as long as we
would, and telling my father to come and speak with him when we had
saved what we could from the wreck. He bade the thralls help at that
also, so that we had fallen in with a friend, and our troubles were less
for his kindness.

We saved what cargo we had left during the next few days, while we dwelt
at the farm. Then at the height of the spring tides the ship broke up,
for a second gale came before the sea that the last had raised was gone.
And then I went with my father to speak with Witlaf the thane at
Stallingborough, that we might ask his leave to make our home on the
little haven, and there become fishers once more.

That he granted readily, asking many questions about our troubles, for
he wondered that one who had owned so good a ship seemed so content to
become a mere fisher in a strange land, without thought of making his
way home. But all that my father told him was that he had had to fly
from the new king of our land, and that he had been a fisher before, so
that there was no hardship in the change.

"Friend Grim," said Witlaf when he had heard this, "you are a brave man,
as it seems to me, and well may you prosper here, as once before. I will
not stand in your way. Now, if you will hold it from me on condition of
service in any time of war, to be rendered by yourself and your sons and
any men you may hire, I will grant you what land you will along the
coast, so that none may question you in anything. Not that the land is
worth aught to any but a fisher who needs a place for boats and nets;
but if you prosper, others will come to the place, and you shall be master."

One could hardly have sought so much as that, and heartily did we thank
the kindly thane, gladly taking the fore shore as he wished. But he said
that he thought the gain was on his side, seeing what men he had won.

"Now we must call the place by a name, for it has none," he said,
laughing. "Grim's Stead, maybe?"

"Call the place a town at once," answered my father, laughing also.
"Grimsby has a good sound to a homeless man."

So Grimsby the place has been from that day forward, and, as I suppose,
will be now to the end of time. But for a while there was only the one
house that we built of the timbers and planks of our ship by the side of
the haven--a good house enough for a fisher and his family, but not
what one would look for from the name.

By the time that was built Havelok was himself again, though he had been
near to