THE STORM OF THE LAWBURG.
At Legburthwaite the morning was wild. The wind had risen in the night
and brought rain. The clouds were low, raking along the fell sides, and
one could hardly see the crags across the valley for greyness.
The Althing was not yet hallowed, for the Northmen were not met together.
Some early comers had arrived and spent the night in their booths,—rough
hut-walls, unroofed, put up of old to serve for lodging at these summer
meetings, and covered, when the time was, with tent-cloths cast over
them. A group of elder men sat talking in the rain: others were setting
up the bounds of the doom-ring, driving in the posts with pick and
mallet, and cutting hazel poles in the copse hard by, to lay across from
stake to stake. Others were repairing the winter’s damage to the turf
seats within the ring, where the chiefs and the jurymen were to sit.
Down from Helvellyn side, through the driving rain, crept a battered
man, slowly working his way among the boulders of the slope. He dragged
himself up to the group of elders, and they saw that he was newly
wounded, and foredone with toil and travel.
Then said one, “This is Thorstein Sweinson of the Mere: he that slew his
brother. Away, fellow: the place is not hallowed yet; there is no peace
to be got now for such as thee.”
Said another, “Let be: the wood-bider is not here for nought, and maybe
has a story to tell.”
But he gaped upon them and could not speak. So they gave him to drink.
“Thanks, friend,” he said. “Neighbours, do with me as you will, but hear
me. Domhnaill is fleeing before the Saxons. He is upon us even now. Last
night I saw two of his men: they had fled to their home in the fells.
They said that Eadmund the English king was at Domhnaill’s heels, and
with him Malcolm the Scot and Llewelyn of Wales with a great multitude.
Domhnaill was for leading them hither, to entrap them if he could; or to
escape into the mountains. I have fled night-long over yon high fells to
bring the news. And I have seen them. On the top of the mountains I saw
the hosts pursuing and pursued. Whether it was a vision I cannot tell:
but the tidings are truth.”
“Here be fine dreams,” said the first speaker, “and mid-summer madness.”
“Dreams or no dreams, the man is spent with travel and battered, and he
gives his head into our hands for the sake of the tidings. We shall soon
see whether they be true. Meanwhile, my lad, come into my booth and be
fed.”
Thorstein had hardly brought hand to mouth, when there was a stir
without, and the foremost flyers of Domhnaill’s army came by. They were
the guard of the king’s wife and children, and a troop of pack-horses
with them, heavily laden, maybe with treasure. They made no stay, but
for a hasty word, and away toward the city of Helvellyn.
The Northmen, taking short counsel together, agreed to draw out of their
booths, and to make a stand upon the Thingmount, and so abide what might
happen. Why they should thus meddle, when they might have escaped with
the foremost flyers, or easily hidden in the woods, who can say?—except
that they were bred fighting-men, and thought scorn to leave their own
Thing-stead without so much as a stroke.
So there in battle array they stood, on their mound where the four dales
met, and the great crags around. Over against them the path crept by the
skirts of the fells; on this side the Greta and on that Helvellyn beck:
and the clouds flying low, and the rain driving.
Out of the mist came the flyers, horse galloping and foot running;
whoever was sound and unwounded outpacing his fellows, as they streamed
up the road and into the mist again. Then came the wearied men, some of
them wounded and some scant of breath and half blind with toil and with
watching under arms, pushing and pressing along the narrow path; here and
there one falling with a groan, and kicked out of the way into the river,
or screaming as the horses stamped the life out of him. And so they swept
past, while the Northmen cried to them across the dale to turn and stand
by their friends.
Then there was a pause, and the sound of the pursuers shouting along the
vale of St. John; and presently their van-guard was seen pressing along
the road,—Welsh they were of Llewelyn’s company, to whom the foremost
place had been given in this enterprise because they were mountain men,
and led where the Lowlanders, with all the fire of the chase, sometimes
held back from following.
When they came to the place where they could see the Northmen in array
on the howe, they were brought to a standstill: and fresh comers behind
them crowded at their rear, like the wreckage of a streaming flood, when
one great bough is held fast at a force-head. Then they crossed the flat
field, and stood on the bank of Helvellyn beck, and cried to the Northmen
to come down and yield themselves. But the Northmen shouted in answer,
and gave them a flight of spears: and when spears were spent, stones and
the turf of the Thing seats, and everything that was handy. Soon the
Welshmen, seeing how few they had to deal with, and how many of their own
men had come up by this time, took heart, and rushed up the bank shoulder
to shoulder. But along the bank top it was shield to shield, and a line
of whirling blades: and down the wave rolled again.
By this time the main army was coming up, and the cry was for bowmen. For
in those days it was not as it was in later times, when every English
foot-soldier carried his long-bow. Spear to throw and axe to hew with,
were their main weapons. The Welsh stood aside, and a file of archers
passed through the host, and formed in a line on the Thing-field, while
the rest ransacked the booths. Together the bowmen drew their bows, and
at a shout of command to let fly, the Northmen fell flat under their
shields, and the flight of arrows hurtled over them.
But while this was going forward, behind the line of archers other
companies crept this way and that; and through the cover of the wood
on Great Howe other bowmen climbed up to take advantage of the higher
ground, and to get the Northmen below them. And soon there was a rattling
on shield and helm and coat of mail. When the enemy saw that they were
beginning to be discomfited, spears were levelled, and up they rushed in
a thick throng on all sides at once, man pressing man from behind, so
that there was no turning nor fleeing. Down went the first comers all
round the line of red blades: but the shield that Thorstein had carried,
and lost, and saved again, was burst through, and a broken shaft left
in it, and the strap was riven. He took it in both hands and hurled it
edgewise: and shouted when it caught a big fellow in the teeth and drove
him backwards into the thick of the crowd below.
“Well thrown, wood-bider,” said his next neighbour. “I’ll be thy
shield-man this holm-gang:” as he caught a stroke on his target, and
Thorstein leapt out from behind him and cut down the man who had given
it. So it was hand to hand and sword to spear for a while, over the ring
of fallen bodies. But the Northmen shook them off, and thrust them down
the brink again.
Then one upon the Thing-stead began to sing, and then another, in staves
of verse that seemed to set their fellows’ hearts on fire. They shouted
at their foes, giving them every ill name and stinging jest that might
prick them to a new attack. But the only answer was the hail of arrows
from above: and if the rain washed the Northmen white, there was red
enough running to need it. Hardly one among them but had some hurt.
Thorstein, who was no whole man to start with, and ill clad for this
play, was the worse for more than a scratch.
“Neighbours,” said he, “why are we standing still to be shot down like
deer?”
Then forth he leapt, and down the slope, hewing right and left, and
leaving a lane through the crowd. His friends followed close in a band,
and the enemy drew back before them, and closed behind them. The Northmen
were like a wild beast in a net.
“Look you there,” said Thorstein, holding out a bladeless hilt: “was ever
such rotten iron?”
“It has done a day’s work,” said his friend with the shield.
“Nay, not a forenoon’s.”
He sat down upon a stone. His friend took him under the shoulder to lift
him on. “We shall win through yet,” said he.
But Thorstein fell over on the red grass.
“Let be,” said the elder who had known him at the first. “He has got his
peace. Forward all!”