Then there were the evenings of celebration: Feast days sacred to the gods, weddings and the bloodings of a jarl's new sword. The long tables weighed down with roast flesh and great flagons of heady mead; the recitation by the bards of past deeds of valour, sometimes drunken quarrels with drinking horns hurled, then bloody duels with the long swords to settle matters on the spot; but laughter and the joy of living; libations poured to the redheaded Thor the god of victories and the Jupiter of the North with the conviction that if his votaries died in battle they would go straight to his heaven of Valhalla and there drink mead out of the skulls of their enemies.
After a time, delighted with the boy's interest, his mother had supplemented what she could tell him from her dreams by reading to him some of the old books she had inherited, which dealt with that period of history. Then, soon after his ninth birthday Adam too began to have `dreams'. Not, to begin with, day dreams like his mother, but vivid dreams at night. Whether he had inherited her ability to go back in time, or his dreams were a normal result of his absorption in the subject, it was impossible to say. But the former seemed probable because, during his dreams, he spoke and could understand the Norse language. On learning this, his mother began to teach him Norse, so that he could recite many of the old Icelandic runes. By then, too, he found that, occasionally, when sitting alone on the cliff or the river bank, he could see the many oared ships of the raiders, send his mind back and seem to become Ord, the golden haired Viking commanding the approaching fleet.
He was already aware that, when the long winter ended and spring came again, a fever of restlessness seized the men folk. All true bred Norsemen were fighters born and bred. They cared nothing for agriculture and left the women and slaves to cultivate the few fields about their homes that would produce enough wheat for a supply of the small, hard loaves with a hole in the centre; that resembled doughnuts in shape:
For them there were the shimmering green seas, sometimes riding mountain high; but then all the greater challenge to courage and endurance. Beyond them lay the lands of weak peoples, living in softer climes and, therefore, easily to be over come. From them many things could be had for the taking: strange garments made of soft, shiny material, iron helmets, strings of blue beads and ornaments of gold.
Generally their forays were made against the nearer lands Scotland, Ireland, England, the north coast of Germany; but many of Adam's forbears and relatives had gone much further afield to Spain, as he now realised, and by the Baltic rivers even town to Kiev in the Ukraine, to the shores of the Black Sea, and there made contact with the fabled peoples of the East who worshipped a prophet named Mohammet.
In the Norselands they had long worshipped Thor, Odin and Freyja, and, when a great chieftain died, buried him, his ship and many articles of value in the sacred bogs which, after some months, sucked them under and made them part of the earth. But by this time about A.D. 950 certain fearless men, humble and austere, had occasionally come out of the South preaching a new religion.
It was of a Man God who had allowed himself to be crucified so that others should be absolved of their sins. The story was difficult to believe; for it did not make sense that a god should submit himself to pain but, as a concession to the possible malice he might indulge in if ignored, they had begun to couple his game, when in danger, with that of Thor.
Then there came another strange development in Adam. Alternating with his night dreams of storm tossed galleys at sea, Burning villages in which he led his bearded henchmen to kill, rape and plunder, and the bleak, cold Norselands under winter now, he found himself in utterly different surroundings. He was living in a country of mountains, volcanoes and vast forests where, down on the coast, there were palm trees, many exotic fruits and was intensely hot. There were cities with great pyramids and splendid palaces. The people were brown skinned, had hooked noses, black hair and high, sloping foreheads. They wore many coloured cloaks with geometrical designs and, on days of celebration, the principal men among them put on gorgeous feather headdresses.
Where this other country could be he had no idea, and his mother was equally mystified; but he knew that he had been immensely happy there and infinitely preferred it to the harsh, primitive life led by the Vikings in the inhospitable North.
By the time Adam was fourteen, his older brothers and sisters were all working in the fishing net factory; so the income of the family was, for people of their class and simple tastes, more than adequate. They all loved the roomy old house, had no desire to leave it for a city, and were leading a thoroughly contented life.
Only one worry nagged at Jamie from time to time. The base of the cliff on which the house stood was being eroded by the sea. During the greater part of each year he rarely thought about it, but on nights when the winter storms raged and great waves thundered on the beach below, causing the old house to shudder, he became troubled and felt they really ought to leave it for a safer home. Yet, owing to its precarious position, it would be next to impossible to find a purchaser, and with only a few hundred pounds put by they could not buy another. As they had always lived rent free, even to rent a house would entail so considerable a charge on their income that they would have to give up many small luxuries to which they had long been accustomed. Still worse, instead of this roomy old home with its pleasant garden, the only sort of house they could afford would be a small one in the village.
Then, when the storm subsided, Jamie would dismiss his fears on the ground that the erosion had been going on for many years and was very slow; the house was at least two hundred years old and its foundations showed no sign of weakening. Since it had stood there for so long, there could be no real urgency about moving and resigning themselves to a greatly reduced scale of living. As spring came again each year the matter passed from his mind.
Yet at last there came the fatal night. In the roar of the storm even their nearest neighbours did not hear the cliff collapse. But in the morning the old house was gone. Jamie, Gurda, four of their children and all their possessions had disappeared into the ocean, leaving no trace that they had ever existed. Only Adam, by a fluke of Fate, survived. For the first time his world was shattered. At the age of fourteen he found himself alone, an orphan and nearly penniless.
Adam's escape was due to the fact that he occasionally spent a night with his mother's sister, Aunt Flora Inglis. It being two days before Christmas, she had asked him over to receive his Christmas present and carry back those she had for his brothers and sisters.
Aunt Flora was a widow, and housekeeper to Lord Ruffan at the Castle, six miles up the river. There, to the envy of her relatives, she dwelt in ease and plenty. His Lordship was an Englishman and the estate had been acquired by his grandfather in the 1890s. He came to Scotland only for the shooting and fishing: so, or the greater part of the year, Aunt Flora was mistress of all she surveyed. Even when His Lordship was in residence, as he was an elderly bachelor there was no mistress to irritate her by requiring that she should alter any of her set ways. But she was a dour, efficient woman and gave short shrift to any housemaid or kitchen land who was pert or lazy; so Lord Ruffan considered her a treasure.
When the terrible blow fell, Adam was for some days inconsolable; but, with the resilience of youth to changed circumstances, he soon began to take stock of his situation. Aunt Flora had written at once to Lord Ruffan, giving an account of the tragedy end asking permission to keep her nephew with her. His Lordship lad replied after a few days giving his consent; so at least Adam had a home. But in other respects his prospects were bleak.