Wulfric the Weapon Thane | Page 3

Sussex cared for naught but themselves. Wherefore, all we longed to know was that the Danish host was not about to fall on us, being employed elsewhere.
We had found gain rather than hurt by their coming, for we had, as I say, made peace with them, and, moreover, sold them horses. Then they had honestly left our coasts, and had gone to York, and thereafter to Nottingham. Now Northumbria was theirs, and Mercia was at their feet. And now again we learnt that they bided in peace at York, and we were content.
Three days it blew, and then the gale was spent; though the sea still ran high and swift. So we bade farewell to our friend the merchant and set sail, and if the passage homewards was rough, it was swifter than we had hoped.
So it came to pass that we reached the wide inlet of our haven at the Yare's mouth too soon for the tide to take us in over the sands which grow and shift every year, and must needs drop anchor in the roads and wait, with home in sight, hill and church and houses clear and sharp against the afternoon sky after rain; while past us the long surges the storm had raised raced in over half-hidden sands, and broke in snow-white foam along the foot of the sand dunes of the shore, sending the spindrift flying up and inland over their low crests.
Mostly the boats would have been out to meet us, and maybe to tow us in, sparing our crew a little; but today no boat might come, for the seas were too heavy over the bar, so that it would have been death to any man foolish enough to try to reach us; and we looked for none. So as the stout ship wallowed and plunged at her anchors--head to wind and sea, and everything, from groaning timbers to song of wind-curved rigging and creak of swinging yard, seeming to find a voice in answer to the plunge and wash of the waves, and swirl and patter of flying spray over the high bows--we found what shelter we might under bulwarks and break of fore deck, and waited.
My father and I sat on the steersman's bench aft, not heeding the showers of spray that reached us now and then even there, and we watched the tide rising over the sand banks, and longed for home and warm fireside, instead of this cold, gray sky and the restless waves; though I, at least, was half sorry that the short voyage was over, dreaming of the next and whither we might turn our ship's bows again before the summer ended.
My father looked now and then shoreward, and now seaward, judging wind and tide, and sitting patiently with the wondrous patience of the seaman, learnt in years of tide and calm; for he would tell me that sea learning never ends, so that though the sailor seemed to be idle, he must needs be studying some new turn of his craft if only his eyes were noting how things went around him. Yet I thought he was silent beyond his wont.
Presently he rose up and paced the deck for a little, and then came and sat down by me again.
"I am restless, son Wulfric," he said, laughing softly; "and I know not why."
"For the sake of supper," I answered, "for I am that also, and tide seems mighty slow therefore."
"Nay, supper comes to the patient; but it seems to me that I have to watch for somewhat."
"Surely for naught but the tide," I answered, not thinking much of the matter, but yet wondering a little.
"Not for tide or wind, but for somewhat new, rather--somewhat of which I have a fear.
"But this is foolishness," he said, laughing again at himself, for few men thought less of signs and forewarnings than he.
Then he looked out again to windward, under his hand, and all of a sudden turned sharply to me, pointing and saying:
"But, as I live, hither comes something from the open sea!"
I rose up and looked to where he showed me, and as the ship rose to a great wave, far off I saw a dark speck among white-crested rollers, that rose and fell, and came ever nearer, more swiftly than wreckage should.
Now some of the men who clustered under the shelter of the fore deck, with their eyes ever on us, rose up from their places and began to look out seaward over the bows through the spray to find out what we watched, and ere long one man called to his mates:
"Ho, comrades, here comes flotsam from the open sea!"
Slowly the men rose up one by one and looked, clustering round the stem head, and a little talk went round as to what