One could hardly have sought so much as that, and heartily did we thank the kindly thane, gladly taking the fore shore as he wished.  But he said that he thought the gain was on his side, seeing what men he had won.

“Now we must call the place by a name, for it has none,” he said, laughing.  “Grim’s Stead, maybe?”

“Call the place a town at once,” answered my father, laughing also.  “Grimsby has a good sound to a homeless man.”

So Grimsby the place has been from that day forward, and, as I suppose, will be now to the end of time.  But for a while there was only the one house that we built of the timbers and planks of our ship by the side of the haven—­a good house enough for a fisher and his family, but not what one would look for from the name.

By the time that was built Havelok was himself again, though he had been near to his death.  Soon he waxed strong and rosy in the sea winds, and out-went Withelm both in stature and strength.  But it seemed that of all that had happened he remembered naught, either of the storm, or of his mother’s death, or of the time of Hodulf.  My mother thought that the sickness had taken away his memory, and that it might come back in time.  But from the day we came to the house on the shore he was content to call Grim and Leva father and mother, and ourselves were his brothers, even as he will hold us even now.  Yet my father would never take him with us to the fishing, as was right, seeing who he was and what might lie before him.  Nor did he ever ask to go, as we had asked since we were able to climb into the boat as she lay on the shore; and we who knew not who he was, and almost forgot how he came to us, ceased to wonder at this after a while; and it seemed right that he should be the home-stayer, as if there must needs be one in every household.

Nevertheless he was always the foremost in all our sports, loving the weapon play best of all, so that it was no softness that kept him from the sea.  I hold that the old saw that says, “What is bred in the bone cometh out in the flesh,” is true, and never truer than in the ways of Havelok.

For it is not to be thought that because my father went back perforce to the fisher’s calling he forgot that the son of Gunnar Kirkeban should be brought up always in such wise that when the time came he should be ready to go to the slayer of his father, sword in hand, and knowing how to use it.  Therefore both Havelok and we were trained always in the craft of the warrior.

Witlaf the thane was right when he said that men would draw to the place if we prospered, and it was not so long before the name that had been a jest at first was so no longer.  Truly we had hard times at first, for our one ship’s boat was all unfitted for the fishing; but the Humber teemed with fish, and there were stake nets to be set that need no boat.  None seemed to care for taking the fish but ourselves, for the English folk had no knowledge of the riches to be won from the sea, and the eels of the river were the best that they ever saw.  So they were very ready to buy, and soon the name of Grim the fisher was known far and wide in Lindsey, for my father made great baskets of the willows of the marsh, and carried his burden of fish through the land, alone at first, until we were able to help him, while Arngeir and we minded the nets.