William Morris - 3 books to know Viking Age

“Lost! What’s lost?” asked Snorro, sitting up and gazing into his friend’s face with an anxious expression—not, of course, in consequence of being lost, which he did not understand, but because of Olaf’s woeful countenance.

“Oh! you can’t understand it, Snorrie; and, after all, I’m a stupid fellow to alarm you, for that can do no good. Come, my mannie, you and I are going to wander about in the woods to-day a great long way, and try to get home; so, let me shake the leaves off you. There now, we shall start.”

“Dat great fun!” cried Snorro, with sparkling eyes; “but, O’af, me want mik.”

“Milk—eh? Well, to be sure, but—”

Olaf stopped abruptly, not only because he was greatly perplexed about the matter of breakfast thus suggested to him, but because he chanced at that moment to look towards the leafy entrance of the cave, and there beheld a pair of large black eyes glaring at him.

To say that poor Olaf’s heart gave a violent leap, and then apparently ceased to beat altogether, while the blood fled from his visage, is not to say anything disparaging to his courage. Whether you be boy or man, reader, we suspect that if you had, in similar circumstances, beheld such a pair of eyes, you might have been troubled with somewhat similar emotions. Cowardice lies not in the susceptibility of the nervous system to a shock, but in giving way to that shock so as to become unfit for proper action or self-defence. If Olaf had been a coward, he would, forgetting all else, have attempted to fly, or, that being impossible, would have shrunk into the innermost recesses of the cave. Not being a coward, his first impulse was to start to his feet and face the pair of eyes; his second, to put his left arm round Snorro, and, still keeping his white face steadily turned to the foe, to draw the child close to his side.

This act, and the direction in which Olaf gazed, caused Snorro to glance towards the cave’s mouth, where he no sooner beheld the apparition, than shutting his own eyes tight, and opening his mouth wide, he gave vent to a series of yells that might have terrified the wildest beast in the forest!

It did not, however, terrify the owner of the eyes, for the bushes were instantly thrust aside, and next instant Snorro’s mouth was violently stopped by the black hand of a savage.

Seeing this, Olaf’s blood returned to its ordinary channels with a rush. He seized a thick branch that lay on the ground, and dealt the savage a whack on the bridge of his nose, that changed it almost immediately from a snub into a superb Roman! For this he received a buffet on the ear that raised a brilliant constellation in his brain, and laid him flat on the ground.

Rising with difficulty, he was met with a shower of language from the savage in a voice which partook equally of the tones of remonstrance and abuse, but Olaf made no reply, chiefly because, not understanding what was said, he could not. Seeing this plainly indicated on his face, the savage stopped speaking and gave him a box on the other ear, by way of interpreting what he had said. It was not quite so violent as the first, and only staggered Olaf, besides lighting up a few faint stars. Very soon little Snorro became silent, from the combined effects of exhaustive squeezes and horror.

Having thus promptly brought matters to what he seemed to consider a satisfactory condition, the savage wiping his Roman nose, which had bled a little, threw Snorro over his shoulder and, seizing Olaf by the collar of his coat, so as to thrust him on in advance, left the cavern with rapid strides.

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