No More Learning

In a little while the path grew very straight and
steep, and the knight was forced to dismount and leave his horse tied
to a tree-stem. They knew they were on the right track: for they could
see the marks of pointed shoes in the soft clay and mingled with them
the cloven footprints of the pigs. Presently the path became still
more abrupt, and they knew by the ending of the cloven footprints that
the thieves were carrying the pigs. Now and then a long mark in the
clay showed that a pig had slipped down, and been dragged along for a
little way. They had journeyed thus for about twenty minutes, when a
confused sound of voices told them that they were coming up with the
thieves. And then the voices ceased, and they understood that they had
been overheard in their turn. They pressed on rapidly and cautiously,
and in about five minutes one of them caught sight of a leather jerkin
half hidden by a hazel-bush. An arrow struck the knight's chain-armour,
but glanced off harmlessly, and then a flight of arrows swept by them
with the buzzing sound of great bees. They ran and climbed, and climbed
and ran towards the thieves, who were now all visible standing up
among the bushes with their still quivering bows in their hands: for
they had only their spears, and they must at once come hand to hand.
The knight was in the front, and smote down first one and then another
of the wood-thieves. The peasants shouted, and, pressing on, drove
the wood-thieves before them until they came out on the flat top of
the mountain, and there they saw the two pigs quietly grubbing in the
short grass, so they ran about them in a circle, and began to move back
again towards the narrow path: the old knight coming now the last of
all, and striking down thief after thief. The peasants had got no very
serious hurts among them, for he had drawn the brunt of the battle upon
himself, as could well be seen from the bloody rents in his armour; and
when they came to the entrance of the narrow path he bade them drive
the pigs down into the valley, while he stood there to guard the way
behind them. So in a moment he was alone, and, being weak with loss of
blood, might have been ended there and then by the wood-thieves he had
beaten off, had fear not made them begone out of sight in a great hurry.

An hour passed, and they did not return; and now the knight could stand
on guard no longer, but had to lie down upon the grass. A half-hour
more went by, and then a young lad, with what appeared to be a number
of cock's feathers stuck round his hat, came out of the path behind
him, and began to move about among the dead thieves, cutting their
heads off.
Then he laid the heads in a heap before the knight, and
said: 'O great knight, I have been bid come and ask you for the crowns
you promised for the heads: five crowns a head. They bid me tell you
that they have prayed to God and His Mother to give you a long life,
but that they are poor peasants, and that they would have the money
before you die. They told me this over and over for fear I might forget
it, and promised to beat me if I did. '

The knight raised himself upon his elbow, and opening a bag that hung
to his belt, counted out the five crowns for each head. There were
thirty heads in all.

'O great knight,' said the lad, 'they have also bid me take all care of
you, and light a fire, and put this ointment upon your wounds. ' And he
gathered sticks and leaves together, and, flashing his flint and steel
under a mass of dry leaves, had made a very good blaze. Then, drawing
off the coat of mail, he began to anoint the wounds: but he did it
clumsily, like one who does by rote what he had been told. The knight
motioned him to stop, and said: 'You seem a good lad. '

'I would ask something of you for myself. '

'There are still a few crowns,' said the knight; 'shall I give them to
you? '

'O no,' said the lad. 'They would be no good to me. There is only one
thing that I care about doing, and I have no need of money to do it. I
go from village to village and from hill to hill, and whenever I come
across a good cock I steal him and take him into the woods, and I keep
him there under a basket, until I get another good cock, and then I set
them to fight. The people say I am an innocent, and do not do me any
harm, and never ask me to do any work but go a message now and then.