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THE YOUNG GIANT. |
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barriers, he unharnessed them, placed them on the top of the trees which lay on the waggon, and taking hold of the shafts himself, drew the whole as if it had been laden with feathers. Then he called out to the men, " You see I shall be home first after all/' and he was right, for they had to set to work to clear the lane of the obstruction before they could lead their horses through it. On reaching the farm-yard, he took one of the trees in his hand, and showing it to the bailiff, said, " Is not that a beautiful flagstaff?"
The bailiff said afterwards to his wife, " That is a clever fellow; after all, if he does sleep longer that the others, he gets back before them."
The young giant served at the farm-yard for a year, and when the other labourers went up for their wages, he said it was also time for him to take his. The bailiff, by this time, had found out the young man's strength, and he was rather afraid of a blow from such a hand, and he knew he dared not quarrel with him. So he tried to get off his bargain, and even offered to make the young man bailiff instead of himself, or to give him anything he asked for, but all to no purpose. Then the bailiff begged for a fortnight's respite, that he might think the matter over, and the young giant promised that the fortnight he should have.
Then the bailiff assembled all his farm people and neighbours, and asked for their advice. The clerks considered for a long time, and then they said that with a labourer on the estate who with one blow could crush them as easily as a man would crush a gnat, no man's life was in safety. So they decided at last that he should be sent to clean out a dry well, and while he was down they were to throw millstones upon his head, that he might never again see daylight. This counsel pleased the bailiff, and he sent the young man down into the well to clean it.
While he was down, they rolled great stones upon him, and thought that he must be crushed to death, but he cried out, "Drive those hens away; they are scratching in the sand by the well and throwing it into my eyes, so that I cannot see what I am doing."
" Hish, hish," cried the bailiff, as if he were driving away the hens, and presently, having finished his work, the young giant climbed up and said, " See what a handsome necklace I have
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