Page:The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said.djvu/100

 wall to the King's Garden to try to get sight of the Princess Bright Brow. He saw no sight of her. He rode on and he came to the gate at the other side and he saw outside the Cook-house the horse-boys and dog-boys and grooms that he used to know.

He saw them and he knew them, but they did not know him. He was surprised to see that they had not learnt to straighten up their shoulders nor to walk as if there was a fine thought in their heads. They were all around the Cook-house, and a great noise of rattling was coming from within it.

"What noise is that in the Cook-house?" Mell asked a groom.

"The Cook's son is going out to fight," said the groom, "and he is striking the pot-lids with the ladles to let everyone in the Cook-house know how fierce he is."

"And who is the Cook's son going to fight?" asked Mell the Hen-wife's son.

"He is going to fight a great Champion that has come up from the sea in a boat that moves