THE GIANT GETS HIS FOSTERLING.
Thorstein slept on in the tree long after the day had dawned through
those level clouds: for at mid-summer in Lakeland it is never black
night; the sun only dives, as it were, behind a fell or two, and up
again; and you can follow its track by the light that travels round
the north, like the ripples which betray a diver in shoal water. But
this dawning was a dull one, for those level clouds had lowered, and
thickened, and turned to rain: and wind came up from the seaward, as
the gulls had foretold. And yet it mattered little to the lad in his
oak-tree lair, except that no loud singing of birds awoke him, and the
dimness of the light let him sleep on when he should have been well on
his way homeward. For as to the plan of taking land and building a house
and a boat, that was out of his mind now that Hundi was gone. To take
land, one must go round it with fire, and have witnesses to the deed.
Some other day he would come back, now that he knew the road. And it was
lonely waking there in the damp, hungry and stiff, with all that waste of
wilderness to tread before ever he saw home again.
Back along the bank of Crake and round the little tarn went Thorstein
until he heard, in the woods on his right hand, shouting, and the voices
of men. At once his heart came into his mouth and he stood stock-still to
listen. Could it be Hundi come back, and the Greenodd folk in search of
him? What if they should go forward and find his mere, and he away and
out of it all? What of the chance of a good bag of meal or a barley cake
somewhere about them? For he was both clemmed and starved. So he crept
through the wood, and now and again the noise came louder. He followed
it, slowly forcing his way among the deep fern and the brambles under
the great trees. The voices were heard more plainly now, singing and
shouting in a strange manner. It was not Hundi and the Greenodd folk: but
who? Thorstein was drawn by a great desire to know this secret of the
woods, and to add one more marvel to the story he should tell at supper.
On the top of a little howe, clear of trees, but rocky and ferny like the
wildest moorland, there was a great heap of stones, whether grave or cot
it would be hard to tell: and beside it in the fern sat huge men, red
haired and red-bearded, crane-legged and clumsy handed and jolter-headed,
clothed rudely in skins, and devouring great ugly gobbets of flesh from
a roebuck they had killed, and seemed to eat with little or no cooking.
Thorstein gazed at them openmouthed and astonished: it was like a dream
of the wonders he had pictured to himself, but never fully hoped to set
eyes on.
The branch he held by, snapped: and forthwith there was a terrible shout,
and a crash on his head, and he seemed as in a dream to be falling down a
dark pit.
Then it was all light, grey light, and no green gloom of the woods; and
beneath him the red ling-blossom fled away, as he was carried by someone
or something swiftly over the wide moor. He began to know that he was
weary and in a great pain of his head; and at every stride of his bearer
he was jerked so that it hurt him. He kicked and struggled; the huge red
man put him into the middle of a deep heather-tuft, and set himself down
to look at the lad, as a cat watches a mouse.
Then Thorstein rose on his knees and tried to scramble away, but the
giant man just reached out and gave him a great batt with his hand, that
sent him heels over head, scratching his face in the heather. Then the
same thing happened again; and the third time Thorstein plucked himself
together and flew at the giant, snatching out his knife, and minded in
his rage to stick it in anywhere or anyhow. But the giant never moved
off the stone where he sat: he just caught the knife in one hand,
and with the other crushed the lad down. He looked at the knife long
and curiously, then he nodded and laughed to himself. Then he looked
at Thorstein where he lay on his back, kicking up the ling-blossoms:
and then he waved the knife as if to draw it over Thorstein’s throat.
Thorstein shut his eyes and his mouth as tightly as he could.
The cold knife cut his neck a little, and the blood came; Thorstein
waited to be killed. The rain pattered on his eyelids, and when he opened
them again half blinded, but not with tears, the giant was looking at the
knife-handle and the pattern on its blade: and nodding to himself. Then
he picked up the lad under one arm, and strode off through the heather.