Rewards and Fairies - Penn State University

Rewards and Fairies
on his obedience to keep it. However, he held me in his arms arms the second night, just like a child. My good Eddi was a
all the first night, and Meon begged his pardon for what he’d little out of his senses, and imagined himself teaching a York
said the night before—about Eddi, running away if he found choir to sing. Even so, he was beautifully patient with them.
me on a sandbank, you remember. ‘“You are right in half ‘I heard Meon whisper, “If this keeps up we shall go to our
your prophecy,” said Eddi. “I have tucked up my gown, at Gods. I wonder what Wotan will say to me. He must know I
any rate.” (The wind had blown it over his head.) “Now let don’t believe in him. On the other hand, I can’t do what
us thank God for His mercies.”
Ethelwalch finds so easy—curry favour with your God at the
‘“Hum!” said Meon. “If this gale lasts, we stand a very fair last minute, in the hope of being saved—as you call it. How
chance of dying of starvation.”
do you advise, Bishop?” ‘“My dear man,” I said, “if that is
‘“If it be God’s will that we survive, God will provide,” said your honest belief, I take it upon myself to say you had far
Eddi. “At least help me to sing to Him.” The wind almost better not curry favour with any God. But if it’s only your
whipped the words out of his mouth, but he braced himself Jutish pride that holds you back, lift me up, and I’ll baptize
against a rock and sang psalms.
you even now.”
‘I’m glad I never concealed my opinion—from myself— ‘“Lie still,” said Meon. “I could judge better if I were in my
that Eddi was a better man than I. Yet I have worked hard in own hall. But to desert one’s fathers’ Gods—even if one doesn’t
my time—very hard! Yes—yess! So the morning and the believe in them—in the middle of a gale, isn’t quite—What
evening were our second day on that islet. There was rain- would you do yourself?”
water in the rock-pools, and, as a churchman, I knew how to ‘I was lying in his arms, kept alive by the warmth of his big,
fast, but I admit we were hungry. Meon fed our fire chip by steady heart. It did not seem to me the time or the place for
chip to eke it out, and they made me sit over it, the dear subtle arguments, so I answered, “No, I certainly should not desert
fellows, when I was too weak to object. Meon held me in his my God.” I don’t see even now what else I could have said.
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