ird day, there sprung from them a
warrior named Bur, the father of Boer, the father of Odin, who is the
father of all the gods. She would tell him of wicked Loki too, the
deceiver and cunning plotter against the peace of heaven. And of his
three evil children--here Dickie would, for what reason he knew not,
always feel his mother hold him more closely, while her voice took a
deeper tone--Fenrir the wolf, who, when Thor sought to bind him, bit
off the brave god's right hand; and Joermungand the Midgard serpent,
who, tail in mouth, circles the world; and Hela, the pale queen, who
reigns in Niflheim over the dim kingdoms of the dead. And of Baldur the
bright shining god, joy of Asgard, slain in error by Hoeder his blind
twin-brother; for whom all things on earth--save one--weep, and will
weep, till in the last days he comes again. And of All-Father Odin
himself, plucking out his right eye and bartering it for a draught of
wisdom-giving water from Mirmir's magic well. Again, she would tell him
of the End--which it must be owned frightened Dickie a little, so that
he would stroke her cheek, and say softly, "But, mummy, you really are
sure, aren't you, it won't happen for a good while yet?"--Of Ragnaroek,
the Twilight of the Gods; of the Fimbul winter, and cheerless sun and
hurrying, blood-red moon, and all the direful signs which must needs go
before the last great battle between good and evil.

And through all of these stories, of Christian and heathen origin
alike, Richard began dimly, almost unconsciously, to trace, recurrent
as a strain of austere music, the idea--very common to ages less soft
and fastidious than our own--of payment in self-restraint and labour,
or in actual bodily pain, loss, or disablement, for all good gained and
knowledge won.

He found the same idea again when, under the teaching of Julius March,
he began reading history, and when his little skill in Greek and Latin
carried him as far as the easier passages of the classic poets. Dick
was a very apt, if somewhat erratic and inaccurate, scholar. His
insatiable curiosity drove him forward. He scurried, in childish
fashion by all shortcuts available, to get at the heart of the
matter--a habit of mind detestable to pedants, since to them the letter
is the main object, not the spirit. Happily Julius was ceasing to be a
pedant, even in matters ecclesiastical. He loved the little boy, the
mingled charm and pathos of whose personality held him as with a spe