home without bread or dough in their shirts
or coats, beans and corn in their bags. When
Grim caught the great lamprey he carried it
to Lincoln, and brought home wastels,
simnels, his bags full of meal and corn, neat's
flesh, sheep and swine's flesh; and hemp for
the making of more lines. Thus, for twelve
winters they strove and throve: but it
grieved the young Havelok that Grim and
his sons should work to get his meat, while
he lay idle at home. He thought to himself,
"I am no longer a baby. I can eat more
than Grim gets me; I can eat, by Heaven,
more than Grim and all his five children. I
must work for my living,—it is not a shame
to work. I will go forth to-morrow."

On the morrow, when it was day, Havelok
set forth with a pannier; and, for his load,
he carried more fish than the other four. He
bare it well, and sold it well, and brought
home all the silver, for he would not keep a
farthing of it back. So he went forth every
day.

.Now, there befel so great a scarcity of
corn and bread, that Grim could not devise
how he was to feed all in his household. He
was afraid on behalf of Havelok, for he was
strong, and ate more than could be drawn
out of the sea. Therefore, he said, "Havelok,
dear son, I ween that we must die, for we
are hungering, and have no meat. It will be
better for you to go hence; you know the
way to the good borough of Lincoln; thither
you had better go, for there lives many a
good man of whom you may earn a living.
But, woe is me! You are so naked. I must
cut you a dress out of my sail, lest you take
cold." He took the shears off the nail, and
made of the sail a coat, which Havelok put
on. He had neither hose, nor shoes, nor any
other kind of garment; and barefoot he
walked to Lincoln, where he had no friend to
go to. For two days he went up and down
fasting, because nobody would give him food
for work.

On the third day he heard a call of
"Porters! porters! come hither, all!" Like a
spark from a coal Havelok leapt forth; he
shoved down nine or ten men, and pressed
forward to the cook, from whom he took the
Earl's meat that had been bought at the
bridge, and, leaving the porters strewn
upon the ground, he carried the meat to
the castle; there he got a farthing wastel-
loaf.

Next day he looked out for the cook upon
the bridge, and saw him with many fishes by
his side, which he had bought for the Earl of
Cornwall. When he cried "Porters! porters!
hither! quick!" Havelok knocked down,
and made a heap of sixteen stout lads, who
stood in his way, and took up on his head a
full cart-load of fish. Then he spared neither
toes nor heels till he came to the castle,
where men took his burthen from his head.
The cook stood and looked at him, thought
him a stalwart man, and said: "Will you
serve with me? I shall be glad to feed you,
for the meat is well spent that you eat."
"Dear sir," said Havelok, "I ask no other
hire. Give me enough to eat, and I will
fetch you fire and water; I can break sticks,
kindle and blow the fire; I can cleave
billets, skin eels, wash dishes." Quoth the
cook, "I want no more. Go sit thou yonder,
and eat bread and broth at will."

Havelok ate and worked. He carried
mighty burthens gaily; he was always blithe
of speech; the little children in the meadows
took him for their playfellow; high and low,
knights and children talked of his strength,
and of his fair form, and of his gentleness.
But he was almost naked. He had nothing
to wear but a coat that was not worth a fir-
stick. The cook, sorry for that, bought him
span new clothes, with hose and shoes; and,
when he was clothed, hosed, and shod, he
was the fairest under God. At the Lincoln
games he was taller by the shoulders than
the stoutest who came thither.

In these days, Earl Godrich had all
England in his power, and he brought into the
town of Lincoln many earls and barons,
champions, bondsmen, the young and old, the
strong and weak. One day, the strong men
in that assemblage played at putting of the
stone. Havelok, commanded to try his
strength, lifted the heavy stone, twelve feet
and more, over the heads of all the champions.
The talk of his strength and of his meekness
travelled through all England. Godrich's
knights praised it in the castle-hall, and
Godrich, when he heard how perfect the
youth was, thought to himself: "Through this
boy I shall have England. I swore upon the
mass to my king Athelwold that I would wed
his girl to the best man in all the land.
Havelok shall have Goldeburgh." But this
he thought with treachery, supposing
Havelok to be some churl's son who would
degrade the princess from her queenly right
to possess England. Therefore he brought
Goldeburgh to Lincoln with great ringing
of bells, and said to her that he should give
her to the fairest man alive. She vowed, in
answer, that no man should have her but a
king, or a king's heir. Godrich was wroth,
and warned her that she was not to be
queen and lady over him, but on the
morrow he should marry her to his cook's
knave.

Next morning, when the day-bell was rung,
that Judas sent for Havelok, and said:
"Master, wilt wive?"

"Nay," quoth Havelok, "by my life, how
should I manage to keep a wife. I cannot
feed, or clothe, or shoe her. I want house
and cot, and stick and sprout, and bread and
cloth, except a bit of an old sail. These clothes
that I have on are the cook's, and I'm his
knave."

Then Godrich beat him, threatened to hang
him,—to put out his eyes,—and so compelled
him to be married. By threatening to burn