of mine, for he shook me once,
and that shaking made an honest man of me. He himself taught me what
fair play is, at that same time."

So said the porter, and laughed, and the thane joined him.

"Well, he has made a sort of name for himself as a wonder, certainly,
now. I think that this cast of his will be told of every time men lift a
stone here in Lincoln," said the thane.

They left the stone where he had set it, and any one may see it there to
this day, and there I suppose it will be for a wonder while Havelok's
name is remembered.

Then they began wrestling and the like, and I left the crowd and went to
Withelm, going afterwards to the widow's. I was not yet wanted by Eglaf
for any housecarl duty.

"I sent a man to Grimsby yesterday," I said; "but you must have passed
him on the way somewhere, for he could not have started soon enough to
take you a message before you left."

"I met him on the road last night, for I myself thought it time to come
and see how you two fared. I bided at Cabourn for the night, and your
messenger came on with me."

Then he told me that all were well at Grimsby; for fish came now and
then and kept the famine from the town, though there were none to send
elsewhere; and it was well that we had left, though they all missed us
sorely.

Then we began to talk of the doings here; and at last I spoke of
Havelok's trouble, as one may well call it, telling him also of the
strange dream with which it all began.

"All this is strange," he said thoughtfully; "but if Havelok our brother
is indeed a king's son, it is only what he is like in all his ways. Wise
was our father Grim, and I mind how he seemed always to be careful of
him in every way, and good reason must he have had not to say what he
knew. We will not ask aught until the time of which Arngeir knows has
come. Nor can we say aught to Havelok, though he is troubled, for we
know nothing. As for the dream, that is part of it all, and it is a
portent, as I think."

"Did I know the man who could read it, I would go to him and tell him it."

"There is one man who can read dreams well," Withelm answered, flushing
a little, "but I do not know if you would care to seek him. I stayed
with him last night, and he is on his way even now to Lincoln, driven by
the famine. I mean the old British priest David, who has his little hut
and chapel in the Cabourn woods. His people have no more to give him."

I knew that Withelm thought much of this