Ned, the son of Webb: What he did.

Everybody seemed in good spirits, but there was a kind of excitement which was in the way of conversation. Even the women at the house and in the village were cheerful.

"I suppose," he thought, "they may do some crying when the men go, but Lars says that the Norway women can fight. His mother killed a wolf once. I wouldn't like to have my mother go out for wolf-killing. Wouldn't she run! So would the girls or Aunt Sally. Oh!"

He and Lars were now riding together at the rear of their little company, and just then he heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind him. He turned his head to look, and a horseman wearing a long black robe and a peculiar cap reined in at his side, exclaiming loudly, in Latin:

"Thou art Ned, the son of Webb. I am Brian, the missionary, from the Clontarf School and Abbey in blessed Ireland. Good-will to thee!"

Ned summoned up all the Latin he had ever worked upon, but there was danger of its falling somewhat short. He had begun with it early, and Uncle Jack and his father had bored him horribly with it, year after year, making him talk it as well as read it. He could, therefore, really do something in this sudden emergency, but he was willing to say little and to let the rosy-faced and friendly priest do most of the talking, – which he was ready to do.

"Alas, my son!" he remarked to Ned. "These men of the North are no better than heathen. They are not at all civilised Christians such as we have in Ireland. Even after they are converted, they stick to their old gods, – such as they are. They are all murderous pirates, anyhow. If it were not for the like of them and the Danes there would be peace and prosperity in Ireland all the while. Even the Saxons trouble us less than do the Danes and the Jutlanders and the sea kings."

Ned was entirely able to ask questions, and he was likely to learn a great deal concerning the piety and enlightenment of the land of St. Patrick, the land of education, from which more missionaries were going out than from any other. Already had they done wonders for the English and Scotch and similar idolaters. Alfred the Great, said Father Brian, had welcomed the Irish scholars gladly, giving them houses and lands and cattle. Edward the Confessor had also done well by them, and the present King of England, Harold, the son of Godwin, had been their friend when as yet he was only an earl.

"What if Hardrada and Tostig are going to beat him?" asked Ned.

"That is yet to be determined," replied Father Brian, thoughtfully. "They may indeed divide the island of Great Britain with Duke William of Normandy. He is a pious man. He speaketh Latin. He will bring with him shiploads of teachers and missionaries. He will build churches and found schools, as he hath already done in Normandy. It hath been on my mind that these Vikings may but cripple the Saxons and open the way for William the Norman."

"King Harold of England is said to be a hard fighter," suggested Ned.

"Thou art but a boy," exclaimed Father Brian. "I was a soldier once, myself. Mark thou! Harold fighteth with two at a time instead of with one enemy only, and each of the twain is his equal, I think. I hear that the English themselves are little more than half-hearted for Harold. Were there not seven kingdoms of them not so long ago? They are a bundle of sticks that is badly tied together."

Somehow or other, although Ned was now one of Hardrada's warriors, he felt a strong feeling of admiration, if not of sympathy, growing in him for Harold of England. The Saxon king was to be forced to defend the northern and southern ends of his kingdom at the same time, and there was no fairness in it. A great deal that he was hearing was new to him, but he could dimly remember having read something somewhere concerning the great development of the early Irish Church.

"St. Patrick himself set it going," he said, thoughtfully, "but Father Brian doesn't seem to know much about him. Perhaps his biography hasn't been published there yet. As soon as it is, he'd better get a copy and read it."

Something like that idea was wandering around in his mind when he spoke to Father Brian in modern English concerning the telegraphic reports of Harold Hardrada's landing in England.

"What's that thou art saying, my boy?" sharply inquired the missionary, in good Clontarf Latin. "Change thy tongue."

Ned strove to explain the matter, but he found himself altogether at sea, for his reverend friend had not the smallest idea concerning either printing or electricity.

"It's the lightning, is it?" he gruffly remarked. "Let me tell thee, then, thou wilt get little good out of that."

Ned was silenced completely, and gave the matter up.

"It's a curious piece of business," he thought. "I have been living in another world than his. The world that he and all these others live in is pretty near a thousand years behind time. I wish I could give them a photograph of the Kentucky or show them an express train going sixty miles an hour."

He and the Vikings were going along at pony trot, and he was discovering that a steel mail overcoat, put on over leather and flannel, was a pretty warm kind of summer clothing.

"I wonder if a fellow ever gets used to it!" he remarked to Father Brian. "Those Vikings don't seem to mind it much. They're all iron-clad, too, like so many war-steamers."

"There was never mail made yet," replied the good man, "but something would go through it. I've split a shield with a pole-ax."

He was looking somewhat unpeaceful, just then, for his pony was kicking.

"Even a Berserker, though," said Ned, "would want no bearskin shirt to-day."

"They never wear them," said the missionary. "Thou art all wrong with the name. The word Ber meaneth bear, that's so, but some weak minds will spell it b-a-r-e, as if they'd fight in their linen, if they had any. No more do they take bearskins for mail."

"What do they, then?" asked Ned, in Latin.

"Like other men," said the priest, hotly. "The meaning is that they're descended from bears, and fight like wild beasts. There are other opinions, indeed, but mine is as good as any other man's, any day."

Perhaps that was a good enough reason for sticking to his own notions and lashing his pony into good behaviour. At all events, Ned did not contradict him. He was just then recalling the savage countenance of Sikend the Berserker, and it had reminded him of a grizzly bear he had seen in the Central Park menagerie.

"It's the same expression in the eyes," he said to himself, "but the old grizzly had a better-tempered look than Sikend has."

On went the cavalcade, halting at noon for a rest and for luncheon. Only an hour or so after that they halted again on the crest of a ridge. Beyond this lay a wide, deep valley, bordered westerly by the blue waters of the North Sea. With one accord the Vikings raised an enthusiastic shout, and clashed their spears against their shields.

"The host of Hardrada the Sea King!"

"The hundred keels of Norway!"

"The flag of the World Waster!"

"Hail to the banner of Woden!"

"Hail to Harold Hardrada!"

"The spears will be many and sharp!"

"Swords will cleave helms!"

"Axes will break the mail of the Saxons!"

The war-cries of the men of Vebba, young and old, were fierce and exulting as they gazed down upon the valley and out upon the sea. Scattered upon all the slopes and levels and along the shore were the houses of a considerable town. At the upper end of the valley, and also at the right of the very commodious harbour, were what looked like extensive fortifications. These were composed mainly of strong palisade works, surrounded by ditches or moats. Nowhere was to be seen anything like a castle of stone. In the open spaces, everywhere, were tents and booths. These must now have been empty, for the afternoon sun glittered upon the polished arms and armour of long lines and serried columns of warriors drawn up in battle array as if for inspection.

"Ships! Ships! Ships!" exclaimed Ned. "Scores and scores of them, big and little. I don't see any square-rigged ships, with yards and topsails, but a good many of them have two masts and some have three or four. They are all single sticks without topmasts, and with brig and schooner rigging. I shall know better what they are like after I get down among them."

Now came up from the valley a loud sound of harping and the braying of thousands of war-horns, followed by a great shout that ran along the lines as one body of troops after another caught its meaning and passed it on.

"On, men! Ride forward! Lars, son of Vebba, yonder cometh King Hardrada. He revieweth his army before it goeth on ship-board. Thou wilt hasten to deliver to him the greeting of thy father. Let Ned, the son of Webb, ride with thee. I go to the shore speedily, to seek our shipping. This errand is thine." So spoke the veteran warrior in charge of this party of Vebba's men, and all rode rapidly onward.

"This is awful!" thought Ned. "I hope the king will have little to say to me. I wouldn't know what on earth is the correct way of talking back to him."

He did not have many minutes more of riding, nevertheless, before Lars, the son of Vebba, said to him:

"Pull in, Ned. We will halt at the right front of this nearest square of men, and wait for the king. See thou! He and his jarls and captains come this way. I am not of full age that I may ride to meet him."

Only a man of rank or a warrior of fame, it appeared, might presume to go out in front of the lines to greet the royal company, and Ned began at once to breathe more freely.

"I will keep a little back," he said to Father Brian. "We will let Lars do the talking."

"That will not I!" exclaimed the rosy-faced Irishman. "Any half-heathen king like him is no better than the rest of us; besides that, I am a missionary from Clontarf. I will speak my mind to him."

He consented, however, to halt with the rest and wait for the king to come.

Loud rang the cheers and war-cries, fiercely brayed the war-horns, as the great Sea King rode slowly nearer. His keen, flashing blue eyes were searching the array of his warriors, man by man, and rank by rank, while his proud face flushed with exultation. Never before had any monarch of the North gathered such a mustering of the best fighting men of the broad flat earth.