THE SEA KING.

Through a sashless window, the next morning's light came into the room where Ned was sleeping, and woke him. With it poured in the dull roar of the ocean waves upon the rocky coast of Norway.

"What's that?" he exclaimed, sitting up and looking around him. "Where am I? I say, what would father and mother think of this? Well, I begin to remember it all now! There's Lars. I saw his hawks and the dogs and all the rest. Then came the blacksmith business and the songs and the harping. I know where I am! I'm a Viking, and I heard the messenger from King Hardrada. Hurrah! I'm going to invade England! Just the very thing I've always wanted to do!"

He was on his feet now, picking up his arms and armour. His exclamations and the clatter he was making aroused the other sleepers. They, too, sprang up with shouts of warlike enthusiasm, and began to talk eagerly about the mustering of the army. They helped one another with the mail and the pieces of armour, for clothing of that style had peculiar difficulties of its own. Their hero was Hardrada the Sea King, and they had wild tales to tell of his exploits and adventures half-way around the world.

"He went almost to the edge of it, once," said Lars. "I'd like to go there, myself, and see where the sky touches the earth. It's as hard as a brick and has star-holes in it, but you can't climb through."

"He doesn't know that the earth is round," thought Ned, "but he will, some day. What he needs is the primary and then four years in a grammar school. I want to see Hardrada, and then I'd like a good look at Harold of England and William the Norman."

Out they went to breakfast, and all the while Ned learned more and more about the great invasion. It was to be made by the largest force that ever had sailed from the Northland. Even Knud the Great, the conqueror of England, had never gathered such a fleet. He was a Dane, indeed, but all sorts of Northmen had gone with him, or he would have been beaten by the Saxons.

There was no order at the breakfast-table except that of first come first served, and nobody lingered long.

Ned's next errand carried him to a place from which he could see the landing, and he watched the boats that were busily plying to and from the ship.

"They're loading her as fast as they can," he remarked. "I'd rather go by land. There'll be sea-going enough—"

A loud summons from Lars interrupted him, and in a few minutes more they were among a considerable drove of saddled and bridled horses.

"Some of them are big ones," he said, "but Lars and I are to ride ponies."

Vebba himself was very well mounted, and he was riding around, in full armour, giving orders to his men. These were several scores in number, and they were a ferocious-looking crew. Their arms and equipments were of all sorts, for each man had suited himself, and nothing like a uniform was called for by the army regulations. Most of them were tall fellows, but there were also a number of short, broad-shouldered, powerful-looking fighters, with dark skins and black hair, who almost seemed to belong to some other race.

"Who are those fellows?" replied Lars, when Ned asked about them. "Why, knowest thou not who they are? They belong to the old race that was here when Woden and Thor and our people came in here from the east. They are all miners. They live among the mountains, and some of them are wizards. They are good fighters, though, and they never spare an enemy."

Terrible, indeed, were their hard, cruel faces. One of them, in particular, had a kind of fascination for Ned, he was so tremendously broad-shouldered and long-armed, and seemed so strong. It was enough to make one shudder to look at him and see him move. There could not have been an ounce of fat on him, but he must have weighed over two hundred pounds. For all that, however, he stepped around as lightly as a fourteen-year-old catcher in a game of baseball.

"He is worth a hundred common men," explained Lars. "He is Sikend, the Berserker, and no spear can hit him. He can catch an arrow on his ax-edge and he can cleave a steel helmet as if it were made of pine. There isn't any Saxon that can stand before him."

Ned and his friends were quickly mounted, and were riding away in a southerly direction. Vebba remained behind to bring on the main body of his following, while a score of his best men went forward with his son. To him he said, at parting:

"Get speech with the king. Say to him that I and mine are coming. Say that I have sent on great store of provisions and three more good keels wherewith he may ferry his levies. Go!"

Everybody seemed in good spirits, but there was a kind of excitement which was in the way of conversation. Even the women at the house and in the village were cheerful.

"I suppose," he thought, "they may do some crying when the men go, but Lars says that the Norway women can fight. His mother killed a wolf once. I wouldn't like to have my mother go out for wolf-killing. Wouldn't she run! So would the girls or Aunt Sally. Oh!"

He and Lars were now riding together at the rear of their little company, and just then he heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind him. He turned his head to look, and a horseman wearing a long black robe and a peculiar cap reined in at his side, exclaiming loudly, in Latin:

"Thou art Ned, the son of Webb. I am Brian, the missionary, from the Clontarf School and Abbey in blessed Ireland. Good-will to thee!"

Ned summoned up all the Latin he had ever worked upon, but there was danger of its falling somewhat short. He had begun with it early, and Uncle Jack and his father had bored him horribly with it, year after year, making him talk it as well as read it. He could, therefore, really do something in this sudden emergency, but he was willing to say little and to let the rosy-faced and friendly priest do most of the talking,—which he was ready to do.

"Alas, my son!" he remarked to Ned. "These men of the North are no better than heathen. They are not at all civilised Christians such as we have in Ireland. Even after they are converted, they stick to their old gods,—such as they are. They are all murderous pirates, anyhow. If it were not for the like of them and the Danes there would be peace and prosperity in Ireland all the while. Even the Saxons trouble us less than do the Danes and the Jutlanders and the sea kings."

Ned was entirely able to ask questions, and he was likely to learn a great deal concerning the piety and enlightenment of the land of St. Patrick, the land of education, from which more missionaries were going out than from any other. Already had they done wonders for the English and Scotch and similar idolaters. Alfred the Great, said Father Brian, had welcomed the Irish scholars gladly, giving them houses and lands and cattle. Edward the Confessor had also done well by them, and the present King of England, Harold, the son of Godwin, had been their friend when as yet he was only an earl.

"What if Hardrada and Tostig are going to beat him?" asked Ned.

"That is yet to be determined," replied Father Brian, thoughtfully. "They may indeed divide the island of Great Britain with Duke William of Normandy. He is a pious man. He speaketh Latin. He will bring with him shiploads of teachers and missionaries. He will build churches and found schools, as he hath already done in Normandy. It hath been on my mind that these Vikings may but cripple the Saxons and open the way for William the Norman."

"King Harold of England is said to be a hard fighter," suggested Ned.

"Thou art but a boy," exclaimed Father Brian. "I was a soldier once, myself. Mark thou! Harold fighteth with two at a time instead of with one enemy only, and each of the twain is his equal, I think. I hear that the English themselves are little more than half-hearted for Harold. Were there not seven kingdoms of them not so long ago? They are a bundle of sticks that is badly tied together."

Somehow or other, although Ned was now one of Hardrada's warriors, he felt a strong feeling of admiration, if not of sympathy, growing in him for Harold of England. The Saxon king was to be forced to defend the northern and southern ends of his kingdom at the same time, and there was no fairness in it. A great deal that he was hearing was new to him, but he could dimly remember having read something somewhere concerning the great development of the early Irish Church.

"St. Patrick himself set it going," he said, thoughtfully, "but Father Brian doesn't seem to know much about him. Perhaps his biography hasn't been published there yet. As soon as it is, he'd better get a copy and read it."

Something like that idea was wandering around in his mind when he spoke to Father Brian in modern English concerning the telegraphic reports of Harold Hardrada's landing in England.

"What's that thou art saying, my boy?" sharply inquired the missionary, in good Clontarf Latin. "Change thy tongue."

Ned strove to explain the matter, but he found himself altogether at sea, for his reverend friend had not the smallest idea concerning either printing or electricity.

"It's the lightning, is it?" he gruffly remarked. "Let me tell thee, then, thou wilt get little good out of that."

Ned was silenced completely, and gave the matter up.

"It's a curious piece of business," he thought. "I have been living in another world than his. The world that he and all these others live in is pretty near a thousand years behind time. I wish I could give them a photograph of the Kentucky or show them an express train going sixty miles an hour."

He and the Vikings were going along at pony trot, and he was discovering that a steel mail overcoat, put on over leather and flannel, was a pretty warm kind of summer clothing.

"I wonder if a fellow ever gets used to it!" he remarked to Father Brian. "Those Vikings don't seem to mind it much. They're all iron-clad, too, like so many war-steamers."

"There was never mail made yet," replied the good man, "but something would go through it. I've split a shield with a pole-ax."

He was looking somewhat unpeaceful, just then, for his pony was kicking.

"Even a Berserker, though," said Ned, "would want no bearskin shirt to-day."

"They never wear them," said the missionary. "Thou art all wrong with the name. The word Ber meaneth bear, that's so, but some weak minds will spell it b-a-r-e, as if they'd fight in their linen, if they had any. No more do they take bearskins for mail."

"What do they, then?" asked Ned, in Latin.

"Like other men," said the priest, hotly. "The meaning is that they're descended from bears, and fight like wild beasts. There are other opinions, indeed, but mine is as good as any other man's, any day."

Perhaps that was a good enough reason for sticking to his own notions and lashing his pony into good behaviour. At all events, Ned did not contradict him. He was just then recalling the savage countenance of Sikend the Berserker, and it had reminded him of a grizzly bear he had seen in the Central Park menagerie.

"It's the same expression in the eyes," he said to himself, "but the old grizzly had a better-tempered look than Sikend has."

On went the cavalcade, halting at noon for a rest and for luncheon. Only an hour or so after that they halted again on the crest of a ridge. Beyond this lay a wide, deep valley, bordered westerly by the blue waters of the North Sea. With one accord the Vikings raised an enthusiastic shout, and clashed their spears against their shields.

"The host of Hardrada the Sea King!"

"The hundred keels of Norway!"

"The flag of the World Waster!"

"Hail to the banner of Woden!"

"Hail to Harold Hardrada!"

"The spears will be many and sharp!"

"Swords will cleave helms!"

"Axes will break the mail of the Saxons!"

The war-cries of the men of Vebba, young and old, were fierce and exulting as they gazed down upon the valley and out upon the sea. Scattered upon all the slopes and levels and along the shore were the houses of a considerable town. At the upper end of the valley, and also at the right of the very commodious harbour, were what looked like extensive fortifications. These were composed mainly of strong palisade works, surrounded by ditches or moats. Nowhere was to be seen anything like a castle of stone. In the open spaces, everywhere, were tents and booths. These must now have been empty, for the afternoon sun glittered upon the polished arms and armour of long lines and serried columns of warriors drawn up in battle array as if for inspection.

"Ships! Ships! Ships!" exclaimed Ned. "Scores and scores of them, big and little. I don't see any square-rigged ships, with yards and topsails, but a good many of them have two masts and some have three or four. They are all single sticks without topmasts, and with brig and schooner rigging. I shall know better what they are like after I get down among them."

Now came up from the valley a loud sound of harping and the braying of thousands of war-horns, followed by a great shout that ran along the lines as one body of troops after another caught its meaning and passed it on.

"On, men! Ride forward! Lars, son of Vebba, yonder cometh King Hardrada. He revieweth his army before it goeth on ship-board. Thou wilt hasten to deliver to him the greeting of thy father. Let Ned, the son of Webb, ride with thee. I go to the shore speedily, to seek our shipping. This errand is thine." So spoke the veteran warrior in charge of this party of Vebba's men, and all rode rapidly onward.

"This is awful!" thought Ned. "I hope the king will have little to say to me. I wouldn't know what on earth is the correct way of talking back to him."

He did not have many minutes more of riding, nevertheless, before Lars, the son of Vebba, said to him:

"Pull in, Ned. We will halt at the right front of this nearest square of men, and wait for the king. See thou! He and his jarls and captains come this way. I am not of full age that I may ride to meet him."

Only a man of rank or a warrior of fame, it appeared, might presume to go out in front of the lines to greet the royal company, and Ned began at once to breathe more freely.

"I will keep a little back," he said to Father Brian. "We will let Lars do the talking."

"That will not I!" exclaimed the rosy-faced Irishman. "Any half-heathen king like him is no better than the rest of us; besides that, I am a missionary from Clontarf. I will speak my mind to him."

He consented, however, to halt with the rest and wait for the king to come.

Loud rang the cheers and war-cries, fiercely brayed the war-horns, as the great Sea King rode slowly nearer. His keen, flashing blue eyes were searching the array of his warriors, man by man, and rank by rank, while his proud face flushed with exultation. Never before had any monarch of the North gathered such a mustering of the best fighting men of the broad flat earth.

Hardrada was almost a giant in size, being said to measure over seven feet, and to be strong in proportion. His armour was richly ornamented with gold and jewels. His gilded head-piece had no visor in front to hide his features, and his abundant, bright red hair, from which he took his name, flowed down his shoulders in a mass of ripples, instead of being worn in braids like those of numbers of his followers. At his saddle-bow was slung a huge battle-ax, which few arms but his could wield. From his belt hung a long, straight sword, in a jewelled sheath. His broad, round, gorgeously decorated shield was thrown over his shoulder. In his hand was a long spear, not unlike the lances which were carried by the men-at-arms of France and Normandy.

"Isn't he magnificent!" exclaimed Ned. "Hurrah! I have seen the greatest of the Vikings, Lars! The Saxons will find him a hard man to meet. Who is that other man at his side? He is almost as splendid as the king."

"That must be Tostig the Earl," said Lars. "They said he was away with his ships, but he hath come to talk with Hardrada. He is a brother of Harold Godwinson, the King of the Saxons. Men say he is a good fighter, but not so good as his brother. What a match it would be between the two Harolds of Norway and England!"

"That's so!" said Ned. "Or between Tostig the Earl and Sikend the Berserker."

"No man on earth is a match for Sikend," said Lars. "He beareth a charmed life. There are witches and wizards among his people. They read the old runes on the tombstones. They boil snakes and lizards and evil roots, to make charms with, and salve ointments for hurts. Some of them can make a sword-cut close up and heal over, but I think I would not be smeared with any witch grease."

"Salve is a good thing for a cut," said Ned. "It's good for a burn, too. You can find out the right thing from the advertisements. I don't remember any liniment, though, that they said was made of snake-fat. They couldn't get snakes enough, I guess, unless they raised them themselves."

The reviewing party of great men, headed by the king and the earl, halted as it reached the head of the column, with which Vebba's men were posted. Its captain had not yet left it, and the king may have known him by sight, for he at once beckoned him forward.

With him rode out Lars, Father Brian, and, by their direction, Ned, the son of Webb.

"Speak," said Hardrada to the warrior. "What word hast thou for me?"

"It is not mine," he replied. "O king, Lars, the son of Vebba, will deliver unto thee the greeting from his father."

"Let it be brief," said the king. "Time passeth."

"O Harold the King," spoke Lars, freely and boldly, "my father bade me greet thee with this, that all swordsmen are ready. They march this day to join thee. The last of the provision ships lifteth her anchor at sunset. He himself cometh with the miners and the mountain men."

"It is well," said Hardrada. "I know the value of thy father. Who is the youth with thee? O priest, hold thou thy peace!"

"That will I not," responded Father Brian, sturdily. "I have first this word for thee that came by sea. Haste, thou and thine, or William the Norman will reach England before thee. This do I speak for thy good, if thou art able to take friendly advice, like a man of sense."

"Thou art late with thy warning," grimly responded the king. "Well did I know that matter, already. Nevertheless, I will freely hear it from thee. Thou hast spoken loyally. And now I would know concerning the youth that is with the son of Vebba."

It had come to pass, by the way, as they rode hitherward, that Ned, the son of Webb, had given to the missionary the Latin charter name of the American city that he came from, and from it a somewhat crooked understanding had arisen, for Eboricum is nothing but York, whether new or old. Therefore his reverend friend at once replied for him:

"He is Ned, the son of Webb, the chief, or it might be he is somewhat of a jarl. He is an Angle, and he cometh from York. And a fine boy he is, if I say it myself."

The next remark came promptly from Tostig the Earl.

"O Harold the King, my friend, did I not tell thee of my many faithful adherents in my earldom of Northumberland and in mine own city of York? He is welcome. He shall sail with us, and we shall be joined by many more as soon as our standards are seen at the Humber. I pray thee, for the present, let him remain with Vebba, his friend."

"It is well," said the king. "What sayest thou, Ned, the son of Webb?"

"O king," said Ned, hoping that he was bowing correctly, although he nearly pitched out of the saddle in doing it, "I will do as Tostig the Earl hath said. Lars and I are chums. I would give much to see Sikend the Berserker in a battle. I would like to see thee fight also, O King Hardrada, or Tostig the Earl."

Loudly laughed the red-haired king, and as loudly roared Tostig and other of the great warriors.

"Well spoken!" shouted Hardrada. "Thou shalt have thy will in that matter."

"O Hardrada the King," interposed Vebba's captain, "I will say this for him, that he is the best sword, for his age, that I ever saw, and he catcheth a flying spear like an old fighter."

"I like him well," said Tostig. "So let him show the Northmen of what sort are my men of Northumberland. It is a good thing that he hath done, to even flee from York to join us as we sail."

No more was said, and the royal party rode slowly on along the lines.

"I'm out of that scrape, tip-top," said Ned to himself, as he and his friends wheeled back to their post at the head of the Viking column. "But what explanation can I give if we ever get to old York? It beats me all hollow."

At that moment the old Viking at his side said to him:

"I go, now, to the shore. Thou hast a strong friend in Tostig the Earl. I am glad to know this much more concerning thee and thine. We were questioning much in our minds as to how we might deal with thee, and some said it were well to take off thy head. It is ever wise to make sure of all comrades who march with us, for at times there have been false companions."

Ned was silent, for he was not pleased with the suggestion concerning his head, and the warrior rode away.

A few hours later, Vebba arrived with another force of his men, and he expressed great gratification upon learning that he would now be under no necessity for giving an account of his young friend.

"Aha!" he exclaimed. "The youth appertaineth to Tostig the Earl, and he biddeth him to remain with me. He is the son of a Saxon under-jarl. I am glad to be upon better terms with Tostig."

Therefore it was duly settled in the minds of all men, and Ned was acknowledged as being the right sort of youth to associate with Vikings of good degree. The review having been finished, the army had scattered to its camps. Vebba's men had been assigned an open space a little north of the town, and to this his first detachment had marched. Their first duty was to prepare all things for further arrivals, and this work began, of course, with the kindling of camp-fires. Fuel enough had been provided, and Ned at once discovered something that was new to him. The making of a fire was an affair of toil and trouble. He saw his comrades carefully splitting splinters and hunting for handfuls of dry grass.

"That's all right," he thought, "but just look at that fellow hammering out sparks with his flint and steel. It'll take him all night! Why doesn't he go for an old newspaper and some matches?"

The mailed stoker did nothing of the kind, and his sparks fell vainly upon his insufficient tinder.

"That's it!" exclaimed Ned. "What a stupid I am! There isn't a box of matches in all the world! I guess I'll show them a point they don't know. I've a whole box of lighters in my pocket.—Now! I won't let one of them see just what I am doing. It's a good joke."

The would-be fire maker was getting disgusted with his bad success, and he was standing erect at the moment when Ned stooped and put something into the little heap of pine splinters. Nobody had seen him scratch his match upon a stone, and, in a moment more, all eyes turned curiously to stare at the sudden blaze which sprang up so brightly as the resinous fuel kindled.

"It is the work of the young Saxon of Tostig the Earl!" one of them said.

"Ay!" remarked another. "He hath rare skill with a flint. Who ever saw such fire making? He hath been well taught."

He was thenceforth to be admired and valued, for one who could kindle camp-fires readily was a welcome comrade in a campaign. Ned also learned from their talk that in a Norway dwelling great care was always taken to keep fire from day to day, the whole year round. If the fire of one household should at any time be extinguished, it was better to send elsewhere and bring to it a torch, from even a considerable distance, than to toil over the creation of a brand new blaze with flint and steel.

"It only cost me one match," thought Ned. "I'll be stingy about burning the rest. They may last me clean through the conquest of England, if I'm careful. Old newspapers are the right thing to start fires with, though, and I can't even get an old school-book to tear up."

Tents there were none for Vebba's men, but the night was clear and warm, and the supposed favourite of Tostig, the great Earl, slept like a top in his first bivouac as a soldier in the army of Hardrada the Sea King.