ho 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