Then a trading ship put in, hearing of the new haven, and that was a great day for us.  But her coming made my father anxious, since Hodulf was likely to seek for news of Grim the merchant from any who had been to England; and hearing at last of him, he would perhaps be down on us, Vikingwise, with fire and sword.  But after that traders came and went, and we heard naught of him except we asked for news; for he left us in peace, if he knew that his enemy lived yet.  Men said that he was not much loved in Denmark.

So the town grew, and well did we prosper, so that there is naught to be said of any more trouble, which is what my story seems to be made up of so far.  Yet we had come well through all at last; and that, I suppose, is what makes the tale of any man worth hearing.

Twelve years went all well thus, and in those years Havelok came to manhood, though not yet to his full strength.  What that would be in a few more summers none could tell, for he was already almost a giant in build and power, so that he could lift and carry at once the four great fish baskets, which we bore one at a time when full of fish, easily, and it was he who could get a stranded boat afloat when we could hardly move her between us, though all three of us were strong as we grew up.

Very handsome was Havelok also, and, like many very strong men, very quiet.  And all loved him, from the children who played along the water’s edge to the oldest dame in the town; for he had a good word for all, and there was not one in the place whom he had not helped at one time or another.  More than one there was who owed him life—­either his own, or that of a child saved from the water.

Most of all Havelok loved my father; and once, when he was about eighteen, he took it into his head that he was burdensome to him by reason of his great growth.  So nothing would satisfy him but that he must go with us to the fishing, though it was against Grim’s will somewhat.  But he could make no hand at it, seeing that he could pull any two of us round if he took an oar, and being as likely as not to break that moreover.  Nor could he bear the quiet of the long waiting at the drift nets, when hour after hour of the night goes by in silence before the herring shoal comes in a river of blue and silver and the buoys sink with its weight; rather would he be at the weapon play with the sons of Witlaf, our friend, who loved him.

But though the fishing was not for him, after a while he would not be idle, saying, when my father tried to persuade him to trouble not at all about our work, that it was no shame for a man to work, but, rather, that he should not do so.  So one day he went to the old Welsh basket maker who served us, and bade him make a great basket after his own pattern, the like of which the old man had never so much as thought of.

“Indeed, master,” he said, when it was done, “you will never be able to carry so great a load of fish as that will hold.”