k my fast, and that was all, for I had no mind to
spend the night on the road back from the talk that I should have had;
but though I wasted so little time, the people were already beginning to
prepare for rejoicing in their own way with games of all sorts and with
feasting in the open. I saw, as we rode down the street, the piles of
firewood that were to roast oxen whole, and near them were the butts
that held ale for all comers. There were men who set up the marks for
the archers, and others who staked out the rings for the wrestling and
sword play. And as we left the town we met two men who led a great brown
bear by a ring in his nose, for the baiting. I was sorry for the poor
beast, but the men called him "Hodulf," already, and I thought that a
good sign in its way.

Another good sign, and that one which could not be mistaken, was to see
the warriors coming in by twos and threes as the news reached them. They
were dotted along the roads from all quarters, and across the heaths we
saw the flash of the arms of more.

And ever as they met us they hailed us with, "What cheer, comrades? Is
the news true? Is Havelok come to his own?" and the like, and they would
hurry on, rejoicing in the answer that they had.

But I will say that presently, when we passed a stretch of wild moor
where we saw no man, the same was going on towards the town of Hodulf;
for if the news came to a village, some would be for the king that was,
and other and older men for the king that might be. Yet all asked that
question; and more than once, when they heard the reply, there would be
a halt and a talk, and then the men would turn and cast in their lot
with the son of Gunnar, hastening to him with more eager steps than had
taken them to Hodulf.

CHAPTER XXI. THE TOKEN OF SACK AND ANCHOR.

It seemed only the other day that I had passed over the well-known ways,
and I showed Withelm the hollow where Grim had met with the king and
taken his precious burden from him. Then we passed along the wild shore,
and the linnets were singing and the whinchats were calling as ever, and
the old mounds of the heroes of the bygone were awesome to me now as
long ago, when I looked at them standing lonesome along the shore with
only the wash of the waves to disturb them. And so we came to the town
at high noon, and already there was the bustle of a gathering host in
the place, for the news had fled before us.

They had built a new and greater hall in plac