Then, after one look, he knew me at once, and ran to me, and took my hand, and almost kissed me in his pleasure, for since I could handle an oar he had known me, and had taught me how to do that, moreover.

Then he called for wine and food; and we sat down together and had a long talk of the old days, and of how we had fared after he left, and of all else that came uppermost.  And sorely he grieved at my father’s death, and at the trouble that was on us.  The famine had not been so sore in the south, and pestilence had not been at all.

As for himself, he had been courtman, as we call the housecarls, at first, and so had risen to be chamberlain to the king, and now to the princess, and had been with her everywhere that Alsi had sent her since her father died.

“It was a good day for me, and wise was Grim when he bade me go to Ethelwald to seek service,” he said; “yet I would that I had seen him once more.  I have never been to this place before, else I should have sought him.”

Now I was going to ask him about Havelok, but hardly knew how to begin.  He saved me the trouble however, by speaking first.

“Who were the lady and the boy we had on board when we came to England?” he said.  “I never heard, and maybe it was as well that I did not.”

“My father never told me.  But why do you think that it was well not to know?”

“Because I am sure that Grim had good reason for not telling.  Before I had been a year at Norwich there came a ship from Denmark into the river, and soon men told me that her master was asking for news of one Grim, a merchant, who was lost.  So I saw him, not saying who I was or that I had anything to do with Grim; and then I found that it was not so much of the master that he wanted news as of the boy we had with us.  He did not ask of the lady at all, and I was sure that this was the man who came and spoke to Grim just as we were sailing, if you remember.  So then it came to me that we knew nothing of the coming on board of these two, only learning of their presence when we were far at sea.  And now, if Hodulf troubled himself so much about this boy, there must be something that he was not meant to know about his flight, for he must be of some note.  Did I not know that the king’s son was in his hands at that time, I should have thought that our passenger was he.  However, I told him of the shipwreck as of a thing that I had seen, saying that Grim and his family and a few men only had been saved; and I told him also that I had heard that he had lost some folk in an attack by Vikings.  With that he seemed well satisfied, and I heard no more of him.  I have wondered ever since who the boy was, and if he was yet alive.  I mind that he was like to die when he came ashore.”

Then I laughed, and said that he would hear of him soon enough, for all the town was talking of him; and he guessed whom I meant, for he had heard of the cook’s mighty man.