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Earl Hamish and his brother stood side by side, looking into the fire, while Sweyn the Silent and Erland the Old sat them at either corner of the hearth.
They got through with Alfred at last by the way, the Captain had effaced the dividing lines of the seven kingdoms and brought all to one in Egbert's time and now they went on with Alfred's successors. A place was found on the sand for Denmark and Norway to shew themselves; and Sweyn and Canute came over; and there was no bating to the interest with which the game of human life went on.
The Latin tragic poet touches close upon that sentiment in the fine lines "Rex est qui metuit nihil; Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat." So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold the Earl, before the reputed prophetess. She looked on both with a steady eye, which gradually softened almost into tenderness, as it finally rested upon the pilgrim.
Brice told them you were coming; the English have a veneration for him," said Sweyn, bitterly. They both laughed a bitter laugh, for both had suffered by the massacre in the persons of kinsfolks. "But is this young springal thy long-lost son? he is like thee, even as a tame falcon is like, and yet unlike, the free wild bird." "He is my son;" and Anlaf introduced Alfgar.
The earl replied that he intended to lie to until King Olaf should rejoin him. So Thorkel struck sail also. But the ships had still some way on them and the current was with them. They drifted on until they came to a curve in the channel which opened out into the bay where the host of King Sweyn and his allies waited in ambush.
He was come to spy out the nakedness of the land, and would shortly vanish, to return with Harold Hardraade of Norway, or Sweyn of Denmark, and all their hosts. Nay, was he not Harold Hardraade himself in disguise? And so forth. All which Torfrida heard, and thought within herself that, be he who he might, she should like to look on him again.
Now Sigvaldi, knowing that it would not be long ere the Danes claimed Sweyn as their king, was anxious to assure a peace between Wendland and Denmark, and with this purpose he had brought Sweyn in his company to King Burislaf's court, and it was then arranged that Sweyn should wed Gunnhild, daughter of Burislaf, and that thereafter there should be peace between the two lands.
But I am God's servant before all things" the prelate paused, and gathering up new energy, added in unfaltering accents, "I charge thee here, Sweyn the outlaw, that, moved by the fiend, thou didst bear off from God's house and violate a daughter of the Church Algive, Abbess of Leominster!"
Harold succeeded to the English throne, Sweyn to that of Norway, and Hardicanute to the throne of Denmark. In the following chapter a few well-chosen remarks will be made regarding Harold and other kings. Let us now look for a moment into the reigns of Harold I. and Hardicanute, a pair of unpopular reigns, which, although brief, were yet long enough.
That he was levying war on all Frenchmen, in the name of Sweyn, King of Denmark and of England? He is an outlaw, a desperado, a boastful swash-buckler, thought William, it may be, to himself. He found out, in after years, that he had mistaken his man. And north, at York, in the rear of those three insurrections lay Gospatrick, Waltheof, and Marlesweyn, with the Northumbrian host.
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