The Sword in the Stone. T. White H.

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СКАЧАТЬ cautiously. “Long way and all that, we know.”

      “Isn’t so much the distance,” said Sir Ector, “but that giant What’s-’is-name is in the way. Have to pass through his country, you understand.”

      “What is his name?”

      “Can’t recollect it at the moment, not for the life of me. Fellow that lives by the burbly water.”

      “Ah, Galapas,” said Sir Grummore.

      “That’s the very chap.”

      “The only other thing,” said Sir Grummore, “is to have a tutor.”

      “You mean a fellow who teaches you,” said Sir Ector wisely.

      “That’s it,” said Sir Grummore. “A tutor, you know, a fellow who teaches you.”

      “Have some more port,” said Sir Ector. “You need it after all this questin’.”

      “Splendid day,” said Sir Grummore. “Only they never seem to kill nowadays. Run twenty-five miles and then mark to ground or lose him altogether. The worst is when you start a fresh quest.”

      “We kill all our giants cubbin’,” said Sir Ector. “After that they give you a fine run, but get away.”

      “Run out of scent,” said Sir Grummore, “I dare say. It’s always the same with these big giants in a big country. They run out of scent.”

      “But even if you were to have a tutor,” said Sir Ector. “I don’t see how you would get him.”

      “Advertise,” said Sir Grummore.

      “I have advertised,” said Sir Ector. “I put it in the Humberland News and Cardoile Advertiser.”

      “The only other way,” said Sir Grummore, “is to start a quest.”

      “You mean a quest for a tutor,” explained Sir Ector.

      “That’s it,” said Sir Grummore.

      “Hic, Hac, Hoc,” said Sir Ector. “Have some more port.”

      “Hunc,” said Sir Grummore.

      So it was decided. When Sir Grummore Grummursum had gone away next day, Sir Ector tied a knot in his handkerchief to remember to start a quest for a tutor as soon as he had time, and, as he was not quite sure how to set about it, he told the boys what Sir Grummore had suggested and warned them not to be hooligans meanwhile. Then they went haymaking.

      It was July, and every able-bodied man and woman on the estate worked all that month in the field, under Sir Ector’s direction. In any case the boys would have been excused from being eddicated just then.

      Sir Ector’s castle stood in an enormous clearing in a still more enormous forest. It had a big green courtyard and a moat with pike in it. The moat was crossed by a strongly-fortified stone bridge which ended halfway across it: the other half was covered by a wooden drawbridge which was wound up every night. As soon as you had crossed the draw-bridge you were at the top of the village street – it had only one street – and this extended for about half a mile, with little white thatched houses of mud on either side of it. The street divided the clearing into two huge fields, that on the left being cultivated in hundreds of long narrow strips, while that on the right ran down to a little river and was used as pasture. Half of the right-hand field was fenced off for hay.

      It was July, and real July weather, such as they only had in old England. Everybody went bright brown like Red Indians with startling teeth and flashing eyes. The dogs moved about with their tongues hanging out, or lay panting in bits of shade, while the farm horses sweated through their coats and flicked their tails and tried to kick the horseflies off their bellies with their great hind hoofs. In the pasture field the cows were on the gad, and could be seen galloping about with their tails in the air, which made Sir Ector angry.

      Sir Ector stood on the top of a rick, whence he could see what everybody was doing, and shouted commands all over the two-hundred-acre field, and grew purple in the face. The best mowers mowed away in a line where the grass was still uncut, their scythes roaring all together in the strong sunlight. The women raked the dry hay together in long lines, with wooden rakes, and two boys with pitchforks followed up on either side of the line turning the hay inwards so that it lay well for picking up. Then the great carts followed, rumbling with their spiked wooden wheels, and drawn by horses or slow white oxen. One man stood on top of the cart to receive the hay and direct operations, while one man walked on either side picking up what the boys had prepared and throwing it to him with a fork. The cart was led down the lane between two lines of hay, and was loaded in strict rotation from the front poles to the back, the man on top calling out in a stern voice where he wanted each fork to be pitched. The loaders grumbled at the boys for not having laid the hay properly and threatened to tan them when they caught them, if they got left behind.

      When the waggon was loaded, it was drawn to Sir Ector’s rick and pitched to him. It came up easily because it had been loaded systematically – not like modern hay – and Sir Ector scrambled about on top, getting in the way of the two assistants, who did all the real work, and stamping and perspiring and scratching about with his fork and trying to make the rick grow straight and shouting that it would all fall down as soon as the west winds came.

      The Wart loved haymaking, and was good at it. Kay, who was two years older, generally stood on the edge of the bundle of hay which he was trying to pick up, with the result that he worked twice as hard as the Wart for only half the result. But he hated to be beaten by anybody at anything and used to fight away with the wretched hay – which he loathed like poison – until he was quite sick.

      The day after Sir Grummore’s visit was hot, sweltering for the men who toiled from milking to milking and then again till sunset in their battle with the sultry element. For the hay was an element to them, like sea or air, in which they bathed and plunged themselves and which they even breathed in. The seeds and small scraps stuck in their hair, their mouths, their nostrils, and worked, tickling, inside their clothes. They did not wear many clothes, and the shadows between their sliding muscles were blue on the nut-brown skins. Those who feared thunder had felt ill that morning.

      In the afternoon a terrible storm came. Sir Ector kept them at it till the great flashes were right overhead, and then, with the sky as dark as night, the rain came hurling against them so that they were drenched at once and could not see a hundred yards. The boys lay crouched under the waggons, wrapped in hay to keep their wet bodies warm against the now cold wind, and all joked with one another while heaven fell. Kay was shivering, though not with cold, but he joked like the others because he would not show he was afraid. At the last and greatest thunderbolt every man startled involuntarily, and each saw the other startle, until they all laughed away their shame.

      But that was the end of the haymaking for them and the beginning of play. The boys were sent home to change their clothes. The old dame who had been their nurse fetched dry jerkins out of a press, and scolded them for catching their deaths, and denounced Sir Ector for keeping them on so long. Then they slipped their heads into the laundered shirts, and ran out into the refreshed and sparkling court.

      “I vote we take Cully and see if we can get some rabbits in the chase,” cried the Wart.

      “The rabbits won’t be out in this wet,” said Kay sarcastically, delighted to have caught him out over natural history.

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