Short Fiction

questions; for, as he always kept his word, he was afraid he might have to do the same to them all; and he did not like boiled boys. He like to eat them crisp, as radishes, whether forked or not, ought to be eaten. He then sat down, and asked his wife if his supper was ready. She looked into the pot, and throwing the boy out with the ladle, as if he had been a black beetle that had tumbled in and had had the worst of it, answered that she thought it was. Whereupon he rose to help her; and taking the pot from the fire, poured the whole contents, bubbling and splashing, into a dish like a vat. Then they sat down to supper. The children in the broom could not see what they had; but it seemed to agree with them, for the giant talked like thunder, and the giantess answered like the sea, and they grew chattier and chattier. At length the giant said⁠—

“I don’t feel quite comfortable about that heart of mine.” And as he spoke, instead of laying his hand on his bosom, he waved it away towards the corner where the children were peeping from the broom-bristles, like frightened little mice.

“Well, you know, my darling Thunderthump,” answered his wife, “I always thought it ought to be nearer home. But you know best, of course.”

“Ha! ha! You don’t know where it is, wife. I moved it a month ago.”

“What a man you are, Thunderthump! You trust any creature alive rather than your wife.”

Here the giantess gave a sob which sounded exactly like a wave going flop into the mouth of a cave up to the roof.

“Where have you got it now?” she resumed, checking her emotion.

“Well, Doodlem, I don’t mind telling you,” answered the giant, soothingly. “The great she-eagle has got it for a nest egg. She sits on it night and day, and thinks she will bring the greatest eagle out of it that ever sharpened his beak on the rocks of Mount Skycrack. I can warrant no one else will touch it while she has got it. But she is rather capricious, and I confess I am not easy about it; for the least scratch of one of her claws would do for me at once. And she has claws.”

I refer anyone who doubts this part of my story to certain chronicles of Giantland preserved among the Celtic nations. It was quite a common thing for a giant to put his heart out to nurse, because he did not like the trouble and responsibility of doing it himself; although I must confess it was a dangerous sort of plan to take, especially with such a delicate viscus as the heart.

All this time Buffy-Bob and Tricksey-Wee were listening with long ears.

“Oh!” thought Tricksey-Wee, “if I could but find the giant’s cruel heart, wouldn’t I give it a squeeze!”

The giant and giantess went on talking for a long time. The giantess kept advising the giant to hide his heart somewhere in the house; but he seemed afraid of the advantage it would give her over him.

“You could hide it at the bottom of the flour-barrel,” said she.

“That would make me feel chokey,” answered he.

“Well, in the coal-cellar. Or in the dust-hole⁠—that’s the place! No one would think of looking for your heart in the dust-hole.”

“Worse and worse!” cried the giant.

“Well, the water-butt,” suggested she.

“No, no; it would grow spongy there,” said he.

“Well, what will you do with it?”

“I will leave it a month longer where it is, and then I will give it to the Queen of the Kangaroos, and she will carry it in her pouch for me. It is best to change its place, you know, lest my enemies should scent it out. But, dear Doodlem, it’s a fretting care to have a heart of one’s own to look after. The responsibility is too much for me. If it were not for a bite of a radish now and then, I never could bear it.”

Here the giant looked lovingly towards the row of little boys by the fire, all of whom were nodding, or asleep on the floor.

“Why don’t you trust it to me, dear Thunderthump?” said his wife. “I would take the best possible care of it.”

“I don’t doubt it, my love. But the responsibility would be too much for you. You would no longer be my darling, lighthearted, airy, laughing Doodlem. It would transform you into a heavy, oppressed woman, weary of life⁠—as I am.”

The giant closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. His wife got his stockings, and went on with her darning. Soon the giant’s pretence became reality, and the giantess began to nod over her work.

“Now, Buffy,” whispered Tricksey-Wee, “now’s our time. I think it’s moonlight, and we had better be off. There’s a door with a hole for the cat just behind us.”

“All right,” said Bob; “I’m ready.”

So they got out of the broom-brake and crept to the door. But to their great disappointment, when they got through it, they found themselves in a sort of shed. It was full of tubs and things, and, though it was built of wood only, they could not find a crack.

“Let us try this hole,” said Tricksey; for the giant and giantess were sleeping behind them, and they dared not go back.

“All right,” said Bob.

He seldom said anything else than “All right.”

Now this hole was in a mound that came in through the wall of the shed, and went along the floor for some distance. They crawled into it, and found it very dark. But groping their way along, they soon came to a small crack, through which they saw grass, pale in the moonshine. As they crept on, they found the hole began to get wider and lead upwards.

“What is that noise of rushing?” said Buffy-Bob.

“I can’t tell,” replied Tricksey; “for, you see, I don’t know what we are in.”

The fact was, they were creeping