The Path of Life | Page 9

and called after him. When they saw that he went on, they broke into a run:
"Stop, you brute!... Here, you with your star!... Oh, you damned singer of songs!" they howled and ran and caught him and threw him down.
Grendel dug his knee into his chest and held his arms stretched wide against the ground. Wulf and Dras gripped whole handfuls of snow and crammed it into his mouth and went on until all his face was thickly covered and he lay powerless. Then they planted his star beside him in the snow and began to turn and sing to the echo:
_A, a, a_--glory be to Him on high to-day! _E, e, e_--upon earth peace there shall be! _I, i, i_--come and see with your own eye! _O, o, o_--His little bed of straw below!
Like a flash, Mad Wanne shot past, yelling and shrieking. Wulf flung his stick against her legs. She waved her arms under her cloak and vanished in the dark.
The three men sat down by the ditch and laughed full-throated. Then they started for the village. Long it rang:
Three Kings came out of the East; 'Twas to comfort Mary ...
Great white flakes fell from the starry sky, wriggled and swarmed, one on top of the other.
* * * * *
LOAFING
* * * * *
IV
LOAFING
He went, ever on the move, with the slow, shuffling step of wandering beggars who are nowhere at home.
They had discharged him, some time ago, and now he was walking alone like a wild man. For whole days he had dragged himself through the moorland, from farm to farm, looking for his bread like the dogs. Now he came to a wide lane of lime-trees and before him lay the town, asleep. He went into it. The streets lay dead, the doors were shut, the windows closed: all the people were resting; and he loafed. It was dreary, to walk alone like that, all over the country-side, and with such a body: a giant with huge legs and arms, which were doomed to do nothing, and that belly, that craving belly, which he carried about with him wherever he went.
And nobody wanted him: 'twas as though they were afraid of his strong limbs and his stubborn head--because his glowing eyes could not entreat meekly enough--and his blackguardly togs....
Morning came; the working-folk were early astir. Lean men and pale women, carrying their kettles and food-satchels in their hands, beat the slippery pavements with their wooden shoes. Doors and windows flew open; life began; every one walked with a busy air, knew where he was going; and they vanished here and there, through a big gate or behind a narrow door that shut with a bang. Carts with green stuff, waggons with sand and coal drove this way and that. Fellows with milk and bread went round; and it grew to a din of calls and cries, each shouting his loudest.
And he loafed. Nobody looked at him, noticed him or wanted him. In the middle of the forenoon, a young lady had stared at him for a long time and said to her mother:
"What a huge fellow!"
He had heard her and it did him good. He looked round, but mother and daughter were gone, behind a corner, and stood gazing into a shop full of bows and ribbons.
It began to whirl terribly in his belly; and his stomach hurt him so; and his legs were tired.
The streets and houses and all those strange people annoyed him. He wanted to get away, far away, and to see men like himself: workers without work, who were hungry!
He looked for the narrow alleys and the poor quarter.
Out of a side-street a draycart came jogging along. Half a score of labourers lay tugging in the shoulder-strap or leant with all the force of their bodies against the cart, which rolled on toilsomely. 'Twas a load of flax, packed tightly in great square bales standing one against the other, the whole cart full. The dray caught its right wheel in the grating of an open gutter and remained stock-still, leaning aslant, as though planted there. The workmen racked and wrung to get the wheel out, but it was no good. Then they stood there, staring at one another, at their wits' end and throwing glances into the eyes of that big fellow who had come to look on. Without saying or speaking, he caught a spoke in either hand, pressed with his mighty shoulder against the inside of the wheel, bent and wrung and in a turn brought the cart on the level. Then he went behind among the other workmen to go and help them shove. They looked at him queerly, as if to say that they no longer needed his help and had rather done without him. The cart