and flanked by tankards and horns of mead and ale. Most of the drinking cups were of horn, but many of these were edged with a rim of silver, and, opposite the raised seats of honour, in the centre of each table, the tankards were of solid silver, richly though rudely chased—square, sturdy, and massive, like the stout warriors who were wont to quaff their foaming contents.
“I tell thee, Ulf,” said Haldor, “thou wilt do wrong to fare to the Thing with men fully armed when the token was one of peace. The King is in no mood just now to brook opposition. If we would save our independence we must speak him smoothly.”
“I care not,” replied Ulf gruffly; “this is no time to go about unarmed.”
“Nay, I did not advise thee to go unarmed, but surely a short sword might suffice, and—”
At this moment Erling entered, and Ulf burst into a loud laugh as he interrupted his friend: “Aye, a short sword—something like that,” he said, pointing to the huge hilt which rose over the youth’s shoulder.
“Hey! lad,” exclaimed his father, “art going to fight with an axe in one hand and a sword in the other?”
“The sword is for Glumm, father. I owe him one after this morning’s work. Here, friend Glumm, buckle it on thy shoulder. The best wish that thou and I can exchange is, that thy sword and my axe may never kiss each other.”
“Truly, if they ever do, I know which will fare worst,” said Haldor, taking the axe and examining it, “Thou art fond of a weary arm, my lad, else ye would not have forged so weighty a weapon. Take my advice and leave it behind thee.”
“Come, come,” interrupted Ulf; “see, the tables are spread; let us use our jaws on food and drink, and not on words, for we shall need both to fit us for the work before us, and perchance we may have no longer need of either before many days go by. We can talk our fill at the Thing, an it so please us.”
“That will depend on the King’s pleasure,” replied Haldor, laughing.
“So much the more reason for taking our arms with us, in order that we may have the means of talking the King’s pleasure,” retorted Ulf with a frown; “but sit ye down at my right hand, Haldor, and Hilda will wait upon thee. Come, my men all—let us fall to.”
It is scarcely necessary to say that this invitation was accepted with alacrity. In a few minutes about fifty pairs of jaws were actively employed in the manner which Ulf recommended.
Meanwhile Erling the Bold seated himself at the lower end of one of the tables, in such a position that he could keep his eye on the outer door, and, if need be, steal away unobserved. He calculated that his little brother must soon return from his flying journey, and he expected to hear from him some news of the vikings. In this expectation he was right; but when Alric did come, Erling saw and heard more than he looked for.
The meal was about half concluded, and Ulf was in the act of pledging, not absent, but defunct, friends, when the door opened slowly, and Alric thrust his head cautiously in. His hair, dripping and tangled, bore evidence that his head at least had been recently immersed in water.
He caught sight of Erling, and the head was at once withdrawn. Next moment Erling stood outside of the house.
“How now, Alric, what has befallen thee? Hey! thou art soaking all over!”
“Come here; I’ll show you a fellow who will tell you all about it.”
In great excitement the boy seized his brother’s hand and dragged rather than led him round the end of the house, where the first object that met his view was a man whose face was covered with blood, which oozed from a wound in his forehead, while the heaving of his chest, and an occasional gasp, seemed to indicate that he had run far and swiftly.
“Whom have we here?” exclaimed Erling, looking close into the face of the wounded man. “What! Swart of the Springs!”
Erling said this sternly, for he had no liking for Swart, who was a notorious character, belonging to one of the neighbouring fiords—a wild reckless fellow, and, if report said truly, a thief.
“That recent mischief has cost thee a cracked crown?” asked Erling, a little more gently, as he observed the exhausted condition of the man.
“Mischief enough,” said Swart, rising from the stone on which he had seated himself, and wiping the blood, dust, and sweat from his haggard face, while his eyes gleamed like coals of fire; “Skarpedin the Dane has landed in the fiord, my house is a smoking pile, my children and most of the people in the stede are burned, and the Springs run blood!”
There was something terrible in the hoarse whisper in which this was hissed out between the man’s teeth. Erling’s tone changed instantly as he laid his hand on Swart’s shoulder.
“Can this be true?” he answered anxiously; “are we too late? are all gone?”
“All,” answered Swart, “save the few fighting men that gained the fells.” The man then proceeded to give a confused and disjointed account of the raid, of which the following is the substance.
Skarpedin, a Danish viking, noted for his daring, cruelty, and success, had taken it into his head to visit the neighbourhood of Horlingdal, and repay in kind a visit which he had received in Denmark the previous summer from a party of Norsemen, on which occasion his crops had been burned, his cattle slaughtered, and his lands “herried”, while he chanced to be absent from home.
It must be observed that this deed of the Northmen was not deemed unusually wicked. It was their custom, and the custom also of their enemies, to go out every summer on viking cruise to plunder and ravage the coasts of Denmark, Sweden, Britain, and France, carrying off all the booty they could lay hold of, and as many prisoners as they wanted or could obtain. Then, returning home, they made slaves or “thralls” of their prisoners, often married the women, and spent the winter in the enjoyment of their plunder.
Among many other simple little habits peculiar to the times was that called “Strandhug”. It consisted in a viking, when in want of provisions, landing with his men on any coast—whether that of an enemy or a countryman—and driving as many cattle as he required to the shore, where they were immediately slaughtered and put on board without leave asked or received!
Skarpedin was influenced both by cupidity and revenge. Swart had been one of the chief leaders of the expedition which had done him so much damage. To the Springs therefore he directed his course with six “longships”, or ships of war, and about five hundred men.
In the afternoon of a calm day he reached the fiord at the head of which were the Springs and Swart’s dwelling. There was a small hamlet at the place, and upon this the vikings descended. So prompt and silent were they, that the men of the place had barely time to seize their arms and defend their homes. They fought like lions, for well they knew that there was no hope of mercy if they should be beaten. But the odds against them were overwhelming. They fell in heaps, with many of their foes underneath them. The few who remained to the last retreated fighting, step by step, each man towards his own dwelling, where he fell dead on its threshold. Swart himself, with a few of the bravest, had driven back that part of the enemy’s line which they attacked. Thus they were separated for a time from their less successful comrades, and it was not till the smoke of their burning homesteads rose up in dense clouds that they became aware of the true state of the fight. At once they turned and ran to the rescue of their families, but their retreat was cut off by a party of the enemy, and the roar of the conflagration told them that they were too late. They drew together, therefore, and, making a last desperate onset, hewed their way right through the ranks of their enemies, and made for the mountains. All were more or less wounded in the mêlée, and only one or two succeeded in effecting their escape. Swart dashed past his own dwelling in his flight, and found it already down on the ground in a blazing ruin. He killed several of the men who were about it, and then, bounding up the mountain side, sought refuge in a ravine.
Here he lay down to rest a few moments. During the brief period of his stay he saw several of his captured friends have their hands and feet chopped off by the marauders, while a terrible shriek that arose once or twice told him all too plainly that on a few of them had been perpetrated the not uncommon cruelty of putting out the eyes.
Swart did not remain many moments inactive. He descended by a circuitous path to the shore, and, keeping carefully out of sight, set off in the direction of Horlingdal. The distance between the two places was little more than nine or ten miles, but being separated from each other by a ridge of almost inaccessible mountains, that rose to a height of above five thousand feet, neither sight nor sound of the terrible tragedy enacted at the Springs could reach the eyes or ears of the inhabitants of Ulfstede. Swart ran round by the coast, and made such good use of his legs that he reached the valley in little more than an hour. Before arriving at Ulfstede his attention was attracted and his step arrested by the sight of a warship creeping along the fiord close under the shadow of the precipitous cliffs. He at once conjectured that this was one of the Danish vessels which had been dispatched to reconnoitre Horlingdal. He knew by its small size (having only about twenty oars) that it could not be there for the purpose of
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