The dinner ended for the aristocratic part of the household, all of lower degree getting their provision afterward, or in other houses or outer rooms.
It could be seen that this day was of some unusual interest. Other men were arriving, one by one, and they came in armour, bringing weapons with them. While they were being welcomed by their hosts, Ned had a good opportunity for his proposed examination of the ornaments of the walls of the hall.
Great antlers, fastened here and there, served as hooks on which to hang things, and all were heavily loaded. There were helmets of many patterns; shields of all sorts; coats of mail; pieces of armour; coats of thick leather, with or without plates of metal before and behind; short-handled and long-handled battle-axes, with single-edged and double-edged blade-heads of curious shapes; spears, heavy and light, and swords, some of which seemed as if they were made for giants, for they were almost as long as a man. In one corner lay several bundles or sheaves of arrows, and there were plenty of bows.
"I don't believe I could bend some of those bows," thought Ned. "I'd rather have a revolver, anyhow, or a repeating rifle that would carry a mile. It would send a bullet through one of those coats of mail, or a shield, either."
He was called away from his tour of observation by a sudden sound of music. He whirled upon his feet to see, and there in front of the table, on the dais, sat four old men with harps, which they were tuning, getting ready to play. At the same time the hall was growing lighter. It had been somewhat dusky, but now a strong glare was reddening over the walls and the black rafters of the roof. The servants had brought in upright, three-legged cressets of iron-work. That is, at the top of the upright stem of each of these tripod cressets was an iron basket, into which fragments and knots of pine and fir were fed, as they burned. These were the chandeliers of the dwelling of Vebba, and they answered remarkably well.
"No candles to snuff," thought Ned, "but I'd rather have electric light, or coal gas, or kerosene. Hullo! They're going to work at the forge. I wonder if every man around here has a blacksmith shop in his own house."
Probably not, considering how very costly a thing an anvil and a lot of hammers and chisels and files might be. Only a rich chief could afford such an affair as was that forge in the house of Vebba. There was a charcoal fire upon its masonry now, however, and a brawny, grimy man in a leather coat was holding a piece of steel in it with tongs, while another man worked the bellows.
Then the four harpers struck up, and at once the smith began to sing. Out came his white-hot piece of steel to the anvil, up went a hammer in his strong right hand, and the thudding blows that he struck kept time with the music and with the cadences of his anvil-song:
"I forge a sword;
I hammer steel;
It shall cleave shields,
Going through mail.
By it shall men fall.
Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! So do
I shape the steel for the battle."
The smith had a rich, deep, musical voice, and the hall was filled with a great roar of song when all the other voices in it joined in the hammer chorus at the end of each stanza. Somewhat slowly the meaning of it all began to dawn upon the mind of Ned, the son of Webb. This was not mere forge-work; not the manufacture of one blade more at this time; it was part of the entertainment of the evening, and there was an increasing excitement among the Vikings as the singing and harping and hammering went on.