Читать книгу Grettir the Outlaw - Baring-Gould Sabine, Baring-Gould Sabine - Страница 2

An Evil Boyhood – Golf on the Ice – Grettir Quarrels with Audun – A Threat of Vengeance

There are several tales told of Grettir when he was a boy, which show that he was a rough and unkindly lad. He was set by his father to keep geese on the moors, and this made him angry, so he threw stones at the geese and killed or wounded them all.

The old man suffered from lumbago, and in winter when unwell asked his wife and the boys to rub his back by the fire; but when Grettir was required to do this, he lost his temper, and on one occasion he snatched up a wool-carding comb and dug it into his old father's back.

Many other things he did which made those at home not like him, and there was not much love lost between him and his father. The fact was that Grettir was a headstrong, wilful fellow, and bitterly had he to pay in after life for this youthful wilfulness and obstinacy. It was these qualities, untamed in him, that wrecked his whole life, and it may be said brought ruin and extinction on his family. There were great and good qualities in Grettir's nature, but they did not show when he was young; only much suffering and cruel privations brought out in the end the higher and nobler elements that were in him.

It is so with all who have any good in them, if by early discipline it is not manifested, then it is brought out by the rough usage of misfortune in after life.

And now I will give one incident of Grettir's boyhood. It was a favourite amusement for young fellows at that time to play golf on the ice, and in winter, when the Middlefirth was frozen over, large parties assembled there for the sport.

One winter a party was arranged for a match on the ice, and a good many lads came to Middlefirth from Willowdale, a valley only separated from the Middlefirth by a long shoulder of ugly moor. The Willowdales-men had a much better sheet of water, a very large lake called Hop, into which their river flowed, before discharging itself into the sea; and the return match was to be played on Hop.

Among the young fellows who came from Willowdale was Audun, a fine, strapping fellow; frank, well-built, good-looking, and amiable.

When the parties were assembled at the place, there they were paired off according to age and strength; and on this occasion I am speaking of, Grettir, who was fourteen, was set to play with Audun, who was two years older than he, and a head taller.

Audun struck the ball and it flew over Grettir's head, and he missed it, and it went skimming away over the ice to a great distance, and Grettir had to run after it. Some of those who were looking on laughed. Then Grettir's anger was roused. He got the ball and came back carrying it, till he was within a few yards of Audun, and then, instead of dropping the ball, and striking it with his golfing-stick, he suddenly threw it with all his force against his adversary, and struck him between his eyes, so that it half-stunned him, and cut the skin. Audun whirled his golfing-bat round, and struck at Grettir, who dodged under and escaped the blow. Then Audun and Grettir grappled each other, and wrestled on the ice.

Every one thought that Audun would have the stumpy, thick-set boy down in a trice, but it was not so; Grettir held his ground; – they swung this way, that way; now one seemed about to be cast, and then the other, and although Audun was almost come to a man's strength, he could not for a long time throw Grettir. At last Grettir slipped on a piece of ice where some had been sliding, and went down. His blood was up, so was that of Audun; and the fight would have been continued with their sticks, had not Grettir's brother Atli thrown himself between the combatants and separated them. Atli held his brother back, and tried to patch up the quarrel.

"You need not hold me like a mad dog," said Grettir. "Thralls wreak their vengeance at once, cowards never."

Audun and Grettir were distant cousins. They were not allowed to play against each other any more, and the rest went on with their game.