“THE FOREST’S SMALL WILD LIFE CONSTANTLY CAME IN AT THE OPEN DOOR.”
Then, beside the ministering care of the gentle, manly big armorer, little Wulf had through those years the teaching and companionship of the great forest. It grew close up about the shop, so that its small wild life constantly came in at the open door, or invited the youngster forth to play. Rabbits and squirrels peeped in at him; birds wandered in and built their nests in dark corners; and one winter a vixen fox took shelter with them, remaining until spring, and grew so tame that she would eat bread from Wulf’s hand.
The great trees were his constant companions and friends, but one mighty oak that grew close beside the door, and sent out its huge arms completely over the shop, became, next to Karl, his chosen comrade. Whenever the armorer had to go to village or castle, Wulf used to take shelter in this tree; not so much from fear,—for even in those evil days the armorer’s grandson, as he grew to be regarded by those who came about the forge, was too insignificant to be molested,—but because of his love for the great tree. As he became older he was able to climb higher and higher among its black arms, until at last he made him a nest in the very crown of the wood giant.
Every tree, throughout its life, stores up within its heart light and heat from the sun. It does this so well, because it is its appointed task in nature, that the very life and love that the sun stands for to us become a part of its being, knit up within its woody fiber. When we burn this wood in our stoves or our fireplaces, the warmth and blaze that are thrown out are just this sunshine which the tree has caught in its heart from the time it was a tiny seedling till the ax was laid at its root. So when we sit by the coal fire and enjoy its genial radiance, we are really warming ourselves by some of the same sunlight and warmth that sifted down through the leaves of great forest trees, perhaps thousands of years ago.
Of course little Wulf did not know all this as we know it, but doubtless he knew much else that we do not know at all; at all events, he knew the sunshine of his own time and his own forest, and into his sound young heart there crept, as the years went by, somewhat of the strength and the sunshine-storing quality of his forest comrade, until, long before he became a man, those who knew him grew to feel that here was a strong, warm heart of human sunshine, ready to be useful and comforting wherever use and comfort were needed.
At first faint memories haunted him; but as the years passed he learned to think of them as a part of one of Karl’s stories—one that he always meant to ask him to tell again, sometime. The years slipped away, however, and his childish impressions grew fainter and fainter, until at last they had quite faded into the far past.
But all this came about years after, and could not possibly have been foreseen by Karl the armorer as he stood at his forge and thought sadly on his own inability to do all that needed doing for the little one so suddenly and so strangely thrust upon his care.
CHAPTER IV
OF HOW WULF FIRST WENT TO THE CASTLE, AND WHAT BEFELL
For a matter of nine or ten years Wulf dwelt with Karl at the forge, and knew no other manner of finding than if he had been indeed the armorer’s own grandson, as he was known to those who took the trouble to wonder, Karl himself never dissenting to the idea. He was now a well grown lad of perhaps fourteen years, not tall, but sturdy, strong of thigh and arm, good to look at, with a ruddy color, fair hair, and steady eyes that met the gaze fearlessly.