ht alongside our ship, thinking to add
our goods thereto. Things went the other way, and we left him only an
empty ship, which maybe was more than he would have spared to us. That
was on my second voyage, when I was fifteen.

Mostly my father traded to England, for there are few of the Saxon kin
who take ship for themselves, and the havens to which he went were
Tetney and Saltfleet, on the Lindsey shore of Humber, where he soon had
friends.

So Grim prospered and waxed rich fast, and in the spring of the year
wherein the story begins was getting the ship ready for the first cruise
of the season, meaning to be afloat early; for then there was less
trouble with the wild Norse Viking folk, for one cruise at least. Then
happened that which set all things going otherwise than he had planned,
and makes my story worth telling.

We---that is my father Grim, Leva my mother, my two brothers and
myself, and our two little sisters, Gunhild and Solva---sat quietly in
our great room, busy at one little thing or another, each in his way,
before the bright fire that burned on the hearth in the middle of the
floor. There was no trouble at all for us to think of more than that the
wind had held for several weeks in the southwest and northwest, and we
wondered when it would shift to its wonted springtide easting, so that
we could get the ship under way once more for the voyage she was
prepared for. Pleasant talk it was, and none could have thought that it
was to be the last of many such quiet evenings that had gone before.

Yet it seemed that my father was uneasy, and we had been laughing at him
for his silence, until he said, looking into the fire, "I will tell you
what is on my mind, and then maybe you will laugh at me the more for
thinking aught of the matter. Were I in any but a peaceful land, I
should say that a great battle had been fought not so far from us, and
to the northward."

Then my mother looked up at him, knowing that he had seen many fights,
and was wise in the signs that men look for before them; but she asked
nothing, and so I said, "What makes you think this, father?"

He answered me with another question.

"How many kites will you see overhead at any time, sons?"

I wondered at this, but it was easy to answer---to Raven, at least.

"Always one, and sometimes another within sight of the first," Raven said.

"And if there is food, what then?"

"The first swoops down on it, and the next follows, and the one t