ison over there in the Castle of Teriolis told me.
They say he is just like that Alaric, and like Siegfried and the
Sun-god. And grandfather says that I also shall become a warrior and go
down to King Totila and rush into the fray with the cry of 'Alaric!
Alaric!' Long ago I got tired of climbing about and keeping goats here
on the mountains, where there is nothing to fight but wolves, or at
most a bear which eats up the grapes and honey-combs. You all praise my
harp-playing and my songs, but I feel that they are not worth it, and
that I cannot learn much more from the old man. I should like to sing
better things. I am never tired of listening to the soldiers' stories
about the victories of glorious King Totila. Lately I gave the best
chamois I ever shot to old Hunibad--whom the King sent up here to nurse
his wounds--so that he might tell me, for the third time, all about the
battle at the bridge across the Padus, and how King Totila himself
overthrew that black devil, the dreadful Cethegus. And I have made a
song about it, which begins:

"Tremble, thou traitor,
Cunning Cethegus;
Tricks will not serve thee;
Teja the terrible
Daunts thy defiance.
And brightly arises,
Like morning and May-time,
Like night from the darkness,
The favourite of Heaven,
The bright and the beautiful
King of the Goths.

"But it goes no further; and I can make no more poetry alone. I need a
master for the words and the harp. I should like to finish a song that
I have began about the spear-hurler Teja, whom they call the 'Black
Earl,' and who is said to play the harp wonderfully. And long ago--but
this I tell to thee alone--I should have run away without asking
grandfather, who always says I am too young yet, if _one_ thing did not
keep me back."

He sprang hastily up.

"What is that, brother?" asked Gotho, who sat quite still and looked
full at him with her large blue eyes.

"Nay, if thou dost not guess it," he answered almost angrily, "I cannot
tell thee. But now I must go and forge some new arrow-points in the
smithy. First give me one more kiss--there! And now let me kiss each of
thine eyes, and thy fair hair. Good-bye, dear sister, until
supper-time."

He left her and ran to a side building, before the door of which stood
a grind-stone and various implements.

Gotho rested her cheek upon her hand, an