The Hermit of the Pillar 63

house by the roadside and slew father and
mother and left them dead, but the babe at
the breast they had not slain, and this was
she.”

“* Didst thou find her?” asked the Hermit.

“Ay, on a happy day I found her; a
feeble little thing bleating like a Seals
forlorn beside its dead dam.”

“And thy wife, belike, or thy mother,
reared her ?”’

“Nay,” said the Herd, “for. my mother
was dead, and no wife have I. I reared her
myself — my little white gooseling; and she
throve and waxed strong of heart and limb,
and merry and brown of favour, as thou hast
seen.’

“Thou must have been thyself scantly a
man in those days,” said the Hermit.

“Younger than to-day,” replied the Herd;
“but I was ever big of limb and plentiful of
my inches.”

“And hath she not been often since a
burthen to thee, and a weariness in the
years?”

“She hath been a care in the cold winter,
and a sorrow in her sickness with her teeth
— for no man, I wot, can help a small child