LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

gratefully, cold and wet as I was.”

      “Madness,” muttered Gudrun.

      “Just before I gulped it down,” Ralf said slowly, “I noticed a gleam in her slanting eyes, a wicked sparkle! And her ears – her hairy, pointed ears – twitched forwards.”

      “Go on!” said the children breathlessly.

      Ralf leaned forward. “I lifted the cup, as if to take a sip. Then I threw the whole drink out over my shoulder. It splashed out smoking on to the pony’s tail and singed off half his hair! There’s an awful yell from the troll girl, and next thing the pony and I are off down the hill, galloping for our lives. I’m still clutching the golden cup, and half the trolls of Troll Fell are tearing after us!”

      Soot showered into the fire. Up on the roof the troll lay flat with one large ear unfurled over the smoke hole. It lashed its tail like a cat, and growled. None of the humans noticed. They were too wrapped up in the story. Ralf wiped his face, trembling with remembered excitement, and laughed.

      “I daren’t go home,” he continued. “The trolls would have torn your mother and Hilde to pieces!”

      “What about us?” shouted Sigurd.

      “You weren’t born, brats,” said Hilde cheerfully. “Go on, Pa!”

      “I had one chance,” said Ralf. “At the tall stone called the Finger, I turned off the road and galloped across the big ploughed field above the mill. The trolls found it slow going over the furrows, and the clay clogged their feet. I reached the millstream ahead of them, jumped off and dragged the pony through the water. There was no bridge then. I was safe! The trolls couldn’t follow me over the brook.”

      “Were they angry?” asked Sigurd.

      “Spitting like cats and hissing like kettles!” said Ralf. “But it was nearly dawn, and off they scuttled up the hill. I staggered over to the mill, and as I banged on the door I heard – no, I felt, through the soles of my feet, a sort of far-off grating shudder as the top of Troll Fell sank into its place again.”

      “And then?” prompted Hilde.

      “The old miller, Grim, threw the door open, swearing at me for knocking so early. Then he saw the golden cup. A minute later he couldn’t do enough for me. He kicked his sons out of bed, sent his wife running for ale and bread, and it was, “Sit down, Ralf, toast your feet and tell us everything!”

      “And you did!” said Gudrun grimly.

      “Of course I did,” sighed Ralf. He turned to Hilde. “Fetch down the cup, Hilde. Let’s look at it again!”

      The troll on the roof skirmished around the smoke hole like a dog at a rabbit-burrow, trying to get an upside-down glimpse of the golden goblet, which Hilde lifted from the shelf and carried to her father.

      “Lovely!” Ralf whispered, tilting it. The bowl was wide. Two handles like serpents looped from the rim to the foot. The gold shone in the firelight as if it might melt over his fingers like butter.

      “It’s so pretty!” said Sigrid. “Why don’t we ever use it?”

      “Use that?” cried Gudrun in horror. “Never! It’s real bad luck, you mark my words. Many a time I’ve asked your father to take it back up the hill and leave it. But he’s too stubborn.”

      “Gudrun!” Ralf grumbled. “Always worrying! Who’d believe my story without this cup? My prize, won fair and square. Bad luck goes to people with bad hearts. We have nothing to fear.”

      “Did the old miller like it?” asked Sigurd.

      “Oh yes! ‘Troll treasure!’ said old Grim. ‘We could use a bit of that, couldn’t we, boys?’ The way he was looking at it made me uneasy. After all, no one knew where I was. I got up to go – and there were the boys in front of me, blocking the door, and old Grim behind me, picking up a log from the woodpile!” Ralf looked grim. “If it hadn’t been for Bjørn and Arne Egilsson coming to the door that moment with a sack of barley to grind, I might have been knocked on the head for this cup.”

      “And that’s why the millers hate us?” said Hilde. “Because we’ve got the cup and they haven’t?”

      “There’s more to it than that,” said Gudrun. “Old Grim was crazy to have that cup, or something like it. Next day he came round pestering your father to sell him the Stonemeadow. He thought if he owned it, he could dig it up for treasure.”

      “I turned him down flat,” said Ralf. “‘If there’s any treasure up there,’ I told him, ‘it belongs to the trolls and they’ll be guarding it. Leave well alone!’”

      “Now that was sense,” said Gudrun. “But what happened? Old Grim tells everyone that your father’s cheated him – taken his money and kept the land!”

      “A dirty lie!” said Ralf, reddening.

      “But old Grim’s dead now, isn’t he?” asked Hilde.

      “Yes,” said Ralf, “he died last winter. But do you know why? Because he hung about on that hill in all weathers, hoping to find the way in, and he got caught in a snowstorm.”

      “His sons found him,” added Gudrun, “lying under a crag, clawing at the rocks. Weeping that he’d found the gate, and could hear the gatekeeper laughing at him from inside the hill. They carried him back to the mill, but he was too far gone. They blamed your father, of course.”

      “That’s not fair!” said Hilde.

      “It’s not fair,” said Gudrun, “but it’s the way things are. Which makes it madness for your father to be thinking of taking off on a foolhardy voyage. Ralf,” she begged, “you know these trips are a gamble. Don’t go!”

      Ralf scratched his head. “I want some adventure, Gudrun. All my life I’ve lived here, in this one little valley. I want new skies – new seas – new places.” He looked at her pleadingly. “Can’t you see?”

      “All I can see,” Gudrun flashed, “is that you want to desert us, and throw away good money on a selfish pleasure trip.”

      Ralf went scarlet. “If the money worries you, sell this!” he roared, brandishing the golden cup. “It’s gold, it will fetch a good price, and I know you’ve always hated it! But I’m sailing on that longship!”

      “You’ll drown!” Gudrun sobbed. “And all the time I’m waiting and waiting for you, you’ll be riding over Hel’s bridge with the rest of the dead!”

      There was an awful silence.

      Ralf put the cup down and took Gudrun by the shoulders. He gave her a little shake and said gently, “You’re a wonderful woman, Gudrun. I married a grand woman, sure enough. But I’ve got to take this chance of going a-Viking.”

      The gale buffeted the house. Draughts crept moaning under the door. Gudrun drew a long, shaky breath. “When do you go?”

      Ralf looked at the floor. “Tomorrow morning,” he admitted in a low voice. “I’m sorry, Gudrun. The ship sails tomorrow.”

      “Tomorrow!” Gudrun’s lips whitened. She turned her face against Ralf ’s shoulder and shuddered. “Ralf, Ralf! It’s no weather for sailors!”

      “This will blow itself out by morning,” Ralf consoled her.

      Up on the roof, the troll lost interest. It sat riding the ridge, waving its arms in the wind and calling loudly, “Hoooo! Hututututu!”

      “How the wind shrieks!” said Gudrun. She took the poker and stirred up the fire. A stream of sparks shot through the smoke hole, and the startled troll threw itself backwards and rolled off the roof. Then it prowled inquisitively round the buildings, leaving odd little eight-toed footprints in the mud. The farmhouse door had a horseshoe nailed over it. The troll wouldn’t go near that. But it pried into every other corner of the farmyard, leaving

Скачать книгу