Now men began to ask who this was, and many voices answered, while the porter went to claim the prize from the thane who held it.
Two silver pennies the thane gave him, and said, “This seems to be a friend of yours, and it was good to hear you try to help him without acrimony. Not that he needed any hints from any one, however. Who is he?”
“Men call him Curan, that being the name he gives himself; but he came as a stranger to the place, and none know from whence, unless Berthun the cook may do so. Surely he is a friend of mine, for he shook me once, and that shaking made an honest man of me. He himself taught me what fair play is, at that same time.”
So said the porter, and laughed, and the thane joined him.
“Well, he has made a sort of name for himself as a wonder, certainly, now. I think that this cast of his will be told of every time men lift a stone here in Lincoln,” said the thane.
They left the stone where he had set it, and any one may see it there to this day, and there I suppose it will be for a wonder while Havelok’s name is remembered.
Then they began wrestling and the like, and I left the crowd and went to Withelm, going afterwards to the widow’s. I was not yet wanted by Eglaf for any housecarl duty.
“I sent a man to Grimsby yesterday,” I said; “but you must have passed him on the way somewhere, for he could not have started soon enough to take you a message before you left.”
“I met him on the road last night, for I myself thought it time to come and see how you two fared. I bided at Cabourn for the night, and your messenger came on with me.”
Then he told me that all were well at Grimsby; for fish came now and then and kept the famine from the town, though there were none to send elsewhere; and it was well that we had left, though they all missed us sorely.