Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln

by Charles W. Whistler

Havelok laughed.

“Well, I did tell them that they should take turns, or somewhat like that; and I also told them that if you complained of them I would see to it.”

“Did you say that you would pay them, may I ask—that is, of course, if they were orderly? For if so, I thank—”

“I told them that if you complained I would knock their heads together,” said Havelok.

And that was the beginning of the Lincoln porters’ guild; and in after days Havelok was wont to say that he would that all lawmaking was as easy as that first trial of his. Certainly from that day forward there was no man in all the market who would not have done aught for my brother, and many a dispute was he called on to settle. It is not always that a law, however good it may be, finds not a single one to set himself against it. But then Havelok was a strong man.

Now there is naught to tell of either Havelok or myself for a little while, for we went on in our new places comfortably enough. One heard much of Havelok, though, for word of him and his strength and goodliness, and of his kindness moreover, went through the town, with tales of what he had done. But I never heard that any dared to ask him to make a show of himself by doing feats of strength. Only when he came down to the guardroom sometimes with me would he take part in the weapon play that he loved, and the housecarls, who were all tried and good warriors, said that he was their master in the use of every weapon, and it puzzled them to know where he had learned so well, for he yet wore his fisher’s garb. They sent his arms with mine from Grimsby, thinking that he also needed them; but he left them with the widow.

Havelok used to laugh if they asked him this, and tell them that it came by nature, and in that saying there was more than a little truth. So the housecarls, when they heard how Berthun was wont to treat him, thought also that he was some great man in hiding, and that the steward knew who he was. They did not know but that my close friendship with him had sprung up since he came, and that was well, and Eglaf and he and I were soon much together. The captain wanted him to leave the cook and be one of his men, but we thought that he had better bide where he was, rather than let Alsi the king have him always about him. For now and then that strange feeling, as of the old days, came over him when he was in the great hall, and he had to go away and brood over it for a while until he would set himself some mighty task and forget it.

But one day he came to me and said that he was sure he knew the ways of a king too well for it all to be a dream, adding that Berthun saw that also, and was curious about him.

“Tell me, brother, whence came I? Was I truly brought up in a court?”

“I have never heard,” I answered. “All that I know for certain is that you fled with us from Hodulf, the new king, and that for reasons which my father never told me.”