Let Havelok wind his father's horn, that we may hear it
once again."
Then Havelok set it to his lips, and at once the call that he had
remembered came back to him, and clear and sweet and full of longing its
strange notes rang under the arched roof, unfaltering until the last;
and then over him came the full remembrance of all that it had been to
him, and he turned away from the many eyes and sank on the high seat,
and set his head in his arms on the table, that men might not see that
he needs must weep; and Goldberga stepped a little before him, and set
her hand on his, for I think that she knew the loneliness that came on him.
Yet he was not alone in his sorrow, for down in the hall were men to
whom the lost call brought back the memory of a bright young king riding
to his home, and calling the son whom he loved with the call that he had
made for him alone; and they saw the fair child running from the hall,
and the mother following more slowly with smiles of welcome; and they
saw the grim courtmen, who looked on and were glad; and they minded how
they had lifted the boy to the war saddle; and their eyes grew hot with
tears also, and they had no need to be ashamed.
And as men stood motionless, with the last notes of the wild horn yet
ringing in their ears, there drifted a shadow across the days, and, lo!
beside Havelok, with his hand on his shoulder, stood the form of Gunnar
the king for a long moment, bright as any one of us who lived, in the
morning sunlight, and his face was full of joy and of hope and promise
for the time to come.
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