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.