98
VI. The Old, Old Trouble 129
VII. The Call of War 164
VIII. Thora's Problem 193
IX. The Bread of Bitterness 230
X. The One Remains, the Many Change and Pass 271
XI. Sequences 304

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday morning this thing happened to me: I was reading the _New
York Times_ and my eyes suddenly fell upon one word, and that word
rang a little bell in my memory, "Kirkwall!" The next moment I had
closed my eyes in order to see backward more clearly, and slowly, but
surely, the old, old town--standing boldly upon the very beach of the
stormy North Sea--became clear in my mental vision. There was a whole
fleet of fishing boats, and a few smart smuggling craft rocking gently
in its wonderful harbour--a harbour so deep and safe, and so capacious
that it appeared capable of sheltering the navies of the world.

I was then eighteen years old, I am now over eighty-six; and the
straits of Time have widened and widened with every year, so that many
things appear to have been carried away into forgetfulness by the
stress and flow of full waters. But not so! They are only lying in
out-of-the-way corners of consciousness, and can easily be recalled by
some word that has the potency of a spell over them.

"Kirkwall!" I said softly, and then I began to read what the _Times_
had to say about Kirkwall. The great point appeared to be that as a
rendezvous for ships it had been placed fifty miles within the "made
in Germany" danger zone, and was therefore useless to the British
men-of-war. And I laughed inwardly a little, and began to consider if
Kirkwall had ever been long outside of some danger zone or other.

All its myths and traditions are of the fighting Picts and Scots, and
when history began to notice the existence of the Orkneys it was to
chronicle the struggle between Harold, King of Norway, and his
rebellious subjects who had fled to the Orkneys to escape his
tyrannical control. And of the danger zones of every kind which
followed--of storm and battle and bloody death--does not the Saga of
Eglis give us a full account?

This fight for popular freedom was a failure. King Harold conquered
his rebellious subjects, and incidentally took possession of the
islands