an interest in thine education, although thou
dost not deserve it."

"I deserve it, mayhap, more than ye think."

"How so, boy?"

"_Why_, because I have for a long time past taken an uncommon interest
in thy welfare."

Glumm laughed, and said he did not know that there was any occasion to
concern himself about his welfare.

"Oh yes, there is!" cried Alric, "for, when a man goes moping about the
country as if he were fey, or as if he had dreamed of seeing his own
guardian spirit, his friends cannot help being concerned about him."

"Why, what is running in the lad's head?" said Glumm, looking with a
perplexed expression at his young companion.

"Nothing runs in my head, save ordinary thoughts. If there be any
unusual running at all, it must be in thine own."

"Speak, thou little fox," said Glumm, suddenly grasping Alric by the
nape of the neck and giving him a shake.

"Nay then, if that is thy plan," said the boy, "give it a fair trial.
Shake away, and see what comes of it. Thou mayest shake out blood,
bones, flesh, and life too, and carry home my skin as a trophy, but be
assured that thou shalt not shake a word off my tongue!"

"Boldly spoken," said Glumm, laughing, as he released the lad; "but I
think thy tone would change if I were to take thee at thy word."

"That it would not. Thou art not the first man whom I have defied, aye,
and drawn blood from, as that red-haired Dane--"

Alric stopped suddenly. He had reached that age when the tendency to
boast begins, at least in manly boys, to be checked by increasing good
sense and good taste. Yet it is no disparagement of Alric's character
to say that he found it uncommonly difficult to refrain, when occasion
served, from making reference to his first warlike exploit, even
although frequent rebukes and increasing wisdom told him that boasting
was only fit for the lips of cowards.

"Why do ye stop?" asked Glumm, who quite understood the boy's feelings,
and admired his exercise of self-control.

"Be--because I have said enough."

"Good is it," observed the other, "when man or boy knows that he has
said enough, and has the power to stop when he knows it. But come,
Alric, thou hast not said enough to me yet on the matter that--that--"

"What matter?" asked Alric, with a sly look.

"Why, the matter of my welfare, to be sure."

"Ah, true. Well, methinks, Glumm, that I could give thee a little
medicine for thy mind, but I won't, unless ye promise to k