CHAPTER XIX. -- 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 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 Swein 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'll 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 'barnes 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. He 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 wantd 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," said 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 is 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 today 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 spot, though now they are all peated up. 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," says 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 the red man 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: 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 firwood 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 that 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.
"What!" cries the giant, "who felled my trees?"
"The are felled," says the lad.
"Not by thee."
"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.
CHAPTER XX. -- OVER THE FELLS.
BEFORE the building was done, that is to say in the early spring when Thorstein had been now three winters among the red folk, there was one more rumour of war throughout all the north, and the sound of it came even to these wildernesses, so far as they were apart from the dwellings and intercourse of men. For the red giant, being in this respect like Swein Biornson, was a borderer and a dweller on no man's land, that is to say he had no laws nor kings of his own kind over him, and was bound to no government of lawmakers. And yet he was akin to other Gaels dwelling up and down these parts: who, though they were at ancient feud with their Welsh neighbours, yet could let sleeping dogs lie when it served their turn, and play at give and take, or even do good work for Owain the king of Cumbria. For since these hardy hunters and fell-runners knew the lie of the land better than settled ploughmen or townsfolk, in many ways they were useful, as in guiding the Northmen to Dacor, and in spying on them often, when little they knew what eyes were gleaming through the green leafage. Add to this that the king's service was not unprofitable; and poor folk must live, however proud they be.
So when war was talked of, the news came to their ears somehow, handed on from one to another of the woodlanders, or picked up at market; for there were times when they came to sell their furs to the Welsh or English at burgs and trading places on the outskirts of the mountains, as at Broughton, Ravenglass, or Cartmel.
This time it seemed certain that the north was going to rise against the south in good earnest. Constantine and Olaf Cuaran, Owain and the new Dublin king Olaf Guthferthsen had made common cause. Says the giant to Thorstein, "Thy folk will be gathering at their meeting-place too. Thither I am going, and if thou hast a mind to see thy father --"
"Say no more," cried Thorstein: and they made ready for the journey.
In those days, to one who knew the country, the best roads were not the roads we travel, but the tops and ridges of the fells. The valleys were all umbered up with trees, or choked with swamps; and what with wild beasts and what with wild folk, travelling was no child's play. But in the waste wildernesses of high moorland, on the tall rock-ranges that joined peak to peak like bridges in the air, foe in shape of mankind was hardly to be found. It was rough work over snow in winter and through moss and more in summer-time, and a stranger would easily be lost and never seen again: but these hunters were at home anywhere between Skiddaw and Blackcomb.
The giant, with Thorstein and a few of the lads that followed him, were not far on their way, when there was a stir in the woods behind them, and presently through the coppice came a slim running figure, in brogue and tightly knot plaid and deer skin, and a great bush of red hair streaming behind.
"How now, Raineach?" says her father: "what folly is this? We want no wenches on this journey."
With that she pouted, and when he bade her turn back, she began to weep, and sat down on a stone to lament. Thorstein was vexed to see her cry, and would have stayed by her to comfort her: for indeed it had been a sore parting but a little while before. Then the giant took him by the elbow and shoved him along the road, telling his not to be a fool, or never a sight of his father would he get.
Well, they went along for a space: and as they climbed one height of the many on that moorland around what we call Beacon tarn, where the lad used to fish with the lass: and while he was thinking that after all they were happy days that he was leaving behind: just then, one of them cried out that there was astir again in the birch boughs on the height they had left: and a red spot flitted over the heather from cover to cover. The red giant bade the man shoot an arrow to scare their follower: and the man shot, but took good care to aim wide.
They pushed on, until they were out of their own grounds, so to say, and as the travellers came towards the place, along the brow between Banniside and the lake, there was a shout in the rear, and a scream, which they could not but understand. So they ran back on their traces, and soon saw Raineach fighting and kicking in the grip of a rough fellow, who ran off when he saw the big men. It was little use to scold her, and too late to carry her back home. Her father said no more when she came up with them, and only strode on with his best foot foremost, so that it was all she could do to trot after and keep in sight, for many an weary hour.
From Coniston they slanted up great crags by a narrow footway until they got to the top of the high waterfall we call the White Lady, because she comes and goes like a wraith. Thence they found their way over the bogs to Weatherlam cove and the head of Micklegill that runs down into Tilberthwaite. Then away they went up and down over the rough fells, until they found lodging for the night in a lone dell Langdale-way, with some kindred fell-folk who had their huts there. The children were right glad to rest their swollen and battered feet on a heather-heap all night, whether asleep or awake, while the men talked loud round the fire.
Come morning it was up and away over wilder ground than ever, climbing by the ledges of rock to the bogs that make as it were a thatched roof above the walls of those great mountain houses, whose streets are the dales, and whose gables are the peaks. All day long it was wading work through the mosses, or clambering over the screes, up and down long slopes that seemed in the passing clouds and showers to lead nowhither but into the rain and the mist. In the afternoon they were aware of a great valley beneath them. They had come so to say to the eaves of the house of mountains and yet could not look over, nor see what was going on below. But they were above the dale through which the great Roman road goes, where lies the city of Helvellyn and the lake of Thirlmere and the Northmen's Law-burg-thwaite.
At the city of Helvellyn, as they reckoned, there would be some force posted to defend the border and the main road to the south, for it would be a likely point of attack. With the point guarded and the coast road, and the Maiden Way that comes through the Westmorland fells, King Owain would be safe, and free to throw his whole power upon York by the great way over the Keel. And it was thought that the king himself might soon be there, to speak about the defences with the people of the place, and with the Northmen whose Althing would soon be held hard by.
But the red giant had no mind to put his daughter in the way of Owain's soldiers, any more than to leave her in the clutches of the ruffian on Banniside: neither would he give Thorstein the chance of getting away before his time. So he avoided the Welsh burg at Wythburn, the city of which we spoke, and led them down upon a dwelling of his kindred, such as dwelt here along the brink overlooking Thirlmere, on the Benn as we still call it in their language,-- the great mountain between Armboth and Thirlmere water-foot.