Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/80

 a-shepherding he would tell these to Osberne day long; and not unseldom when the tale was under way the lad would cry out: Fair is thy tale, but I have heard it before, only it is different thus and thus. And in sooth he had heard it from Elfhild. The other matter was that Stephen was a smith exceeding deft, and learned the craft to Osberne, so that by the end of the year he bade fair to be a good smith himself. Moreover, whiles would Stephen take a scrap of iron and a little deal of silver, as a silver penny or a florin, from out of his hoard, and would fashion it into an ouch or chain or arm-ring, so quaintly and finely that it was a joy to look on it. And every one of these good things would Stephen give to Osberne with a friendly grin, and Osberne took them with a joyful heart because now he had a new thing to give to Elfhild, and each one he shot across the river unto her the soonest that he might. But whiles, when his heart was full, Osberne would say to the smith: Thou givest me so much, and doest so well by me, that I know not how ever I am to make it good to thee. And Stephen would say: Fear not, master, the time will come when thou mayst do such good to me as shall pay for all at once.

Now befell tidings on a day of the beginning of October; for the wind, which had been high and blustering all day, grew greater and greater by then candles were lighted in the hall, till it was blowing a great gale from the south-west, which seemed like to lift the house-roof. Then