Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/41

 that thou wouldst see a hundred miles; look and see what he is doing there.” Oh! master, he’s lying down there. Oh! Jemini! why he’s gone to sleep there.” “That will be the deuce,” says George, “time will be up directly. Thou, number three, thou saidst that when thou didst uncork that thumb of thine, thou couldst throw a jet a hundred miles; quick, throw a jet there, that he may get up. And thou, take a glance and see if he’s yet stirring there or not?” “Oh! master, now he’s getting up, now he’s wiping himself —now he’s drawing water.” After this he gave a skip, and was already back again, and just in time.

So after this they said that he must show them yet another trick; that in yonder rocks there was such and such a wild beast, a unicorn, and that it destroyed many of their people; if he would clear it out of the wood, that then he should get the girl. So he took his men, and into that wood they went. So they came to such and such a pine tree. So there were the three wild beasts, and as many lairs rubbed bare by their lying in them. Two of these animals did nothing, but that third one devoured people. So they collected stones and those pine cones in their lap and crept up into the tree; and when those three beasts laid themselves down, they let drop a stone on to that one of the animals that was an unicorn. And he, that beast, cried to the second one: “Do be quiet, don’t push me!” And the other says: “I am doing nothing to thee.” And again they let drop a stone from above on to that unicorn. “Do be quiet! now thou hast done it to me a third time.” “When I have done nothing to thee!” So they seized one another and fought together. And that unicorn tried to run the other beast through; but he skipped aside, and as the unicorn rushed savagely at him, it drove its horn into the tree and could not at once draw it out again. So the men jumped down at once from the pine tree, and those two animals took to flight, and they cut off the head of the third one—that unicorn, put the head on their shoulders, and carried it to the castle.

Then those in the castle saw that George had again accomplished his task. “What, prythee, shall we do? Perhaps we must give him that girl after all?” “No, master!” said that one of the servants, “it cannot be, when he is of vulgar birth, to think of his getting a king’s daughter such as yours. But we must clear him out of the world.” So he, that king, said he should keep the word that he had spoken. So there was there a female lodger, she said to him: “Oh! George, to-day it will go ill with thee, they want to clear thee out of