kindred. Therefore, son, it were not ill if ye went west away with
the merchants this winter, and learned the dealings of the cities,
and brought us back tales thereof.'

But Gold-mane cried out somewhat angrily, 'I tell thee, foster-
father, that I have no mind for the cities and their men and their
fools and their whores and their runagates. But as for the wood and
its wonders, I have done with it, save for hunting there along with
others of the Folk. So let thy mind be at ease; and for the rest, I
will do what the Alderman commandeth, and whatso my father craveth of
me.'

'And that is well, son,' said Stone-face, 'if what ye say come to
pass, as sore I misdoubt me it will not. But well it were, well it
were! For such things are in the wood, yea and before ye come to its
innermost, as may well try the stoutest heart. Therein are Kobbolds,
and Wights that love not men, things unto whom the grief of men is as
the sound of the fiddle-bow unto us. And there abide the ghosts of
those that may not rest; and there wander the dwarfs and the
mountain-dwellers, the dealers in marvels, the givers of gifts that
destroy Houses; the forgers of the curse that clingeth and the murder
that flitteth to and fro. There moreover are the lairs of Wights in
the shapes of women, that draw a young man's heart out of his body,
and fill up the empty place with desire never to be satisfied, that
they may mock him therewith and waste his manhood and destroy him.
Nor say I much of the strong-thieves that dwell there, since thou art
a valiant sword; or of them who have been made Wolves of the Holy
Places; or of the Murder-Carles, the remnants and off-scourings of
wicked and wretched Folks--men who think as much of the life of a man
as of the life of a fly. Yet happiest is the man whom they shall