York city was a wonderful place as one came upon it by the old North Road. From afar its towers rose up above the green tillage of the plain, beyond the winding Ouse: and as the traveller drew nearer, he saw the great high mound that encompassed the garth of houses, set with its bristling stockade above, and parted from the fields by a water-ditch as broad as a broad river. In the midst of this great wall was the North gate, through which the road ran; and within were houses and houses, some high, some low, some mean like the cottages at Cartmel, some stone-built and grand with painting and carving: but all cheek by jowl, as one may say, along the narrow winding streets, thronged with people and wares set out to sell, and foul with the refuse and rubbish of a thickly inhabited town.

Above the house-roofs rose a great building, the famous Minster: with its towers standing high over gable and pinnacle, graceful and slender. Up there the bells clanged above the din and hurry of the town in those dark deep streets, like deep roaring gills and whirling torrents below.

But it was not for the Minster that Thorstein was bound, as he elbowed through the crowd, and picked his steps over the unpaved lane that was more gutter than path. He hardly dared question the wayfarers, such a stoore and a stir there seemed to be. But he knew that somewhere in the heart of the houses he should find Olaf’s palace, the new castle that had been built after Athelstan destroyed the old Danish stronghold,—the great hall where King Eric had sat with his witch-wife, and skald Egil the swart had sung the lay that won him his head.

So he went forward along the streets, with a beating heart and pale lips, towards the midmost of the city where the great towers rose. When he came before the castle there was an open space, and the houses fell back like trees from a green glade in the forest. But instead of coneys skipping in the grass, here was a great crowd gathered and a tumult going on. Out of every window round the place was a head thrust, and folk fringed the house-roofs a-straddle on the thatch-rigging, and all shouting at once. Stones were flying; and the shopkeepers at the corner, where Thorstein came into the square, were scrambling their goods under cover and shutting their shutters. It seemed as if the townsfolk of the baser sort were trying to force the castle doors: and whoever came out of the narrow streets, like rats out of their holes, thrust themselves on their fellows in front and shoved and shouted; and ill luck it would have been to have tripped in the midst of that scrimmage. Over heads and fists many a stick was waving; and here and there an axe, and here and there a sword, flashing in the sun-gleam, that now and then broke on the square through the rain-showers. On they came by hundreds; aye, by thousands, swarming: for the old books say that in those days no less than thirty thousand souls were crammed within the narrow walls that girt the city of York; so you may well believe there was no lack of hands in a townsfolk mote, whether for peace or for fighting.

“What’s to do, friend?” says Thorstein to a neighbour, who by the look of him was no Saxon, but a Dane; and a right hearty, well-to-do looking merchant man he seemed, now that he had got his goods shifted, and shutters up, and stood there with one hand holding his door ajar, and with the other gripping his axe.

“What’s to do?” repeated the Dane; “why, it’s the old story. A stranger, eh? none of the Saxon folk anyhow.” For Danes and Northmen talked the same tongue, and foregathered among strangers.

“Nay,” said Thorstein, “no Saxon, though a traveller from over the fells.”

“No offence,” said the Dane: “but one can’t be too careful, with Southron spies all about. Our kinsmen, thou knowest, friend, have no bed of roses in this bonny burg.”

“I know nought,” said Thorstein. “What is forward?”

“What thou seest, and I hope they may break the castle. For if the great doors yonder hold, they will sack the shops for want of a job. Thou hast heard, maybe, rumour that king Olaf is dead. To-day it is assured. It was somewhere in the North, Tyningaham I think they called the spot. Look out, man!”

There was a rush towards the door, and stones flew. The Dane plucked Thorstein into the house, slammed the door, and made it fast with stout bars. Then he cast an eye on the bolts of his window, and laughed as they stood in the shop, lit only through the cracks in the shutters.

“It is a pretty stiff bit of oak,” he said. “We shall hold out awhile, unless they take to fire-raising, and that would risk their own kennels. Well, as I was saying, Olaf being gone we must have a new king. Some of these Saxon rubbish would be glad to see the Southrons in here: and anyhow they mean to make hay while the sun shines.”

“So they are trying to plunder the king’s house?” said Thorstein.

“That’s it: but never heed them. I have seen three or four such ados in the last few months, and one gets hardened. Though indeed if it were not for business, I should be glad to be safe again over the seas. It’s a fine town, is Dublin. Thou wilt not be from thereaway I reckon?”

“Nay,” said Thorstein: “but I was there a while when Olaf Guthferthson was king, and indeed I was guested in the king’s house, and it is now for nought else but to have speech with the queen that I am in York.”

“Then, my lad, thou art a bit late: and a good job for thee too, if those rascals—how they shout!—get into the castle.”

“She is gone then? What, is she dead, poor thing?”

“Nay, not so bad as all that. You see it was something o’ this way. Olaf owed a deal to Earl Orm, for without him he would never have halved England with Eadmund. And Orm is a good business man, and looks ahead. Says he to Olaf, If anything happens now to Eadmund, thou wilt be king of all England: and what shall I get that helped thee thereto? Says Olaf, What wilt have, friend? Says Orm, There’s my Aldith should be wed: queen of York is not bad, and queen of England is better. Says Olaf, Well, says he, king Harald Fairhair had more wives than one. Nay, nay, says the Earl, that’s out of fashion nowadays, and I doubt if the Minster-folk would stand it: the king of York is a good Christian now, my lord, and behaves as such: eh? So Olaf he goes to the Irish queen and My dear, says he, a sad unhealthy spot is York city; better go back to Ireland. Says my dame to me,—but come in, man, and make thyself at home. Any news from Dublin will be welcome to the mistress.”

So he brought Thorstein into the living-room behind the shop. It was crowded up with their goods, and looked like a poor place after the great halls of the Northmen: but everything was rich and rare. Such hangings to the beds, such carved work in the tables and stools, such shining copper pots and pans! And the merchant’s wife was dressed as grand as a queen, Thorstein thought, with brooches and rings for a dozen. The children even were finely clothed, though they would have looked but blue and wan alongside of the applecheeked rogues from the Northmen’s homesteads.

“Dame, it’s all right; the doors are well barred, and if they break them there is the earth-house to hide in. But see, here’s a young man has been in Dublin.”

“Welcome, friend,” said she, “and what news of the old country?” Thorstein could see with half an eye that the Dane’s wife was Irish, and so he replied in the language he had learnt among the fell-folk, saying that it was a good while since he was in Ireland, but he was now come to speak to the queen, who had been friendly with him once. At which Master Dane screwed up half his face and winked, and his wife shook her head at him, and said the queen was a good body, and sorry she was for her, and pity it was they had not gone back together with her to Ireland.

“Nay, nay,” said the Dane: “business is business. Keep your shop, say I, and your shop will keep you.”

“Well then,” said the wife, “keep thy shop, my lad, and this young man will take a bite, and be the readier to lend a hand if needed.”

So she set food before him, and he ate. And while he ate he turned over in his mind the chances about Raineach. Soon he burst out, “Mistress, is it true, as the master says, that all the queen’s folk are clean away and out of the castle?”

“Aye,” she said, “and a burning shame it was: but better for them maybe. They got a good ship to sail in, and good pickings. They were stinted of nothing.”

“They would be a deal about the town before leaving York, and well known to all?”

“Oh aye, it was always in and out; they coming to our shop and we at the castle. Not so bad to do with, they weren’t, for king’s folk.”

“And did you happen to know a great lass, a bonny one with red hair, a bower-may that the queen made much of, Raineach by name?”

“And what of her?” asked the dame.

“Oh, she was just one of them in Dublin.”

“Was she that? Ah, she was a sad one if ever there was. Hey, man, hark here! The young man would have news of that great, strapping, red-haired wench, her that the castle-folk were always fighting about.”

“The minx!” shouted the merchant from the shop. “Never heed her, lad, wherever she is.”

“All the men were after her,” went on the dame, “and never a one would she take. And that proud with folk, she might have been a king’s daughter. I’ll be bound she was no good, though the queen was always abetting her. Olaf would have let them stone her for a witch, one time, but the queen got her off. She’ll be gone with the rest.”

It was little help he would find there, Thorstein said to himself: but angered as he was, spoke fair: and said he would take a turn at the look-out while the master came to his supper. But the tumult had died down, and the rabble was dwindling as speedily as it had gathered. The stir was over like a summer storm, and evening had come. Thorstein asked where he could find a lodging for that night, and said he was not penniless. The Dane merchant said he would be glad to board him, but one might see there was little room for guests in house or shop. Nevertheless there was close at hand a house of priests called St. Peter’s, where travellers were lodged, and he would set the stranger on the way when all was quiet.

So Thorstein came to St. Peter’s (the place that was afterwards called St. Leonard’s Hospital) which Athelstan had founded not long before, giving to the Minster priests a thrave, that is twenty sheaves, from every plough-land in the bishopric, that they might entertain strangers and do good to the poor and sick. There he was received, and no questions asked: and they gave him supper in the great hall, and a place to lie down for the night among other wanderers and wayfarers. Some of them were decent folk, some ugly-looking enough to make Thorstein feel for the few silver pennies he carried, and tuck his poke well into his sleeve, and loosen his weapon in its sheath, before shutting his eyes. But he slept safely, still seeking even in his dreams for Raineach, who was now farther away than ever.

When day was come, and the doors were opened, the priests’ officer gave each wayfarer a cake of bread and bade him God speed. Thorstein stood there in the doorway with his dole in his hand, and sore doubt in his heart which way he should turn. East or West was all one to him. The Minster bells broke out into a chime, and pealed through the air. Sweet and sunny it was after last night’s riot and unrest. He bethought him that this was the Lord’s day; he could not leave York without at least hearing a service, now that he was a Christian man once more.

People were going all one way in the streets, but quietly now, and very unlike the crowds of yestereven. He followed them and went with the stream into the shadow of the Minster tower and up the great steps, gaining one at a time in the throng at the porch. Presently he was carried through the dark door, and inside as into some sudden astonishing turn of a dream. For it was wonderful broad and lofty in there; the walls betwixt the arches and above the ranks of columns were inlaid with polished marbles, painted with long processions of deep-robed saints and emblems of glory, lit with glimmering, flower-like windows of glass, and ceiled with canopies of carven work, with beams and bosses wrought curiously. It was the building of archbishop Aelberht not long since finished; the new church risen on the ruins of the old church that Halfdan’s Danes had burnt; witness to the life and might of the faith, a noble monument of craftsmanship. Its gilding was yet untarnished and its rich colours were as if fresh from the hands of the artist; a marvel to behold, even for a traveller who had been in many lands and had seen the dwellings of great kings, and temples both of the old faith and the new.

Thorstein knelt on the paved floor, and beside him and around him knelt the people, men and women, rich and poor: maybe among them many who last night had been foremost in the tumult, side by side with those they had attacked to rob and slaughter. Far off, in the twilight of the choir, re-echoed from roof and aisles, came the sound of the singing and the solemn voices of the priests: the very psalms and prayers that were heard in little Cartmel church among the mountains, and in every church of Christian folk from thence throughout the round world. Everywhere the same, and in every age. For to think of the abidingness of it all! Kings came and went, nations rose and fell, but the church drooped its head only to raise it more gloriously. Year by year, while battle and plague were raging without, within the Minster welled, as from a healing spring, the same unending litany for peace from poor folk to the poor folk’s God.

No prayer said Thorstein as he knelt thus, while the voices from the choir rolled forth like gathering thunder, or murmured through the aisles uncomprehended like the wind in winter trees. It was enough for him that he was in a holy place, in the palace of God, in the very presence of the King of Heaven. Surely the Lord Christ there, somewhere in the dim bewilderment of gold and gloom, amid those cloudy odours and mysterious answerings of music, surely He was looking forth. And what was the word? The Lord looketh at the heart. Peace, then.