But it seemed that of all
that had happened he remembered naught, either of the storm, or of his
mother's death, or of the time of Hodulf. My mother thought that the
sickness had taken away his memory, and that it might come back in time.
But from the day we came to the house on the shore he was content to
call Grim and Leva father and mother, and ourselves were his brothers,
even as he will hold us even now. Yet my father would never take him
with us to the fishing, as was right, seeing who he was and what might
lie before him. Nor did he ever ask to go, as we had asked since we were
able to climb into the boat as she lay on the shore; and we who knew not
who he was, and almost forgot how he came to us, ceased to wonder at
this after a while; and it seemed right that he should be the
home-stayer, as if there must needs be one in every household.
Nevertheless he was always the foremost in all our sports, loving the
weapon play best of all, so that it was no softness that kept him from
the sea. I hold that the old saw that says, "What is bred in the bone
cometh out in the flesh," is true, and never truer than in the ways of
Havelok.
For it is not to be thought that because my father went back perforce to
the fisher's calling he forgot that the son of Gunnar Kirkeban should be
brought up always in such wise that when the time came he should be
ready to go to the slayer of his father, sword in hand, and knowing how
to use it.
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