“What do you think of this?” I said one evening, as soon as I understood the medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he could expostulate, read him the whole of “The Saga of King Olaf!”
He listened open-mouthed, flushed, his hands drumming on the back of the sofa where he lay, till I came to the Song of Einar Tamberskelver and the verse:
“Einar then, the arrow taking
From the loosened string,
Answered: ‘That was Norway breaking
’Neath thy hand, O King.’”
He gasped with pure delight of sound.
“That’s better than Byron, a little,” I ventured.
“Better? Why it’s true! How could he have known?”
I went back and repeated:
“What was that?’ said Olaf, standing
On the quarter-deck,
‘Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck?’”
“How could he have known how the ships crash and the oars rip out and go z-zzp all along the line? Why only the other night.... But go back please and read ‘The Skerry of Shrieks’ again.”
“No, I’m tired. Let’s talk. What happened the other night?”