"I should like to see the first of them get ashore," said Ned to Father Brian.
"Thou art all too late for that," replied the good missionary. "Our ship came right along, with nothing else to do, but Hardrada's men have been working havoc everywhere. There hath been hard fighting in the Scotch islands, that's the Orkneys and Shetland, and a good many Scots are with him now. Didst thou know he had ships and men from Iceland, where the fire mountain is?"
"No," said Ned. "That's a long way off."
"So it is," continued Father Brian, "and they are a bit civilised up there. And while we have sailed along, part of Hardrada's army hath been harrying the coast of Yorkshire, they call it, to no good that I can see. Now he hath pulled them all together, and if he doth not get himself killed he will conquer the north of England first. It is on my mind that he hath been wasting his chances. We shall soon see about that."
How and where the landing was to be made, was, indeed, a matter of great importance. Narrower became the channel of the Humber, and still the long line of ships rowed steadily on. No man could say just where the Humber ended and the Ouse began. Before long the mouth of a river was reached on the left. That was the Don, and Ned did not see any ships go into it. Not a great deal farther up, on the same side, was another stream flowing into the Ouse, and that was the river Aire.
"It's of no use to Hardrada," said Father Brian. "What he wanteth to do, now, is to get his grip on thy own city of York, and maybe he will."
A sort of gloomy doubt seemed to be growing in the mind of the good missionary, and he evidently had military ideas of his own.
"Thou mayest remember," he remarked to Ned, "that the women at Vebba's place made no wailing at all when their men marched away? I am told that it was not so elsewhere. The women wept as if they were mourning, and all the old ones, that are half witch-like, foretold bad luck. There hath many a bad luck sign been spoken of. Here we are, though."
So they were, and the now more swiftly rowed ships of the Vikings were crowding one another somewhat in the narrow Ouse.
Lars came in full armour to stand by Ned, and gaze at the woodlands, the cultivated fields, and the homesteads on either bank. He had been almost a talkative boy in Norway, among his hawks and hounds and the scenery he was accustomed to. Ever since coming on board the Serpent, however, he had seemed another fellow. He was tall and strong for his age, and his yellow hair was put up in a long braid, which the back rim of his steel cap appeared to rest on. His bright gray eyes were full of excitement, but his lips were tightly closed, as if it were impossible for him to express something or was resolutely keeping it in.