would knock their heads together,"
said Havelok.

And that was the beginning of the Lincoln porters' guild; and in after
days Havelok was wont to say that he would that all lawmaking was as
easy as that first trial of his. Certainly from that day forward there
was no man in all the market who would not have done aught for my
brother, and many a dispute was he called on to settle. It is not always
that a law, however good it may be, finds not a single one to set
himself against it. But then Havelok was a strong man.

Now there is naught to tell of either Havelok or myself for a little
while, for we went on in our new places comfortably enough. One heard
much of Havelok, though, for word of him and his strength and
goodliness, and of his kindness moreover, went through the town, with
tales of what he had done. But I never heard that any dared to ask him
to make a show of himself by doing feats of strength. Only when he came
down to the guardroom sometimes with me would he take part in the weapon
play that he loved, and the housecarls, who were all tried and good
warriors, said that he was their master in the use of every weapon, and
it puzzled them to know where he had learned so well, for he yet wore
his fisher's garb. They sent his arms with mine from Grimsby, thinking
that he also needed them; but he left them with the widow.

Havelok used to laugh if they asked him this, and tell them that it came
by nature, and in that saying there was more than a little truth. So the
housecarls, when they heard how Berthun was wont to treat him, thought
also that he was some great man in hiding, and that the steward knew who
he was. They did not know but that my close friendship with him had
sprung up since he came, and that was well, and Eglaf and he and I were
soon much together. The captain wanted him to leave the cook and be one
of his men, but we thought that he had better bide where he was, rather
than let Alsi the king have him always about him. For now and then that
strange feeling, as of the old days, came over him when he was in the
great hall, and he had to go away and brood over it for a while until he
would set himself some mighty task and forget it.

But one day he came to me and said that he was sure he knew the ways of
a king too well for it all to be a dream, adding that Berthun saw that
also, and was curious about him.

"Tell me, brother, whence came I? /Was/ I truly brought up in a court?"

"I have never hea