Every day early I was put forth from the house and garth,
and forbidden to go back thither till dusk. While the days were
long and the grass was growing, I had to lead our goats to pasture
in the wood-lawns, and must take with me rock and spindle,
and spin so much of flax or hair as the woman gave me, or be beaten.
But when the winter came and the snow was on the ground,
then that watching and snaring of wild things was my business.
"At last one day of late summer when I, now of some fifteen summers,
was pasturing the goats not far from the house, the sky darkened,
and there came up so great a storm of thunder and lightning, and huge
drift of rain, that I was afraid, and being so near to the house,
I hastened thither, driving the goats, and when I had tethered them
in the shed of the croft, I crept trembling up to the house, and when I
was at the door, heard the clack of the loom in the weaving-chamber,
and deemed that the woman was weaving there, but when I looked,
behold there was no one on the bench, though the shuttle was flying
from side to side, and the shed opening and changing, and the sley
coming home in due order. Therewithal I heard a sound as of one
singing a song in a low voice, but the words I could not understand:
then terror seized on my heart, but I stepped over the threshold,
and as the door of the chamber was open, I looked aside and saw
therein the woman sitting stark naked on the floor with a great open
book before her, and it was from her mouth that the song was coming:
grim she looked, and awful, for she was a big woman, black-haired and stern
of aspect in her daily wont, speaking to me as few words as might be,
and those harsh enough, yea harsher than when I was but little.
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