THE SEA KING.
Through a sashless window, the next morning's light came into the room
where Ned was sleeping, and woke him. With it poured in the dull roar
of the ocean waves upon the rocky coast of Norway.
"What's that?" he exclaimed, sitting up and looking around him. "Where
am I? I say, what would father and mother think of this? Well, I begin
to remember it all now! There's Lars. I saw his hawks and the dogs and
all the rest. Then came the blacksmith business and the songs and the
harping. I know where I am! I'm a Viking, and I heard the messenger
from King Hardrada. Hurrah! I'm going to invade England! Just the very
thing I've always wanted to do!"
He was on his feet now, picking up his arms and armour. His
exclamations and the clatter he was making aroused the other sleepers.
They, too, sprang up with shouts of warlike enthusiasm, and began to
talk eagerly about the mustering of the army. They helped one another
with the mail and the pieces of armour, for clothing of that style had
peculiar difficulties of its own. Their hero was Hardrada the Sea King,
and they had wild tales to tell of his exploits and adventures half-way
around the world.
"He went almost to the edge of it, once," said Lars. "I'd like to go
there, myself, and see where the sky touches the earth. It's as hard as
a brick and has star-holes in it, but you can't climb through."
"He doesn't know that the earth is round," thought Ned, "but he will,
some day. What he needs is the primary and then four years in a grammar
school. I want to see Hardrada, and then I'd like a good look at
Harold of England and William the Norman."
Out they went to breakfast, and all the while Ned learned more and more
about the great invasion. It was to be made by the largest force that
ever had sailed from the Northland. Even Knud the Great, the conqueror
of England, had never gathered such a fleet. He was a Dane, indeed, but
all sorts of Northmen had gone with him, or he would have been beaten
by the Saxons.
There was no order at the breakfast-table except that of first come
first served, and nobody lingered long.
Ned's next errand carried him to a place from which he could see the
landing, and he watched the boats that were busily plying to and from
the ship.
"They're loading her as fast as they can," he remarked. "I'd rather go
by land. There'll be sea-going enough--"
A loud summons from Lars interrupted him, and in a few minutes more
they were among a considerable drove of saddled and bridled horses.
"Some of them are big ones," he said, "but Lars and I are to ride
ponies."
Vebba himself was very well mounted, and he was riding around, in full
armour, giving orders to his men. These were several scores in number,
and they were a ferocious-looking crew. Their arms and equipments
were of all sorts, for each man had suited himself, and nothing like
a uniform was called for by the army regulations. Most of them were
tall fellows, but there were also a number of short, broad-shouldered,
powerful-looking fighters, with dark skins and black hair, who almost
seemed to belong to some other race.
"Who are those fellows?" replied Lars, when Ned asked about them. "Why,
knowest thou not who they are? They belong to the old race that was
here when Woden and Thor and our people came in here from the east.
They are all miners. They live among the mountains, and some of them
are wizards. They are good fighters, though, and they never spare an
enemy."
Terrible, indeed, were their hard, cruel faces. One of them, in
particular, had a kind of fascination for Ned, he was so tremendously
broad-shouldered and long-armed, and seemed so strong. It was enough
to make one shudder to look at him and see him move. There could not
have been an ounce of fat on him, but he must have weighed over two
hundred pounds. For all that, however, he stepped around as lightly as
a fourteen-year-old catcher in a game of baseball.
"He is worth a hundred common men," explained Lars. "He is Sikend,
the Berserker, and no spear can hit him. He can catch an arrow on his
ax-edge and he can cleave a steel helmet as if it were made of pine.
There isn't any Saxon that can stand before him."
Ned and his friends were quickly mounted, and were riding away in a
southerly direction. Vebba remained behind to bring on the main body of
his following, while a score of his best men went forward with his son.
To him he said, at parting:
"Get speech with the king. Say to him that I and mine are coming. Say
that I have sent on great store of provisions and three more good keels
wherewith he may ferry his levies. Go!"
Everybody seemed in good spirits, but there was a kind of excitement
which was in the way of conversation. Even the women at the house and
in the village were cheerful.
"I suppose," he thought, "they may do some crying when the men go,
but Lars says that the Norway women can fight. His mother killed a
wolf once. I wouldn't like to have my mother go out for wolf-killing.
Wouldn't she run! So would the girls or Aunt Sally. Oh!"
He and Lars were now riding together at the rear of their little
company, and just then he heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind
him. He turned his head to look, and a horseman wearing a long black
robe and a peculiar cap reined in at his side, exclaiming loudly, in
Latin:
"Thou art Ned, the son of Webb. I am Brian, the missionary, from the
Clontarf School and Abbey in blessed Ireland. Good-will to thee!"
Ned summoned up all the Latin he had ever worked upon, but there was
danger of its falling somewhat short. He had begun with it early, and
Uncle Jack and his father had bored him horribly with it, year after
year, making him talk it as well as read it. He could, therefore,
really do something in this sudden emergency, but he was willing to say
little and to let the rosy-faced and friendly priest do most of the
talking,--which he was ready to do.
"Alas, my son!" he remarked to Ned. "These men of the North are no
better than heathen. They are not at all civilised Christians such as
we have in Ireland. Even after they are converted, they stick to their
old gods,--such as they are. They are all murderous pirates, anyhow. If
it were not for the like of them and the Danes there would be peace and
prosperity in Ireland all the while. Even the Saxons trouble us less
than do the Danes and the Jutlanders and the sea kings."
Ned was entirely able to ask questions, and he was likely to learn a
great deal concerning the piety and enlightenment of the land of St.
Patrick, the land of education, from which more missionaries were going
out than from any other. Already had they done wonders for the English
and Scotch and similar idolaters. Alfred the Great, said Father Brian,
had welcomed the Irish scholars gladly, giving them houses and lands
and cattle. Edward the Confessor had also done well by them, and the
present King of England, Harold, the son of Godwin, had been their
friend when as yet he was only an earl.
"What if Hardrada and Tostig are going to beat him?" asked Ned.
"That is yet to be determined," replied Father Brian, thoughtfully.
"They may indeed divide the island of Great Britain with Duke William
of Normandy. He is a pious man. He speaketh Latin. He will bring with
him shiploads of teachers and missionaries. He will build churches and
found schools, as he hath already done in Normandy. It hath been on my
mind that these Vikings may but cripple the Saxons and open the way for
William the Norman."
"King Harold of England is said to be a hard fighter," suggested Ned.
"Thou art but a boy," exclaimed Father Brian. "I was a soldier once,
myself. Mark thou! Harold fighteth with two at a time instead of with
one enemy only, and each of the twain is his equal, I think. I hear
that the English themselves are little more than half-hearted for
Harold. Were there not seven kingdoms of them not so long ago? They are
a bundle of sticks that is badly tied together."
Somehow or other, although Ned was now one of Hardrada's warriors, he
felt a strong feeling of admiration, if not of sympathy, growing in him
for Harold of England. The Saxon king was to be forced to defend the
northern and southern ends of his kingdom at the same time, and there
was no fairness in it. A great deal that he was hearing was new to him,
but he could dimly remember having read something somewhere concerning
the great development of the early Irish Church.
"St. Patrick himself set it going," he said, thoughtfully, "but Father
Brian doesn't seem to know much about him. Perhaps his biography
hasn't been published there yet. As soon as it is, he'd better get a
copy and read it."
Something like that idea was wandering around in his mind when he spoke
to Father Brian in modern English concerning the telegraphic reports of
Harold Hardrada's landing in England.
"What's that thou art saying, my boy?" sharply inquired the missionary,
in good Clontarf Latin. "Change thy tongue."
Ned strove to explain the matter, but he found himself altogether at
sea, for his reverend friend had not the smallest idea concerning
either printing or electricity.
"It's the lightning, is it?" he gruffly remarked. "Let me tell thee,
then, thou wilt get little good out of that."
Ned was silenced completely, and gave the matter up.
"It's a curious piece of business," he thought. "I have been living in
another world than his. The world that he and all these others live in
is pretty near a thousand years behind time. I wish I could give them a
photograph of the _Kentucky_ or show them an express train going sixty
miles an hour."
He and the Vikings were going along at pony trot, and he was
discovering that a steel mail overcoat, put on over leather and
flannel, was a pretty warm kind of summer clothing.
"I wonder if a fellow ever gets used to it!" he remarked to Father
Brian. "Those Vikings don't seem to mind it much. They're all
iron-clad, too, like so many war-steamers."
"There was never mail made yet," replied the good man, "but something
would go through it. I've split a shield with a pole-ax."
He was looking somewhat unpeaceful, just then, for his pony was kicking.
"Even a Berserker, though," said Ned, "would want no bearskin shirt
to-day."
"They never wear them," said the missionary. "Thou art all wrong with
the name. The word Ber meaneth bear, that's so, but some weak minds
will spell it b-a-r-e, as if they'd fight in their linen, if they had
any. No more do they take bearskins for mail."
"What do they, then?" asked Ned, in Latin.
"Like other men," said the priest, hotly. "The meaning is that they're
descended from bears, and fight like wild beasts. There are other
opinions, indeed, but mine is as good as any other man's, any day."
Perhaps that was a good enough reason for sticking to his own notions
and lashing his pony into good behaviour. At all events, Ned did not
contradict him. He was just then recalling the savage countenance of
Sikend the Berserker, and it had reminded him of a grizzly bear he had
seen in the Central Park menagerie.
"It's the same expression in the eyes," he said to himself, "but the
old grizzly had a better-tempered look than Sikend has."
On went the cavalcade, halting at noon for a rest and for luncheon.
Only an hour or so after that they halted again on the crest of a
ridge. Beyond this lay a wide, deep valley, bordered westerly by the
blue waters of the North Sea. With one accord the Vikings raised an
enthusiastic shout, and clashed their spears against their shields.
"The host of Hardrada the Sea King!"
"The hundred keels of Norway!"
"The flag of the World Waster!"
"Hail to the banner of Woden!"
"Hail to Harold Hardrada!"
"The spears will be many and sharp!"
"Swords will cleave helms!"
"Axes will break the mail of the Saxons!"
The war-cries of the men of Vebba, young and old, were fierce and
exulting as they gazed down upon the valley and out upon the sea.
Scattered upon all the slopes and levels and along the shore were the
houses of a considerable town. At the upper end of the valley, and also
at the right of the very commodious harbour, were what looked like
extensive fortifications. These were composed mainly of strong palisade
works, surrounded by ditches or moats. Nowhere was to be seen anything
like a castle of stone. In the open spaces, everywhere, were tents and
booths. These must now have been empty, for the afternoon sun glittered
upon the polished arms and armour of long lines and serried columns of
warriors drawn up in battle array as if for inspection.
"Ships! Ships! Ships!" exclaimed Ned. "Scores and scores of them,
big and little. I don't see any square-rigged ships, with yards and
topsails, but a good many of them have two masts and some have three or
four. They are all single sticks without topmasts, and with brig and
schooner rigging. I shall know better what they are like after I get
down among them."
Now came up from the valley a loud sound of harping and the braying of
thousands of war-horns, followed by a great shout that ran along the
lines as one body of troops after another caught its meaning and passed
it on.
"On, men! Ride forward! Lars, son of Vebba, yonder cometh King
Hardrada. He revieweth his army before it goeth on ship-board. Thou
wilt hasten to deliver to him the greeting of thy father. Let Ned, the
son of Webb, ride with thee. I go to the shore speedily, to seek our
shipping. This errand is thine." So spoke the veteran warrior in charge
of this party of Vebba's men, and all rode rapidly onward.
"This is awful!" thought Ned. "I hope the king will have little to say
to me. I wouldn't know what on earth is the correct way of talking back
to him."
He did not have many minutes more of riding, nevertheless, before Lars,
the son of Vebba, said to him:
"Pull in, Ned. We will halt at the right front of this nearest square
of men, and wait for the king. See thou! He and his jarls and captains
come this way. I am not of full age that I may ride to meet him."
Only a man of rank or a warrior of fame, it appeared, might presume to
go out in front of the lines to greet the royal company, and Ned began
at once to breathe more freely.
"I will keep a little back," he said to Father Brian. "We will let Lars
do the talking."
"That will not I!" exclaimed the rosy-faced Irishman. "Any half-heathen
king like him is no better than the rest of us; besides that, I am a
missionary from Clontarf. I will speak my mind to him."
He consented, however, to halt with the rest and wait for the king to
come.
Loud rang the cheers and war-cries, fiercely brayed the war-horns, as
the great Sea King rode slowly nearer. His keen, flashing blue eyes
were searching the array of his warriors, man by man, and rank by rank,
while his proud face flushed with exultation. Never before had any
monarch of the North gathered such a mustering of the best fighting men
of the broad flat earth.
Hardrada was almost a giant in size, being said to measure over seven
feet, and to be strong in proportion. His armour was richly ornamented
with gold and jewels. His gilded head-piece had no visor in front to
hide his features, and his abundant, bright red hair, from which he
took his name, flowed down his shoulders in a mass of ripples, instead
of being worn in braids like those of numbers of his followers. At his
saddle-bow was slung a huge battle-ax, which few arms but his could
wield. From his belt hung a long, straight sword, in a jewelled sheath.
His broad, round, gorgeously decorated shield was thrown over his
shoulder. In his hand was a long spear, not unlike the lances which
were carried by the men-at-arms of France and Normandy.
"Isn't he magnificent!" exclaimed Ned. "Hurrah! I have seen the
greatest of the Vikings, Lars! The Saxons will find him a hard man to
meet. Who is that other man at his side? He is almost as splendid as
the king."
"That must be Tostig the Earl," said Lars. "They said he was away with
his ships, but he hath come to talk with Hardrada. He is a brother of
Harold Godwinson, the King of the Saxons. Men say he is a good fighter,
but not so good as his brother. What a match it would be between the
two Harolds of Norway and England!"
"That's so!" said Ned. "Or between Tostig the Earl and Sikend the
Berserker."
"No man on earth is a match for Sikend," said Lars. "He beareth a
charmed life. There are witches and wizards among his people. They
read the old runes on the tombstones. They boil snakes and lizards and
evil roots, to make charms with, and salve ointments for hurts. Some of
them can make a sword-cut close up and heal over, but I think I would
not be smeared with any witch grease."
"Salve is a good thing for a cut," said Ned. "It's good for a burn,
too. You can find out the right thing from the advertisements. I don't
remember any liniment, though, that they said was made of snake-fat.
They couldn't get snakes enough, I guess, unless they raised them
themselves."
The reviewing party of great men, headed by the king and the earl,
halted as it reached the head of the column, with which Vebba's men
were posted. Its captain had not yet left it, and the king may have
known him by sight, for he at once beckoned him forward.
With him rode out Lars, Father Brian, and, by their direction, Ned, the
son of Webb.
"Speak," said Hardrada to the warrior. "What word hast thou for me?"
"It is not mine," he replied. "O king, Lars, the son of Vebba, will
deliver unto thee the greeting from his father."
"Let it be brief," said the king. "Time passeth."
"O Harold the King," spoke Lars, freely and boldly, "my father bade me
greet thee with this, that all swordsmen are ready. They march this day
to join thee. The last of the provision ships lifteth her anchor at
sunset. He himself cometh with the miners and the mountain men."
"It is well," said Hardrada. "I know the value of thy father. Who is
the youth with thee? O priest, hold thou thy peace!"
"That will I not," responded Father Brian, sturdily. "I have first this
word for thee that came by sea. Haste, thou and thine, or William the
Norman will reach England before thee. This do I speak for thy good,
if thou art able to take friendly advice, like a man of sense."
"Thou art late with thy warning," grimly responded the king. "Well did
I know that matter, already. Nevertheless, I will freely hear it from
thee. Thou hast spoken loyally. And now I would know concerning the
youth that is with the son of Vebba."
It had come to pass, by the way, as they rode hitherward, that Ned,
the son of Webb, had given to the missionary the Latin charter name of
the American city that he came from, and from it a somewhat crooked
understanding had arisen, for Eboricum is nothing but York, whether new
or old. Therefore his reverend friend at once replied for him:
"He is Ned, the son of Webb, the chief, or it might be he is somewhat
of a jarl. He is an Angle, and he cometh from York. And a fine boy he
is, if I say it myself."
The next remark came promptly from Tostig the Earl.
"O Harold the King, my friend, did I not tell thee of my many faithful
adherents in my earldom of Northumberland and in mine own city of York?
He is welcome. He shall sail with us, and we shall be joined by many
more as soon as our standards are seen at the Humber. I pray thee, for
the present, let him remain with Vebba, his friend."
"It is well," said the king. "What sayest thou, Ned, the son of Webb?"
"O king," said Ned, hoping that he was bowing correctly, although he
nearly pitched out of the saddle in doing it, "I will do as Tostig the
Earl hath said. Lars and I are chums. I would give much to see Sikend
the Berserker in a battle. I would like to see thee fight also, O King
Hardrada, or Tostig the Earl."
Loudly laughed the red-haired king, and as loudly roared Tostig and
other of the great warriors.
"Well spoken!" shouted Hardrada. "Thou shalt have thy will in that
matter."
"O Hardrada the King," interposed Vebba's captain, "I will say this for
him, that he is the best sword, for his age, that I ever saw, and he
catcheth a flying spear like an old fighter."
"I like him well," said Tostig. "So let him show the Northmen of what
sort are my men of Northumberland. It is a good thing that he hath
done, to even flee from York to join us as we sail."
No more was said, and the royal party rode slowly on along the lines.
"I'm out of that scrape, tip-top," said Ned to himself, as he and his
friends wheeled back to their post at the head of the Viking column.
"But what explanation can I give if we ever get to old York? It beats
me all hollow."
At that moment the old Viking at his side said to him:
"I go, now, to the shore. Thou hast a strong friend in Tostig the Earl.
I am glad to know this much more concerning thee and thine. We were
questioning much in our minds as to how we might deal with thee, and
some said it were well to take off thy head. It is ever wise to make
sure of all comrades who march with us, for at times there have been
false companions."
Ned was silent, for he was not pleased with the suggestion concerning
his head, and the warrior rode away.
A few hours later, Vebba arrived with another force of his men, and he
expressed great gratification upon learning that he would now be under
no necessity for giving an account of his young friend.
"Aha!" he exclaimed. "The youth appertaineth to Tostig the Earl, and he
biddeth him to remain with me. He is the son of a Saxon under-jarl. I
am glad to be upon better terms with Tostig."
Therefore it was duly settled in the minds of all men, and Ned was
acknowledged as being the right sort of youth to associate with Vikings
of good degree. The review having been finished, the army had scattered
to its camps. Vebba's men had been assigned an open space a little
north of the town, and to this his first detachment had marched. Their
first duty was to prepare all things for further arrivals, and this
work began, of course, with the kindling of camp-fires. Fuel enough had
been provided, and Ned at once discovered something that was new to
him. The making of a fire was an affair of toil and trouble. He saw his
comrades carefully splitting splinters and hunting for handfuls of dry
grass.
"That's all right," he thought, "but just look at that fellow hammering
out sparks with his flint and steel. It'll take him all night! Why
doesn't he go for an old newspaper and some matches?"
The mailed stoker did nothing of the kind, and his sparks fell vainly
upon his insufficient tinder.
"That's it!" exclaimed Ned. "What a stupid I am! There isn't a box of
matches in all the world! I guess I'll show them a point they don't
know. I've a whole box of lighters in my pocket.--Now! I won't let one
of them see just what I am doing. It's a good joke."
The would-be fire maker was getting disgusted with his bad success, and
he was standing erect at the moment when Ned stooped and put something
into the little heap of pine splinters. Nobody had seen him scratch his
match upon a stone, and, in a moment more, all eyes turned curiously to
stare at the sudden blaze which sprang up so brightly as the resinous
fuel kindled.
"It is the work of the young Saxon of Tostig the Earl!" one of them
said.
"Ay!" remarked another. "He hath rare skill with a flint. Who ever saw
such fire making? He hath been well taught."
He was thenceforth to be admired and valued, for one who could kindle
camp-fires readily was a welcome comrade in a campaign. Ned also
learned from their talk that in a Norway dwelling great care was always
taken to keep fire from day to day, the whole year round. If the fire
of one household should at any time be extinguished, it was better
to send elsewhere and bring to it a torch, from even a considerable
distance, than to toil over the creation of a brand new blaze with
flint and steel.
"It only cost me one match," thought Ned. "I'll be stingy about burning
the rest. They may last me clean through the conquest of England, if
I'm careful. Old newspapers are the right thing to start fires with,
though, and I can't even get an old school-book to tear up."
Tents there were none for Vebba's men, but the night was clear and
warm, and the supposed favourite of Tostig, the great Earl, slept like
a top in his first bivouac as a soldier in the army of Hardrada the Sea
King.