OLAF THE SAINT. 
357 
ancestors. But those were days when honour rather 
than disgrace attached to the ideas of booty and 
plunder, especially in an enemy’s country; it was a 
“ spoiling of the Egyptians ” sanctioned by custom, 
and even permitted by the Church, which did not 
disdain occasionally to share in the profits of a suc¬ 
cessful cruise, when presented in the decent form of 
silver candlesticks and other ecclesiastical gauds. As 
to the ancient historian, he mentions these matters as 
a thing of course. “ Here the King landed, burnt, 
and ravaged;” “there the Jarl gained much booty;” 
“ this summer, they took a cruise in the Baltic, to 
gather property,” &c., much as a modern biographer 
might speak of a gentleman’s successful railroad specu¬ 
lations, his taking shares in a coal mine, or coming 
into a “ nice little thing in the Long Annuities.” Never¬ 
theless, there is something significant of his future 
vocation, in a speech which Olaf makes to his as¬ 
sembled friends and relations, imparting to them his 
design of endeavouring to regain possession of the throne: 
“ I and my men have nothing for our support save 
what we captured in war, for which we have hazarded 
both life and soul; for many an innocent man have we 
