It was good to climb the welds and look back, for
in the high lands there was none of this. Below
us the levels, with their bright waters, were wrapped
in a strange blue haze, that had come with the famine
at its worst, and, as men said, had brought or made
the sickness. I had heard of it; but it was not
so plain when one was in it, or else our shore was
free, which is likely, seeing how little we suffered.
After that we kept to the high land, not so much fearing
the blue robe of the pestilence as what things of
its working we might see; and so it was late in the
afternoon that we came in sight of Lincoln town, on
its hill, with the wide meres and river at its feet.
I have seen no city that stands more wonderfully than
this of ours, with the grey walls of the Roman town
to crown the gathering of red and brown roofs that
nestle on the slope and within them. And ever
as we drew nearer Havelok became more silent, as I
thought because he had never seen so great a town
before, until we passed the gates of the stockade that
keeps the town that lies without the old walls, and
then he said, looking round him strangely, “Brother,
you will laugh at me, no doubt, for an arrant dreamer,
but this is the place whereto in dreams I have been
many a time. Now we shall come to yon turn of
the road among the houses, and beyond that we shall
surely see a stone-arched gate in a great wall, and
spearmen on guard thereat.”
It was so, and the gate and guard were before us in
a few more steps. It was the gate of the old
Roman town, inside which was the palace of the king
and one or two more great houses only. Our English
kin hate a walled town or a stone house, and they
would not live within the strong walls, whose wide
span was, save for the king’s palace, which was
built partly of the house of the Roman governor, and
these other halls, which went for naught in so wide
a meadow, empty and green, and crossed by two paved
roads, with grass growing between the stones.
There were brown marks, as of the buried stones of
other foundations, on the grass where the old streets
had been.
All the straggling English town was outside the walls,
and only in time of war would the people use them
as a stronghold, as they used the still more ancient
camps on the hills.
“Many times have you heard us tell of this place,
Havelok,” I said. “It is no wonder
that you seem to know it.”
“Nay,” he answered, “but this is
the city of my dreams, and somewhat is to happen here.”
CHAPTER VIII. BERTHUN THE COOK.
For that night we went to the house of the old dame
with whom my father and I were wont to lodge when
we came to the market, and she took us in willingly,
though she could make little cheer for us. Truly,
as had been said, the scarcity was not so great in
Lincoln, but everything was terribly dear, and that
to some is almost as bad.
“No money have I now, dame,” I said ruefully,
“but I think that for old sake’s sake
you will not turn us away.”
