Part 6

The boys crouched among the reeds. Tig fitted an arrow to his bow, and Berog put a stone into the web of his sling. So they waited for a long time without moving. All at once the sound of rushing wings was heard, and then a splash and rush of water, as a skein of wild ducks flew down near by. The boys waited eagerly, and in a moment three ducks appeared, swimming out from behind a clump of reeds. Tig shot and missed, and his arrow struck up a spurt of water. Berog slung a stone at the birds as they rose, and hit one, which fell quacking and scattering feathers upon the water. At once Berog tucked up his sark, and waded out to capture the duck; but it was only wounded, and was too quick for him, and made its escape among the thick reed beds.

After this the boys waited for some time without a chance of another shot; so they left the river-side, and made their way through the thickets into the woods, and out on to the open hill-side. Now Tig took the lead; for with his bow and arrow he hoped to get larger game than water-fowl. The boys moved along at a quick pace, keeping within the cover of the rocks and bushes, in order to hide their movements. Two or three times they entered the woods again, to cross the deep glens that divided the hills; and they forded the streams that rushed in torrents down the depths. At last they climbed up a steep craggy place; and, when they reached the top, they lay down flat and spied the ground in front. Before them stretched a broad hill-top, and here they hoped to see some game. Presently Tig moved on, creeping on all fours, and peeped from behind a rock. Away in the distance was a troop of wild horses, some of them feeding and some cantering and wheeling about in play; and as Tig watched them they took fright at something near them, and galloped off out of sight.

Then Berog crept up, and they both moved on across the ridge, carefully screening their movements and taking cover behind the rocks and bushes of heather. When they came to the edge, they lay down again to spy. Then Tig’s eye picked out, far down below them, an object like a withered branch of a tree sticking up out of the heather. He called softly to Berog, who looked also, and they both agreed that three or four deer were lying down there in the hollow of the hill-side. Then Tig plucked some blades of grass as he lay, and threw them lightly into the air to see how the wind blew, so that he might keep it in his face in working round towards where the deer lay. If once he were to move where the wind might blow the scent of him towards the animals, they would be sure to take alarm and move away.

Then Tig turned and went down behind the ridge, moving at a quick trot, and worked his way round to a point, as nearly as he could guess it, close to the hollow where the deer were lying. Berog stayed behind on the hill-top to watch the deer and see if they should move.

When Tig reached the bottom, he crept on all fours for some distance through the heather, and then lay down to spy. He raised his head gently. There was the stag lying with its back towards him about a hundred yards away. Tig studied the ground and noted every boulder and every tuft of rushes between him and the stag, and then, lying flat on the ground, he began to crawl towards the nearest stone. High up on the far hill-top Berog was watching the stag; but he could not see Tig. So Tig crept on and on, holding his breath when he moved, until he reached the point where he could see the stag quite plainly. It was lying in an open green space, wide awake, and it kept turning its head from side to side as if it were on the watch for its enemies; but it did not see Tig. When Tig saw its antlers moving, he knew that it was looking around, and he lay still. But every now and then the stag turned back its head to scratch its back with its antlers and brush away the flies that kept teasing it, and then Tig crept up a little nearer and got an arrow ready in his bow.

All at once the wary stag took alarm. It heard or smelled that an enemy was near, and got up on its feet. Then, as the stag stood for a second sniffing the air, Tig leaped up and took aim and shot at it with all his might. The stag gave a leap forward and bounded away down the slope; but the arrow had pierced it deep behind the shoulder, and Tig knew that if only he could follow, he was sure of his game. He waved a signal to Berog, and set off at full speed in the blood-stained tracks of the stag.

The other deer of the herd gathered and fled over the hill, and Tig saw the wounded one try to take refuge with them; but they turned on it savagely and butted it away. Then Tig and Berog kept up the chase, and at last, in a thicket at the edge of the forest, they came upon the poor stag lying dead. They dragged the body into the open, and then, while Tig stayed by to guard it, Berog went off to the village for help.

_Chapter the Twenty-first_

_Tig becomes a Man_

BEFORE nightfall Berog came back with some of the men carrying torches and poles. They tied the stag’s hind legs and its fore legs together, and thrust a pole through, and so carried it home, and Tig and Berog marched behind. And when they reached the village, all the people turned out to cheer them. And on the next day Gofa and some of the women skinned the deer and cut up the meat. Every part of the deer’s body they kept for some use or other--the meat for food, the hide for making into leather, the bones to be broken for marrow and some to be carved into tools, the brains for greasing and curing the hide, the sinews to be dried and shredded into thread; and the antlers Gofa gave to Tig, because he had won them. And though before that day Tig would have had to wait on the women while they were cutting up the stag, and run errands for them, yet now he did not. He lay outside the hut all day, and ate his meals when they were brought to him, and behaved just like any of the men of the village.

For, after this first big hunt on his own account, Tig reckoned himself a boy no longer. And soon after this, he became a man, according to the custom of his tribe. That is to say, the Medicine Men, who were the rulers of the people in all matters of custom and religion, took him in hand to make a man of him. By their orders he fasted several days, and kept apart from the people, that he might learn the will of the gods. Then the Medicine Men took him and some other boys of his age, and led them into a grove where they said the gods dwelt; and they taught the boys the names of the gods and how to call upon them. And they tried each boy’s courage, and bade him remember always to be brave and endure pain without flinching; and they said that to be a coward is worse than death, and that it is better to die than to give in or run away.

After this Garff gave Tig a man’s weapons--a battle-axe and a dagger of flint, and a shield such as men used in warfare; and Tig went also to an old man of the village who was clever at tattooing, and he tattooed Tig on his shoulders and chest and arms; and after that Tig felt that he was really a man.

_Chapter the Twenty-second_

_DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: Dick’s Pottery and how he made it_

WHILE they were reading about Gofa making the pots, Dick thought he would like to try his hand at this sort of work; so, after the reading, when they went out, he got a trug and a trowel from the tool-shed and said that he should go and look for some clay.

“David and I are going fishing,” said Joe; “and when we have caught some fish, we are going to make a fire up at the hut and cook them. If you were a hunter, you would come too; making pottery is women’s work.”

“All right,” said Dick; “but if ever you were to be wrecked on a desert island, you might have to do women’s work, as you call it.”

However, Joe and David got their fishing rods and set off. Dick went down to the river too, but he could not find clay anywhere; so he came back and asked the gardener. The gardener said that a farmer was having a field drained close by, and the men were digging out lots of clay. So Dick went down to the field and filled his trug with clay, and then he made another journey to the river for fine sand. However, he did not find it easy to mix up the clay properly; for it was lumpy and hard, and when he put water to it, it was sticky. But, after a time, he got some mixed with the sand into a stiff paste, and then he was ready to try his hand at making a pot. He made several attempts at shaping the clay into a cup and tried to mould up the sides, using a flat stick and a smooth little stone that he had picked up by the river. But he did not succeed very well, as the clay was apt to break or get out of shape, and several times he squeezed it all up and began again. At last he contented himself with making quite a small cup which he could mould into shape with his fingers, pinching it and trimming it very carefully with his wooden tool. This one seemed good; so he made another a little larger, and then set them aside while he made a fire.

He collected a quantity of chips and sticks, and soon had a bright fire burning. After it had burned for about twenty minutes and made some hot ashes, Dick pushed the fire to one side, and set the cups upside down on the hot place. It was not easy to build up the fire again, because it had fallen away and was nearly out; and when he put on fresh fuel, the smoke got in his eyes. Also he poked his best cup with a big stick that he was putting on the fire, and dented its side; but it was too late to mend that, and he went on stoking up. He kept the fire going till he thought the pots must have become red hot among the ashes, and then he let it die down. He wondered whether he might try to get the cups out before they were cool; but he decided that it was best to leave them until the whole thing had cooled down. Just then, Joe and David came back, without any fish, and when they had heard what Dick had been doing, and had seen the fire, they all went in to tea.

When they came out after tea, they found the ashes still quite hot; but they got a garden rake and raked them off, and there were the two cups baked light brown and quite hard. The one that had been damaged was also much cracked; but the other one was sound except for one little crack, though it was not very shapely. Dick took it off to show to Uncle John.

“That’s a good one,” said Uncle John, “but if you had let them dry longer before putting them into the fire, they wouldn’t have cracked; and then you have forgotten something: what is it?”

Dick looked at his cup, but he could not tell what it was that he had forgotten.

“Why, the ornament,” said Uncle John. “When we pay that visit to the British Museum, you will see that the pottery of the old time always had ornament on it--or very nearly always. And I suppose you found it hard to make a bigger one? I daresay anybody would until he had had a great deal of practice. Even the old people that we have been reading about, who were so clever at making pots, had to build up their big ones on a wicker frame.

“There is something very interesting about the wicker-work frames, and you ought to remember it. It is this--baskets were made before pottery. In the very early days, before people could make pottery at all, they had, at any rate, rude sorts of baskets. And, I daresay, they sometimes tried to warm their food in baskets beside the fire. No doubt the baskets often caught fire and the food was spoiled. Then some woman who had her wits about her thought of daubing the basket with clay to make it resist the fire. The next thing was to plaster the clay inside the basket instead of outside, and next to burn the wicker off altogether; and so, in course of time, they learned how to make vessels of clay without any framework at all, except for the very large ones.”

That evening they spent some time making their bows. David was making his out of the stem of an ash sapling that the gamekeeper had given him; but Joe had got a branch of real yew for his and was whittling it down with great care. Dick’s father had sent him a set from London--a bow made of hickory with a stout gut bowstring, half a dozen arrows, and a bracer to wear on his left wrist as a protection from the string when shooting. It was very useful to have these to copy from; but Dick was not content to have only a ready-made bow, and he also got a good ash stick and set to work to make one for himself.

_Chapter the Twenty-third_

_THE STORY OF TIG: How Tig made Friends with the Lake People_

THE men of Garff’s village were masters of all the land round about. They had the ground that they had cleared of trees for growing corn, and the open spaces on the hills where their cattle fed: and beyond, they had their hunting-grounds in the forests and over the moors, for miles and miles around. It was not often that any of them travelled beyond the bounds of their own ground, unless they were making a journey, such as Garff and his party undertook when they went to buy flints from Goba, the spearmaker.

One day in the summer, when Garff and Tig and some of the others were away on a hunting expedition in the forest a long way from the village, Tig wandered away alone into the woods; for there had been a big hunt for two days before, and the men were all resting in the camp, while the women cut up the meat. Tig had no need to kill any game, but he liked to be in the woods watching the ways of the wild creatures, especially the birds; and on that day he had not taken any weapon except a light spear. When he had gone some distance, he sat down to rest and watch. In front of him was a thicket of holly trees; and presently he heard a jay in the hollies, jarring and scolding as jays do when they spy an enemy. So Tig kept still and watched. Then the jays set up a loud screech and flew across towards the tall trees; and then Tig saw a dog come out into the open, followed by a lad. The lad gazed around him and then went back among the trees; but his dog had scented Tig, and it began to bark and growl, bounding out into the open. So Tig stood up and called to the lad, who at once turned round and came forward. They went towards one another and made a sign of peace, and then the lad begged Tig to help him, for he said that he was in great trouble. Close by, his father was lying wounded and unable to move; and he could neither help his father home, nor yet leave him to go and bring help from their village.

“Are you then far from your village?” Tig asked.

“Well-nigh a day’s journey,” said the lad. “We are of the Lake People and dwell over yonder among the hills. And yesterday we were out, my father and I, looking to some traps, when we came upon the fresh track of a roe-buck. So we followed the track and came upon five bucks, away down below there; and my father shot and wounded one. But it was lightly hit and got away from us, so we set the dog on its trail and followed it even here. And after all it escaped us; but what is worse, my father fell down a rocky place near by, just when we thought we had got our buck safely. And he is sorely hurt and has lain here all night; for I could not leave him, nor was there anyone to help us.”

So Tig followed the young man in among the bushes, and there he saw the man lying, covered with a skin cloak. He told Tig that his name was Dobran, and when Tig told him his name, he said, “I have heard of thy people and have even visited thy village long ago. This is a sore mischance that has befallen me; but truly we should have taken warning! For as we came forth yesterday, Feannog, the grey crow, croaked at us thrice, and a fox crossed our path in the woods: and these be evil omens both. But now if thou wilt in great kindness help my son to get me home, thou shalt have a warm welcome from my people, and I will try to reward thee in any way thou mayst desire.”

So Tig and the youth, whose name was Gaithel, planned how they might help the wounded man. They cut down two young trees for poles and slung the skin cloak upon these, to make a sort of litter, and on this they laid Dobran, and then lifted it and carried it between them. The way was rough and difficult, and they made very slow progress with their heavy burden; but at last, after a long climb up a wooded hill-side, they came out upon the top of a ridge overlooking a deep valley. In the bottom of the valley there was a lake, surrounded by thick woods, and near to one side of the lake a little island. The island was covered with huts, and joining it to the shore there was a kind of pier or gangway. Also Tig saw, what he had never seen before, a canoe on the water, and some people paddling about in it.

Then the wounded man pointed and said:

“See, yonder is our village where we dwell.”

“Do you keep cattle on the island?” Tig asked, for he could see a man driving cows along the gangway.

“Yes,” said Dobran, “we house the beasts there too. Sorely crowded are we, and there has been talk this long while of some of the folk going away and building a village on a lake that we know of, two days’ journey from hence.”

“Is there, then, another island in the other lake, like this one here?”

“Island! Nay, none--and here is no island! What thou seest yonder our fathers, that were before us, built long ago. For they felled timbers and staked them on the bottom of the lake and builded their houses thereon, and dwelt there, even as we dwell.”

When they came to the waterside, they laid the wounded man down on the ground. Then Gaithel put his hands to his mouth and gave a peculiar call, and the people in the canoe heard it and came quickly to the shore. They lifted Dobran in and paddled away with him to the landing place; and Gaithel and Tig walked beside the shore and along the gangway. When they got to the village, they were met by a crowd of the Lake people; for Dobran had spread the news of how Tig had helped him, and all the people were eager to welcome the stranger who had shown kindness to one of themselves. But Gaithel took Tig at once to the hut where Dobran was lying. His wife had already bound up his injured limb, and she was then preparing supper; and she brought food and set it before them, broiled fish and porridge and curds. After supper many of Dobran’s friends came into the hut to see him, and they stayed chatting with him till late; but at last they all went home, and the household settled down to sleep.

_Chapter the Twenty-fourth_

_How Tig saw the Lake People’s Village_

ON the next day, Gaithel took Tig and showed him the village; and Tig saw what he had taken to be an island was really a large and solid platform made of tree-trunks laid close together. There was a paling of stakes at the edge of the platform next the water, all round; and within the paling were the huts, built close together side by side in rows with narrow alleys in between, and sheds for the cattle, built of poles and wattled and daubed with clay like the huts. Besides their cattle the Lake People had some sheep, which they prized greatly on account of the wool, from which the women span yarn for weaving into cloth. At the place where the gangway joined the platform there was a gate of bars in the paling, and also a rough stairway going down to the canoes that were drawn up alongside. In an open place in the middle of the village was a fire burning on a large open hearthstone; and Gaithel said that nowhere else on the island was anyone allowed to have a fire, for fear of burning down the huts. In another place was a shoot for rubbish, to which the people had to bring their household refuse and tip it into the lake. Then Gaithel took Tig down to the landing stage, and showed him the canoes that were moored there; “I know someone who would like to see these canoes of yours,” said Tig. “He is a man in our village, called Crubach. He is lame. He makes troughs in the same way as you make canoes, by burning out a tree trunk, only of course they are much smaller; my mother has one to dip hides in when she is curing them.”

“My uncle is making a canoe in the wood now,” said Gaithel. “He has been at work on it for weeks and weeks. Shall we go and see him at it?”

So they went together into the wood where Gaithel’s uncle was at work. He had felled a stout oak tree and had got a portion of the trunk cut off. This was to be his canoe, and he had already begun to shape it fore and aft and to hollow it out. He had a little fire of dry chips and sticks burning in one place on the top of the log; and in another place, where he had had the fire burning the day before, he was hacking away at the charred wood with his stone axe. There was another man at work with him, and this man was hacking at the bows of the canoe; but his axe would not make a deep cut in the hard oak wood, and he was getting on very slowly.

Gaithel’s uncle left off work to speak to Tig. He stood up and wiped his face which was all hot and grimy.

“My boat will be a beauty when she is finished;” he said, “a rare one! Have you any like her in your village?”

“We haven’t any boats in our village,” said Tig.

“What--no boats? How do you do to get on the water then?”

“We haven’t any water,” said Tig, “at least not a lake--only a pond.”

“Well, yours must be a strange village! No lake and no boats! However, your men must be spared some heavy work if they don’t make dug-outs; though, look you, a man may make five or six bark canoes or wicker canoes in less time than it takes him to make one dug-out. But then a log canoe will outlast you four of the other, let alone being a deal more comfortable. So never mind the labour and the sweat, say I; make a good dug-out.”

Then he took up his axe and went to work again.

Then Gaithel took Tig back to the lake, and they got into a canoe and rowed on the lake. In the canoe was a spear with a long, fine-pointed head made of bone, barbed on both sides. This, Gaithel said, was a fish-spear; and he showed Tig how it was used in spearing large fish when the Lake People used their drag-net. The nets were kept at home, so that the women might see that they were kept properly mended.

“But when we are fishing,” said Gaithel, “we have the net weighted at the bottom with stones to sink it, and the one end is held up in one canoe and the other in another, and the canoes paddle in ashore, dragging the net between them. Then some of us wade out into the water, and spear the fish or catch them with our hands if we can, and then the net is drawn in closer until we get the rest, but sometimes some of them get away.”

Then Gaithel took Tig back to the hut, and he stayed to talk to Dobran, and told him that he thought the village a very wonderful place; and he asked Dobran why it was that the fathers of the Lake People built their village on the water.

“Why,” said Dobran, “they built it thus that they might be safe from the attacks of wild beasts and from their enemies. As I told thee, they made the platform first, felling trees in the woods and piling them here, before ever they could set one pole of a hut. And with great labour they did this, building as large as they could; but even so, the space is too small.

“We are sorely crowded, as I said before; and now some of the younger men choose rather to build huts on the shore, hard by, where we have our cornland and the pasture for the cattle; though we who are older like the old ways best. Of course the wolves and such like are not so much to be feared as they were in our fathers’ days; and as for enemies--why, we have lived in peace many years and perhaps we have naught to fear. Nevertheless, I promise thee, if enemies should come to fight us, the folk who have built their houses and their byres and their sheepfolds away on the land there, with naught but a stockade around them, would speedily flee for shelter to our stronghold here on the water.”