than I could swallow, all most delicately dressed, also with rare wines
such as I had never tasted, which he took from a cupboard where they
were kept in curious flasks of glass. Yet as I noted, himself he ate but
little, only picking at the breast of a fowl and drinking but the half
of a small silver goblet filled with wine.

"Appetite, like all other good things, for the young," he said with a
sigh as he watched my hearty feasting. "Yet remember, Nephew, that if
you live to reach it, a day will come when yours will be as mine is.
Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity!"

At length, when I could eat no more, again he rang the silver bell and
those fair waiting girls dressed alike in green appeared and cleared
away the broken meats. After they were gone he crouched over the fire
rubbing his thin hands to warm them, and said suddenly:

"Now tell me of my sister's death and all the rest of your tale."

So as well as I was able I told him everything from the hour when I had
first sighted the French fleet on board my fishing-boat to the end.

"You are no fool," he said when I had finished, "who can talk like any
clerk and bring things that have happened clearly to the listener's eye,
which I have noted few are able to do. So that's the story. Well, your
mother had a great heart, and she made a great end, such an one as was
loved of our northern race, and that even I, the old merchant knave,
desire and shall not win, who doubtless am doomed to die a cow's death
in the straw. Pray the All-Father Odin--nay, that is heresy for which
I might burn if you or the wenches told it to the priests--pray God, I
mean, that He may grant you a better, as He did to old Thorgrimmer,