Milly and Olly, Mrs. Humphry Ward [ebook e reader .TXT] 📗

/> "But Beowulf took an old and splendid sword that Hrothgar had given him, and he put on his golden helmet and his iron war shirt that no sword could cut through, and when he had bade his friends farewell he leapt straight into the middle of the bog. Down he sank, deeper and deeper into the water, among strange water beasts that struck at him with their tusks as he passed them, till at last Grendel's mother, the water-wolf, looked up from the bottom and saw him coming. Then she sprang upon him, and seized him, and dragged him down, and he found himself in a sort of hall under the water, with a pale strange light in it. And then he turned from the horrible water-wolf and raised his sword and struck her on the head; but his blow did her no harm. No sword made by mortal men could harm Grendel or his mother; and as he struck her Beowulf stumbled and fell. Then the water-wolf rushed forward and sat upon him as he lay there, and raised aloft her own sharp dagger to drive it into his breast; but Beowulf shook her off, and sprang up, and there, on the wall, he saw hanging a strange old sword that had been made in the old times, long, long ago, when the world was full of giants. So he threw his own sword aside and took down the old sword, and once more he smote the water-wolf. And this time his sword did him good service, and Grendel's fierce mother sank down dead upon the ground.

"Then Beowulf looked round him, and he saw lying in a corner the body of Grendel himself. He cut off the monster's head, and lo and behold! when he had cut it off the blade of the old sword melted away, and there was nothing left in his hands but the hilt, with strange letters on it, telling how it was made in old days by the giants for a great king. So with that, and Hrothgar's sword and Grendel's head, Beowulf rose up again through the bog, and just as his brave men had begun to think they should never see their dear lord more he came swimming to land, bearing the great head with him.

"Then Hrothgar and all his people rejoiced greatly, for they knew that the land would never more be troubled by these hateful monsters, but that the ploughers might plough, and the shepherds might lead their sheep, and brave men might sleep at night, without fear any more of Grendel and his mother."

"Oh, father!" said Milly, breathlessly, when he stopped. "Is that all?"

But Olly sat quite still, without speaking, gazing at his father with wide open brown eyes, and a face as grave and terrified as if Grendel were actually beside him.

"That's all for this time," said Mr. Norton. "Why, Olly, where are your little wits gone to? Did it frighten you, old man?"

"Oh!" said Olly, drawing a long breath. "I did think he would never have comed up out of that bog!"

"It was splendid," said Milly. "But, father, I don't understand about that pool. Why didn't Beowulf get drowned when he went down under the water?"

"The story doesn't tell us anything about that," said Mr. Norton. "But heroes in those days, Milly, must have had something magical about them so that they were able to do things that men and women can't do now. Do you know, children, that this story that you have been listening to is more than a thousand years old? Can you fancy that?"

"No," said Milly, shaking her head. "I can't fancy it a bit, father. It's too long. It makes me puzzled to think of so many years."

"Years and years and years and _years_!" said Olly. "When father's grandfather was a little boy."

Mr. Norton laughed. "Can't you think of anything farther back than that, Olly? It would take a great many grandfathers, and grandfathers' grandfathers, to get back to the time when the story of Beowulf was made. And here am I telling it to you just in the same way as fathers used to tell it to their children a thousand years ago."

"I suppose the children liked it so, they wouldn't let their fathers forget it," said Milly. "And then when they grew up they told it to their children. I shall tell it to my children when I grow up. I think I shall tell it to Katie to-morrow."

"Father," said Olly, "did Beowulf die--ever?"

"Yes. When he was quite an old man he had another great fight with a dragon, who was guarding a cave full of golden treasure on the sea-shore; and though he killed the dragon, the dragon gave him a terrible wound, so that when his friends came to look for him they found him lying all but dead in the cave. He was just able to tell them to make a great mound of earth over him when he was dead, on a high rock close by, that sailors might see it from their ships and think of him when they saw it, and then he died. And when he was dead they carried him up to the rock, and there they burned his body, and then they built up a great high mound of earth, and they put Beowulf's bones inside, and all the treasure from the dragon's cave. They were ten days building up the mound. Then when it was all done they rode around it weeping and chanting sorrowful songs, and at last they left him there, saying as they went away that never should they see so good a king or so true a master any more. And for hundreds of years afterwards, when the sailors out at sea saw the high mound rising on its point of rock, they said one to another, 'There is Beowulf's Mount,' and they began to tell each other of Beowulf's brave deeds--how he lived and how he died, and how he fought with Grendel and the wild sea dragons. There, now, I have told you all I know about Beowulf," said Mr. Norton, getting up and turning the children off his knee, "and if it isn't somebody else's turn now it ought to be."

"Aunt Emma! Aunt Emma!" shouted Olly, who was so greedy for stories that he could almost listen all day long without being tired.

But Aunt Emma only smiled through her spectacles and pointed to the window. The children ran to look out, and they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw that it had actually stopped raining, and that over the tree-tops was a narrow strip of blue sky, the first they had seen for three whole days.

"Oh you nice blue sky!" exclaimed Milly, dancing up and down before the window with a beaming face. "Mind you stay there and get bigger. We'll get on our hats presently and come out to look at you. Oh! there's John Backhouse coming down the hill with the dogs. Mother, may we go up ourselves and ask Becky and Tiza to come to tea?"

"But Aunt Emma must tell us her story first," persisted Olly, who hated being cheated out of a story by anything or anybody. "She promised."

"You silly boy!" said Aunt Emma, "as if I was going to keep you indoors listening to stories just now, when the sun's shining for the first time for three whole days. I promised you my story on a wet day, and you shall have it--never fear. There'll be plenty more wet days before you go away from Ravensnest, I'm afraid. There goes my knitting, and mother's putting away her work, and father's stretching himself--which means we're all going for a walk."

"To fetch Becky and Tiza, mother?" asked Milly; and when mother said "Yes, if you like," the two children raced off down the long passage to the nursery in the highest possible spirits.

Soon they were all walking along the dripping drive past high banks of wet fern, and under trees which threw down showers of rain-drops at every puff of wind. And when they got into the road beside the river the children shouted with glee to see their brown shallow little river turned into a raging flood of water, which went sweeping and hurrying through the fields, and every now and then spreading itself over them and making great pools among the poor drowned hay. They ran on to look for the stepping-stones, but to their amazement there was not a stone to be seen. The water was rushing over them with a great roar and swirl, and Milly shivered a little bit when she remembered their bathe there a week before.

"Well, old woman," said Mr. Norton, coming up to them, "I don't suppose you'd like, a bathe to-day--quite."

"If we were in there now," said Olly, watching the river with great excitement, "the water would push us down krick! and the fishes would come and etten us all up."

"They'd be a long time gobbling you up, Master Fatty," said his father. "Come, run along; it's too cold to stand about."

But how brilliant and beautiful it was after the rain! Little tiny trickling rivers were running down all the roads, and sparkling in the sun; the wet leaves and grass were glittering, and the great mountains all around stood up green and fresh against the blue sky, as if the rain had washed the dust off them from top to toe, and left them clean and bright. Two things only seemed the worse for the rain--the hay and the wild strawberries. Milly peered into all the banks along the road where she generally found her favourite little red berries, but most of them were washed away, and the few miserable things that were left tasted of nothing but rain water. And as for the hay-fields, they looked so wet and drenched that it was hard to believe any sunshine could ever dry them.

"Poor John Backhouse!" said Aunt Emma; "I'm afraid his hay is a good deal spoilt. Aren't you glad father's not a farmer, Milly?"

"Why, Aunt Emma," said Milly, "I'm always wishing father _was_ a farmer. I want to be like Becky, and call the cows, and mind the baby all by myself. It must be nice feeding the chickens, and making the hay, and taking the milk around."

"Yes, all that's very nice, but how would you like your hay washed away, and your corn beaten down, and your fruit all spoilt? Those are things that are constantly happening to John Backhouse, I expect, in the rainy country."

"Yes, and it won't always be summer," said Milly, considering. "I don't think I should like to stay in that little weeny house all the winter. Is it very cold here in the winter, Aunt Emma?"

"Not very, generally. But last winter was very cold here, and the snow lay on the ground for weeks and weeks. On Christmas eve, do you know, Milly, I wanted to have a children's party in my kitchen, and what do you think I did? The snow was lying deep on the roads, so I sent out two sledges."

"What are sledges?" asked Olly.

"Carriages with the wheels taken off and two long pieces of wood fastened on instead, so that they slip along smoothly over the snow. And my old coachman drove one and my gardener the other, and they went round all the farmhouses near by, and gathered up the children, little and big, into the sledges, till the coachman had got eight in his sledge, and the gardener had got nine