ACROSS THE SWAN'S PATH.
All that night, and during the morning of the next day, we sailed
steadily with a fresh northwest breeze that bade fair to strengthen
by-and-by. If it held, we should see the cliffs of Northumbria on our
bow tomorrow morning, and then would run down the coast to the Humber,
where my father meant to put in first. He thought to leave the queen and
Havelok with merchants whom he knew in Lindsey, and with them would stay
my mother and the little ones while he made a trading voyage elsewhere.
There would be time enough to find out the best place in which to make a
home when the autumn came, and after he had been to an English port or
two that he did not know yet.
When half the morning was past, the sun shone out warmly, and all came
on deck from the after cabin, where the ladies and children were. Our
men knew by this time that we had passengers, flying like ourselves from
Hodulf, and therefore they were not at all surprised to see Havelok and
his mother with their mistress. None of them had ever seen either of
them before, as it happened, though I do not think that any could have
recognized the queen as she was then, wan and worn with the terror of
her long hiding. Very silent was she as she sat on deck gazing ever at
the long white wake of the ship that seemed to stretch for a little way
towards Denmark, only to fade away as a track over which one may never
go back.
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