With the dawn we started, and Havelok was thoughtful beyond his wont after we had bidden farewell to the home folk, so that I thought that he grieved for leaving them at the last.

“Downhearted, are you, brother?” I said, when we had gone a couple of miles in silence across the level.  “I have been to Lincoln two or three times in a month sometimes in the summer, and it is no great distance after all.  I think nothing of the journey, or of going so short a way from home.”

“Nor do I,” he answered.  “First, I was thinking of the many times my father, Grim, went this way, and now he can walk no more; and then I was thinking of that empty cottage we passed just now, where there was a pleasant little family enough three months ago, who are all gone.  And then—­ay, I will tell you—­I had a dream last night that stays in my mind, so that I think that out of this journey of ours will come somewhat.”

“Food and shelter, to wit,” said I, “which is all we want for a month or two.  Let us hear it.”

“If we get all that I had in that dream, we shall want no more all our lives,” he said, with a smile; “but it seems a foolish dream, now that I come to tell it.”

“That is mostly the way with dreams.  It is strange how wonderful they seem until daylight comes.  I have heard Witlaf’s gleeman say that the best lays he ever made were in his sleep; but if he remembered aught of them, they were naught.”

“It is not like that altogether with my dream,” Havelok said, “for it went thus.  I thought that I was in Denmark—­though how I knew it was Denmark I cannot say—­and on a hill I sat, and at my feet was stretched out all the land, so that I could see all over it at once.  Then I longed for it, and I stretched out my arms to gather it in, and so long were they that they could well fathom it, and so I drew it to myself.  With towns and castles it was gathered in, and the keys of the strongholds fell rattling at my feet, while the weight of the great land seemed to lie on my knees.  Then said one, and the voice was the voice of Grim, ’This is not all the dream that I have made for you, but it is enough for now.’  That is the dream, therefore, and what make you of it?”

“A most amazing hunger, brother, certainly, and promise of enough to satisfy it withal.  I think that the sisters have talked about our advancement at court until you have dreamed thereof.”

“Why,” he said, “that is surely at the bottom of the dream, and I am foolish to think more of it.”

Then we went on, and grew light hearted as the miles passed.  But though I had seemed to think little of the dream, it went strangely with my thoughts of what might lie before Havelok in days to come.

As we went inland from the sea, the track of the pestilence was more dread, for we passed house after house that had none living in them, and some held the deserted dead.  I might say many things of what we saw, but I do not like to think of them much.  Many a battlefield have I seen since that day, but I do not think them so terrible as the field over which has gone the foe that is unseen ere he smites.  One knows the worst of the battle when it is over and the roll is called, but who knows where famine and pestilence stay?  And those have given life for king or land willingly, but these were helpless.