It was said
that he had Finnish wizards about his court; but if that was so, he
never harmed the one whom he had most to fear--even Havelok. But then
I suppose that even a Finn could not harm one for whom great things are
in store.
So two years more passed over, and then came the time of which one
almost fears to think--the time of the great famine. Slowly it came on
the land; but we could see it coming, and the dread of it was fearsome,
but for the hope that never quite leaves a man until the end. For first
the wheat that was winter sown came not up but in scattered blades here
and there, and then ere the spring-sown grain had lain in the land for
three weeks it had rotted, and over the rich, ploughed lands seemed to
rise a sour smell in the springtime air, when one longs for the
sweetness of growing things. And then came drought in April, and all day
long the sun shone, or if it were not shining the clouds that hid it
were hard and grey and high and still over land and sea.
Then before the marsh folk knew what they were doing, the merchants of
Lincoln had bought the stored corn, giving prices that should have told
men that it was precious to those who sold as to the buyers; and then
the grass failed in the drought, and the farmers were glad to sell the
cattle and sheep for what they could gain, rather than see them starve.
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