‘Not for a woman that is your wife and lover? Think! Was it not for my sake and for love of me that you thought to do what you are doing?’
‘Yea, O Thia. Yet, now that I am doing it, itself suffices me. I am strong, and suffer not under the burden of it. The very heaviness of it makes me glad. And now your knowledge of it gladdens me, too. But I would not have you bear the least part of it with me. Go to your own home!’
‘You speak firmly, O great dragon! Yet will not I obey you. Tell me of your work. Is it to the marshes that you take the beasts and the birds?’
‘Yea. Begone, small dear one!’ And he stooped down to take the two sheep.
‘Once, long ago, you wished that a lad might help you in your hard work. O Thol, I am as I was, trustier than any lad. It were better that you should go twice, not thrice, every night, to the marshes. I will always take the birds.’ And she rose to take them.
But a thought, a very important thought, came to her, giving her pause. And she said, ‘The fire must first be tended.’
‘It has no need yet,’ he answered. ‘I tend it when I come back from the last journey.’
‘To-night it shall be tended earlier. And I will so tend it that it shall last long.’ She was down on her knees and off into the smoke before he could stop her. He followed her, protesting that such work was not for her. She did it, nevertheless, very well. And presently, side by side, he with two sheep, she with three birds’ necks in either fist, they went forth into the starlight, and down away to the marshes.
There, having duly sunk their burdens, they took each other by the hand, and turned homeward. At one of the running brooks on their way home, Thia halted. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘will I wash my face well. And do you, too, O Thol, wash yours, so that when we wake in the morning mine shall not displease you.’
