Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/27

 days to come. After this all his play with me was to sit down and bid me hearken; and then he took out a little pipe, and put it to his mouth, and made music out of it, which was both sweet and merry. And then he left that, and fell to telling me tales about the woods where big trees grow, and how his kindred had used to dwell therein, and fashioned most fair things in smith's work of gold and silver and iron; and all this liked me well, and he said: I tell thee that one day thou shalt have a sword of my father's father's fashioning, and that will be an old one, for they both were long-lived. And as he spake I deemed that he was not like a child any more, but a little old man, white-haired and wrinkle-faced, but without a beard, and his hair shone like glass. And then, then I went to sleep, and when I woke up again it was morning, and I looked around and there was no one with me. So I arose and came home to you, and I am safe and sound if thou beat me not, kinsman.

Now ye may judge if his fore-elders were not scared by the lad's tale, for they knew that he had fallen in with one of the Dwarf-kin, and his gran-dame caught him up and hugged him and kissed him well favouredly; and the carline, whose name was Bridget, followed on the like road; and then she said: See you, kinsmen, if it be not my doing that the blessed bairn has come back to us. Tell us, sweetheart, what thou hast round thy neck under thy shirt. Osberne laughed. Said he: Thou didst hang on me a morsel of parchment