“So long as Odda is satisfied it is enough,” I said.  “If I have helped him a little, I have helped a man who is worth it.”

“Well,” said the thane, “you seem to be pleased with one another.  Now I should like to see this ship of yours, of which he has so much to say.”

We went over her, and it was plain that this thane knew what he was talking about.  I wondered that the king had not set him in command instead of Odda, who frankly said what was true—­that he was no sailor.  I supposed that this man, however, was not of high rank enough to lead so great a gathering of Saxons, and so I said nothing to him about it.

By and by we sat on the after deck with Harek, and I had ale brought to us, and we talked of ship craft of all sorts.  Presently, however, he said: 

“What shall you do now—­if one may ask?”

“I know not.  When I sailed from Wareham, I thought to have seen more sea service with Alfred your king.  But now his men are going home, and in a day or two, at this rate, there will be none left to man the ships.”

“We can call them up again when need is,” he answered.

“They should not go home till the king sends them,” I said.  “This is not the way in which Harald Fairhair made himself master of Norway.  Once his men are called out they know that they must bide with him till he gives them rest and sends them home with rewards.  It is his saying that one sets not down the hammer till the nail is driven home, and clinched moreover.”

“That is where the Danes are our masters,” the Saxon said, very gravely.  “Our levies fight and disperse.  It was not so in the time of the great battles round Reading that brought us peace, for they never had time to do so.  Then we won.  Now the harvest wants gathering.  Our people know they are needed at home and in the fields.”

“They must learn to know that home and fields will be better served by their biding in arms while there is a foe left in the land.  What says Alfred the king?” I said.

“Alfred sees this as well as you, or as any one but our freemen,” he answered; “but not yet can he make things go as he knows they should.  This is the end at which he ever aims, and I think he will teach his people how to fight in time.  I know this, that we shall have no peace until he does.”

“Your king can build a grand ship, but she is of no use without men in her day by day, till they know every plank of her.”

“Ay,” said the Saxon; “but that will come in time.  It is hard to know how to manage all things.”

“Why,” I said, “if the care of a ship is a man’s business, for that he will care.  You cannot expect him to care for farm and ship at once, when the farm is his living, and the ship but a thing that calls him away from it.”

“What then?”

“Pay the shipman to mind the sea, that is all.  Make his ship his living, and the thing is done.”

“It seems to me,” the thane said, “that this can be done.  I shall tell the king your words.”