‘He wrote,’ said Sir Richard. ’Is
the tale meet for children, think you?’ He looked
at Puck; but ‘Tell us! Tell us!’ cried
Dan and Una together.
There’s no wind along these seas,
Out oars for Stavanger!
Forward all for Stavanger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
Let fall for Stavanger!
A long pull for Stavanger!
Oh, hear the benches creak and strain!
(A long pull for Stavanger!)
She thinks she smells the Northland rain!
(A long pull for Stavanger!)
She thinks she smells the Northland snow,
And she’s as glad as we to go.
She thinks she smells the Northland rime,
And the dear dark nights of winter-time.
Her very bolts are sick for shore,
And we—we want it ten times more!
So all you Gods that love brave men,
Send us a three-reef gale again!
Send us a gale, and watch us come,
With close-cropped canvas slashing home!
But—there’s no wind in all these
seas.
A long pull for Stavanger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
A long pull for Stavanger!
’It has naught to do with apes or Devils,’Sir
Richard went on, in an undertone. ’It concerns
De Aquila, than whom there was never bolder nor craftier,
nor more hardy knight born. And remember he was
an old, old man at that time.’
‘When?’ said Dan.
‘When we came back from sailing with Witta.’
‘What did you do with your gold?’ said
Dan.
’Have patience. Link by link is chain-mail
made. I will tell all in its place. We bore
the gold to Pevensey on horseback—three
loads of it—and then up to the north chamber,
above the Great Hall of Pevensey Castle, where De
Aquila lay in winter. He sat on his bed like a
little white falcon, turning his head swiftly from
one to the other as we told our tale. Jehan the
Crab, an old sour man-at-arms, guarded the stairway,
but De Aquila bade him wait at the stair-foot, and
let down both leather curtains over the door.
It was Jehan whom De Aquila had sent to us with the
horses, and only Jehan had loaded the gold. When
our story was told, De Aquila gave us the news of
England, for we were as men waked from a year-long
sleep. The Red King was dead—slain
(ye remember?) the day we set sail—and
Henry, his younger brother, had made himself King of
England over the head of Robert of Normandy. This
was the very thing that the Red King had done to Robert
when our Great William died. Then Robert of Normandy,
mad, as De Aquila said, at twice missing of this kingdom,
had sent an army against England, which army had been
well beaten back to their ships at Portsmouth.
A little earlier, and Witta’s ship would have
rowed through them.
