heep for what they could gain, rather than see them starve.

Then my father bade us dry and store all the fish we might against the
time that he saw was coming, and hard we worked at that. And even as we
toiled, from day to day we caught less, for the fish were leaving the
shores, and we had to go farther and farther for them, until at last a
day came when the boats came home empty, and the women wept at the shore
as the men drew them up silently, looking away from those whom they
could feed no longer.

That was the worst day, as I think, and it was in high summer. I mind
that I went to Stallingborough that day with the last of the fresh fish
of yesterday's catch for Witlaf's household, and it was hotter than
ever; and in all the orchards hung not one green apple, and even the
hardy blackberry briers had no leaves or sign of blossom, and in the
dikes the watercress was blackened and evil to see.

But I will say that in Grimsby we felt not the worst, by reason of that
wisdom of my father, and always Witlaf and his house shared with us.
Hard it was here, but elsewhere harder.

And then came the pestilence that goes with famine always. I have heard
that men have prayed to their gods for that, for it has seemed better to
them to die than live.

With the first breath of the pestilence died Grim my father, and about
that I do not like to say much. He bade us remember the words he had
spoken of Havelok our brother, and he spoke long to Arngeir in private
of the same; and then he told us to lay him in mound in the ancient way,
but with his face toward Denmark, whence we came. And thereafter he said
no more, but lay still until there came up suddenly through the thick
air a thunderstorm from the north; and in that he passed, and with his
passing the rain came.

Thereof Withelm said that surely Odin fetched him, and that at once he
had made prayer for us. But the Welsh folk said that not Odin but the
White Christ had taken the man who had been a father to them, and had
staved off the worst of the famine from them.

Then pined and died my mother Leva, for she passed in her sleep on the
day before we made the mound over her husband, and so we laid them in it
together, and that was well for both, as I think, for so they would have
wished.

So we made a great bale fire over my father's mound, where it stood over
the highest sandhill; and no warrior was ever more wept, for English and
Welsh and Danes were at one in this. We s