THE THREE TASKS.
When Thorstein had found his tongue and could talk to the fell-folk in
their own speech, he would often tell Raineach about Greenodd and his
home.
Sometimes in the winter weather, as they were crouching by the open-air
fire in sleet and wind to dress their meals, or cowering in the foul huts
from the storms that swept the moor, there would come before him, like a
dream, the bonny eld-house and its beloved rafters, and the bright things
gleaming on the wainscot, and the lasses in their neat kirtles a-spinning
or a-sewing; his mother with her needle, and his father with woodsmith’s
tools, and all so cosy and well-to-do as they worked and sang in the
warm fireshine.
Then he would whisper to the giant’s lass, as they huddled together in
the muck, and the men growled or snored,—for there was little to do
in the winter up there but sleep it out like bears,—and he would say,
“Raineach, I see them, I see them! There’s our great dog asleep with his
nose on the edge of the hearth, and father is kicking the logs together,
and he pats the dog and says to mother, ‘Where’s poor old Stein now?
I wonder if he’s all right somewhere, or tanning his hide in a cold
peat-pit.’ Mother shakes her head at Hundi and says, ‘Eh, lad, it was a
bad day thou tookest him off: the elder should have been the wiser.’ For
I’ll uphold it Hundi has led a hound’s life ever since. But I can see
mother working flowers on a kirtle, and she has been working at it every
day this back-end: blue flowers, Raineach, and gold leaves on a brave red
stuff: eh, if you saw what I see, you would see some bonny things and all.
“And the chapmen will be coming about, with packs full of wares from all
the round world, and they’ll be feasting them. And at Yule, what doings!
Pies, lass, as big as ant-hills: and butter to thy haver-bread, and honey
in thy porridge: and laiks in the afternoons, when the tables are cleared
and folk pull skins across the fire, and one side lets go and down they
tumble: and one is blindfolded and hunts the others: and I’d show thee
a safe place, Raineach, so that they couldn’t catch thee. How thou’d
laugh, and how they’d laugh: and how we’d sing and tell stories, and get
eh, that frightened, and then mother would say ‘Barns to bed,’ and we’d
pull the clothes over our heads while we heard their goings-on. Grand it
would be if I could get thee there to peep in on them all.”
With such talk, Raineach, who had looked on Thorstein as a poor savage at
first, came to feel a great longing to see what wonderful things might
be yonder across the fells: and once even asked her father whether they
could not pay a visit to Thorstein’s folk at Greenodd. She said they
would come back again, never fear: and maybe bring some of the things
Thorstein told her of. Gartnaidh laughed at first; then he growled, and
shook his fist at the lad, and bade him say no more to the child. And
for a good while they found it hard to come together: there was always
something for her to do, and something for him elsewhere: and life was
worse than before.
At last when spring came, Thorstein plucked up his courage and said
boldly that he wanted to go home.
“Well, my little man,” says the giant, “here we have nursed thee for a
summer and a winter, and given our best: and what,” says he, “shall we
get for a parting gift? for it is little we have got as yet.”
Thorstein said that his father would be sure to give something.
“Nay,” says the carle, “I know him and his gifts.”
Thorstein reddened and bit his lips.
“Now,” says the giant, “do this for me, and I’ll let thee go: keep my
cattle this twelvemonth, and see them well served: but if one be missing
thy head shall pay for it.”
So the lad became herdboy to the fell-folk: and well he knew his job, for
he had been among the beasts at home, and was used to all that belonged
to cattle. But these were well-nigh wild, and bad, bad to manage. Often
they would break bounds, and give him a rough job to hunt them out of the
mires and woods, where wolves might get them before ever they had time
to be lost. And many a night it was only by the help of the lass that he
could gather them together and drive them into the fold for the milking:
and sometimes it seemed that an unfriendly hand would loose them, and
give him a sad scare. But Raineach managed so that in a while the rest of
the folk were ashamed or afraid to meddle. And they throve that summer,
and after the slaughtering at the back end of it, Thorstein kept as many
as would make up his count for the spring: and was diligent in serving
them with everything he could lay hands on. So the end of it was that
when winter was near spent he delivered over his full tale to the carle,
and bade him farewell.
“Not so fast, my little fellow,” said the giant. “I reckon nought of
this. Here are all my beasts again, no doubt: but what more? We are no
better off than we were.”
“What then?” cried the lad, aghast.
“This,” said the carle. “Seest yonder tarn? When it is as yellow with
corn as it is blue to-day, we will talk more of this matter: but if I
hear another word, it will be the word for knocking thy brains out with
this club of mine.” And he dashed about him with his great oaken cudgel
in a way that was grewsome.
So Thorstein was angry and mad angry; and in his anger set himself to
bale the water out of the tarn the giant had pointed to,—one of a many
there were in those days about the settlement, though now they are all
peated up, without it be Pewit tarn. Then Raineach came and stood by;
and when she saw the water trickling back into the pool, and the rain
beating into it, and the sweat running off the lad’s face, she laughed.
He asked her what she was laughing at: and she said, “At thee.” Then he
threw at her the crock that he was baling with, and bade her begone for
a heartless wretch. But she drew back, and it fell on a stone and was
broken: at which she laughed the more. Then he sat down and wept. And she
came to him in the rain and comforted him, and called him a fool, which
is often the best comfort from one that can help.
“Look,” she said, “silly lad, how the water runs out of the broken pot.
Break the tarn, and it will be dry.”
“Nay, I know that well enough,” said he.
“Well, do it,” said she.
“But how?” said he.
Then she showed him that the rock ran in ridges, and that he might dig
the earth away between the ridges and make a beck. So he dug the earth
and made a beck: but still there was water in the tarn.
“Who is the fool, now?” said he.
“Not I,” said she: “throw upon the tarn all the earth out of the digging,
and fill it up.”
Thorstein thought she was a clever lass, and threw all the stones he
could find, and a deal of earth upon them into the tarn; and if it was
somewhat miry, it was no tarn any longer. But now he was let down for
seed to sow: and beg as he might, they said they had but enough for
themselves. Then after some days of bitter words and nights of useless
thinking, came Raineach with a bag full of corn. She would not tell
whence it came, but it was good seed corn: and Thorstein sowed it, and
watched it morn and eve, and built a fence around to keep man and beast
out of it. And glad he was when it showed above the brown earth, and fain
when the ears began to turn yellow: and bade the giant see to it, and let
him go forthwith. But all he got was a growl and a roar.
“Where did that corn come from?”
“Not from thee,” says Thorstein.
“Thief!” says the giant.
“Liar!” says Thorstein: and they were both as angry as they might be. But
the giant would not kill him, and best knew the reason why. For he meant
to keep the lad against a time when there should be trouble with the
Northmen, and then give him over as a ransom. So he was in no hurry to
let his prisoner go.
“Look you here,” says Gartnaidh at last: “those great firs yonder where
the crows build,—they must be cut down and made into a house for me,
before ever I let thee go.”
“Ask another to do the job,” said Thorstein.
“Never another will I ask,” said the giant: “folk that can make corn grow
in tarns, can make firs into houses.”
So Thorstein toiled at one of the least of the trees with his knife and a
little hatchet, the best he could find: but he could only notch it round,
and it stood as straight as ever. Then Raineach came and laughed at him
again, and bade him go to sleep till she helped him: but she would not
say how or when. And in a while she disappeared altogether.
One day when nobody was nigh, the men all away hunting, and Thorstein
bewailing himself, he looked at the fir-wood from afar, and thought one
of the tree tops shook more than the wind used to shake it. By and by
it fell, and he heard a crash in the wood. He ran down to the spot, and
there was a great tree on the ground, and chips of new-cut wood all about
it: but never a soul to be seen. Then the lass came laughing, and saying
it was magic, and the good folk would have none of his spying; and so she
took him by the shoulders and pushed him out of the wood. Magic or no
magic, she managed that on certain days the men were out early and home
late, and none of them noticed that the fir tops were gone: and Thorstein
was hugely puzzled. At last he went to the spot by stealth, and saw
strange men working there: they looked like Welsh, and he guessed they
might be from the brough across the flats. They had many of the trees
down, and sawed, and squared into timbers, that men might carry on their
shoulders. Raineach was not there; but round the neck of the foreman of
them, as it seemed, was her gold cross hanging. Then the lad knew how she
had helped him: and right proud he was of her and her favours, and told
her as much.
So when the winter was on them, one day comes Thorstein up with a plank
on his shoulder, and “Where is thy house to stand?” says he to the giant.
“What!” cries the giant, “who felled my trees?”
“They are felled,” says the lad.
“Not by thee,” says the giant.
“That’s neither here nor there,” says Thorstein: “where is the house to
stand?”
The giant was not ill pleased to think he was to have a house like the
Northmen, and so he let things be: and Raineach made the lads of the
fell-folk help, in that they dragged up the big timbers right merrily,
and Thorstein was master of the works. And if his building was not great
nor very workmanlike, it was game to him when the studs were sunk in the
ground, and beams hoisted and fixed with pegs, and rafters began to show
the shape of the roof. And all this was done with the tools left in the
wood by the strangers, of whom nothing could be heard. Most folk said it
was fairies.