“Now art thou truly Glumm the Gruff,” cried Alric, laughing, as he leaped to the other side of a mass of fallen rock; “but if thy humour changes not, I will show thee that I am not named Lightfoot for nothing. Come, don’t fume and fret there like a bear with a headache, but let me speak, and I warrant me thou wilt be reasonably glad.”
“Go on, then, thou incorrigible.”
“Very well; but none of thy hard names, friend Glumm, else will I set my big brother Erling at thee. There now, don’t give way again. What a storm-cloud thou art! Will the knowledge that Ada loves thee as truly as thou lovest her calm thee down?”
“I see thou hast discovered my secret,” said Glumm, looking at his little friend with a somewhat confused expression, “though how the knowledge came to thee is past my understanding. Yet as thou art so clever a warlock I would fain know what ye mean about ‘Ada’s love for me.’ Hadst thou said her hatred, I could have believed thee without explanation.”
“Let us go on, then,” said Alric, “for there is nothing to be gained and only time to be lost by thus talking across a stone.”
The path which they followed was broad at that part, and not quite so rugged, so that Alric could walk alongside of his stout friend as he related to him the incident that was the means of enlightening him as to Ada’s feelings towards her lover. It was plain from the expression on the Norseman’s face that his soul was rejoiced at the discovery, and he strode forward at such a pace that the boy was fain to call a halt.
“Thinkest thou that my legs are as long as thine?” he said, stopping and panting.
Glumm laughed; and the laugh was loud and strong. He would have laughed at anything just then, for the humour was upon him, and he felt it difficult to repress a shout at the end of it!
“Come on, Alric, I will go slower. But art thou sure of all this? Hast not mistaken the words?”
“Mistaken the words!” cried the boy; “why, I tell thee they were as plain to my ears and my senses as what thou hast said this moment.”