Erling the Bold Part 25

"True, but thou art so stupid," said Glumm, laying his spear lightly across the boy's shoulders, "that I have thought fit to impress it on thee by repet.i.tion, having an interest in thine education, although thou dost not deserve it."

"I deserve it, mayhap, more than ye think."

"How so, boy?"

"_Why_, because I have for a long time past taken an uncommon interest in thy welfare."

Glumm laughed, and said he did not know that there was any occasion to concern himself about his welfare.

"Oh yes, there is!" cried Alric, "for, when a man goes moping about the country as if he were fey, or as if he had dreamed of seeing his own guardian spirit, his friends cannot help being concerned about him."

"Why, what is running in the lad's head?" said Glumm, looking with a perplexed expression at his young companion.

"Nothing runs in my head, save ordinary thoughts. If there be any unusual running at all, it must be in thine own."

"Speak, thou little fox," said Glumm, suddenly grasping Alric by the nape of the neck and giving him a shake.

"Nay then, if that is thy plan," said the boy, "give it a fair trial.

Shake away, and see what comes of it. Thou mayest shake out blood, bones, flesh, and life too, and carry home my skin as a trophy, but be a.s.sured that thou shalt not shake a word off my tongue!"

"Boldly spoken," said Glumm, laughing, as he released the lad; "but I think thy tone would change if I were to take thee at thy word."

"That it would not. Thou art not the first man whom I have defied, aye, and drawn blood from, as that red-haired Dane--"

Alric stopped suddenly. He had reached that age when the tendency to boast begins, at least in manly boys, to be checked by increasing good sense and good taste. Yet it is no disparagement of Alric's character to say that he found it uncommonly difficult to refrain, when occasion served, from making reference to his first warlike exploit, even although frequent rebukes and increasing wisdom told him that boasting was only fit for the lips of cowards.

"Why do ye stop?" asked Glumm, who quite understood the boy's feelings, and admired his exercise of self-control.

"Be--because I have said enough."

"Good is it," observed the other, "when man or boy knows that he has said enough, and has the power to stop when he knows it. But come, Alric, thou hast not said enough to me yet on the matter that--that--"

"What matter?" asked Alric, with a sly look.

"Why, the matter of my welfare, to be sure."

"Ah, true. Well, methinks, Glumm, that I could give thee a little medicine for thy mind, but I won't, unless ye promise to keep thy spear off my back."

"I promise," said Glumm, whose curiosity was aroused.

"It is a sad thing when a man looks sweet and a maid looks sour, but there is a worse thing; that is when the maid _feels_ sour. Thou lovest Ada--"

"Hold!" cried Glumm, turning fiercely on his companion, "and let not thy pert tongue dare to speak of such things, else will I show thee that there are other things besides spears to lay across thy shoulders."

"Now art thou truly Glumm the Gruff," cried Alric, laughing, as he leaped to the other side of a ma.s.s of fallen rock; "but if thy humour changes not, I will show thee that I am not named Lightfoot for nothing.

Come, don't fume and fret there like a bear with a headache, but let me speak, and I warrant me thou wilt be reasonably glad."

"Go on, then, thou incorrigible."

"Very well; but none of thy hard names, friend Glumm, else will I set my big brother Erling at thee. There now, don't give way again. What a storm-cloud thou art! Will the knowledge that Ada loves thee as truly as thou lovest her calm thee down?"

"I see thou hast discovered my secret," said Glumm, looking at his little friend with a somewhat confused expression, "though how the knowledge came to thee is past my understanding. Yet as thou art so clever a warlock I would fain know what ye mean about `Ada's love for me.' Hadst thou said her hatred, I could have believed thee without explanation."

"Let us go on, then," said Alric, "for there is nothing to be gained and only time to be lost by thus talking across a stone."

The path which they followed was broad at that part, and not quite so rugged, so that Alric could walk alongside of his stout friend as he related to him the incident that was the means of enlightening him as to Ada's feelings towards her lover. It was plain from the expression on the Norseman's face that his soul was rejoiced at the discovery, and he strode forward at such a pace that the boy was fain to call a halt.

"Thinkest thou that my legs are as long as thine?" he said, stopping and panting.

Glumm laughed; and the laugh was loud and strong. He would have laughed at anything just then, for the humour was upon him, and he felt it difficult to repress a shout at the end of it!

"Come on, Alric, I will go slower. But art thou sure of all this? Hast not mistaken the words?"

"Mistaken the words!" cried the boy; "why, I tell thee they were as plain to my ears and my senses as what thou hast said this moment."

"Good," said Glumm; "and now the question comes up, how must I behave to her? But thou canst not aid me herein, for in such matters thou hast had no experience."

"Out upon thee for a stupid monster!" said the boy; "have I not just proved that my experience is very deep? I have not, indeed, got the length thou hast--of wandering about like a poor ghost or a half-witted fellow, but I have seen enough of such matters to know what common sense says."

"And, pray, what does common sense say?"

"Why, it says, Act towards the maid like a sane man, and, above all, a true man. Don't go about the land gnas.h.i.+ng thy teeth until everyone laughs at thee. Don't go staring at her in grim silence as if she were a wraith; and, more particularly, don't pretend to be fond of other girls, for thou didst make a pitiful mess of that attempt. In short, be Glumm without being Gruff, and don't try to be anybody else. Be kind and straightforward to her, wors.h.i.+p her, or, as Kettle Flatnose said the other day, `kiss the ground she walks on,' if thou art so inclined, but don't worry her life out. Show that thou art fond of her, and willing to bide _her_ time. Go on viking cruise, for the proverb says that an `absent body makes a longing spirit,' and bring her back s.h.i.+ploads of kirtles and mantles and armlets, and gold and silver ornaments--that's what common sense says, Glumm, and a great deal more besides, but I fear much that it is all wasted on thee."

"Heyday!" exclaimed Glumm, "what wisdom do I hear? a.s.suredly we must call thee Alric hinn Frode hereafter. One would think thou must have been born before thine own grandfather."

"Truly that is not so difficult to fancy," retorted Alric. "Even now I feel like a great-grandfather while I listen to thee. There wants but a smooth round face and a lisping tongue to make thine appearance suitable to thy wisdom! But what is this that we have here?"

The boy pointed to a track of some animal in the snow a few yards to one side of the path.

"A wolf track," said Glumm, turning aside.

"A notably huge one," remarked the boy.

"And quite fresh," said the man.

"Which is proved," rejoined Alric in a slow, solemn voice, "by the fact that there is no ball of snow beneath the--"

"Hold thy pert tongue," said Glumm in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "the brute must be close to us. Do thou keep in the lower end of this gorge--see, yonder, where it is narrow. I will go round to the upper end; perchance the wolf is there. If so, we stand a good chance of killing him, for the sides of the chasm are like two walls all the way up. But," added Glumm, hesitating a moment, and looking fixedly at the small but st.u.r.dy frame of his companion, whose heightened colour and flas.h.i.+ng eyes betokened a roused spirit, "I doubt thy--that is--I have no fear of the spirit, if the body were a little bigger."

"Take thine own big body off, Glumm," said Alric, "and leave me to guard the pa.s.s."

Glumm grinned as he turned and strode away.

The spot which the hunters had reached merits particular notice. It was one of those wild deep rents or fissures which are usually found near the summits of almost inaccessible mountains. It was not, however, at the top of the highest range in that neighbourhood, being merely on the summit of a ridge which was indeed very high--perhaps five or six thousand feet--but still far below the serried and shattered peaks which towered in all directions round Horlingdal, shutting it out from all communication with the rest of the world, except through the fiord and the pa.s.s leading over to the Springs.

On the place where Alric parted from his friend the rocks of the gorge or defile rose almost perpendicularly on both sides, and as he advanced he found that the s.p.a.ce between became narrower, until, at the spot where he was to take his stand, there was an opening of scarcely six feet in width. Beyond this the chasm widened a little, until, at its higher end, it was nearly twenty yards broad; but, owing to the widening nature of the defile, the one opening could not be seen from the other, although they were little more than four hundred yards apart.

The track of the wolf led directly through the pa.s.s into the gorge. As the lad took his stand he observed with much satisfaction that it was that of an unusually large animal. This feeling was tempered, however, with some anxiety lest it should have escaped at the other opening. It was also mixed with a touch of agitation; for although Alric had seen his friend and Erling kill wolves and bears too, he had never before been left to face the foe by himself, and to sustain the brunt of the charge in his own proper person. Beyond an occasional flutter of the heart, however, there was nothing to indicate, even to himself, that he was not as firm as the rock on which he stood.