After that my father took a sharp flint knife that he had brought with him, and with it cut Havelok’s arm a little, and each of us set his lips to that wound, and afterwards he to the like marks in our right arms, and so the ancient rite was complete.

Yet it had not been needed, as I know, for not even I ever thought of him but as the dearest of brothers, though I minded how he came.

Now after this my father grew stronger, maybe because this was off his mind; but he might never go to sea again, nor even to Lincoln town, for he was not strong enough.  What his illness was I do not rightly know, hut I do not think that any one here overlooked him, though it might be that from across the sea Hodulf had power to work him harm.  It was said that he had Finnish wizards about his court; but if that was so, he never harmed the one whom he had most to fear—­even Havelok.  But then I suppose that even a Finn could not harm one for whom great things are in store.

So two years more passed over, and then came the time of which one almost fears to think—­the time of the great famine.  Slowly it came on the land; but we could see it coming, and the dread of it was fearsome, but for the hope that never quite leaves a man until the end.  For first the wheat that was winter sown came not up but in scattered blades here and there, and then ere the spring-sown grain had lain in the land for three weeks it had rotted, and over the rich, ploughed lands seemed to rise a sour smell in the springtime air, when one longs for the sweetness of growing things.  And then came drought in April, and all day long the sun shone, or if it were not shining the clouds that hid it were hard and grey and high and still over land and sea.

Then before the marsh folk knew what they were doing, the merchants of Lincoln had bought the stored corn, giving prices that should have told men that it was precious to those who sold as to the buyers; and then the grass failed in the drought, and the farmers were glad to sell the cattle and sheep for what they could gain, rather than see them starve.

Then my father bade us dry and store all the fish we might against the time that he saw was coming, and hard we worked at that.  And even as we toiled, from day to day we caught less, for the fish were leaving the shores, and we had to go farther and farther for them, until at last a day came when the boats came home empty, and the women wept at the shore as the men drew them up silently, looking away from those whom they could feed no longer.

That was the worst day, as I think, and it was in high summer.  I mind that I went to Stallingborough that day with the last of the fresh fish of yesterday’s catch for Witlaf’s household, and it was hotter than ever; and in all the orchards hung not one green apple, and even the hardy blackberry briers had no leaves or sign of blossom, and in the dikes the watercress was blackened and evil to see.