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His little feet and legs were scratched with brambles, and were so tired that they would scarcely carry him; but he dared not go back to the swineherd's hut without finding the swine.
It had taken Fairyfoot hours to reach the place where he found Robin, but somehow it seemed to him only a very short time before they came to the open place near the swineherd's hut; and the path they had walked in had been so pleasant and flowery that it had been delightful all the way.
"Yes, sir, I'll do it directly," I said, glancing at the stump I had sawn off, and thinking about the swineherd's leg, and half-wondering that it did not bleed; "but tell me, please, is all that true?" "I'm afraid not, Grant," he said smiling; "but it is my idea my theory about how our great surgeons gained their first knowledge from a gardener; and if it is not true, it might very well be."
And they would have wept out their hearts till evening, had not Telemachus asked his father how he had come to Ithaca at last; and Ulysses told him that the sea-kings had brought him and put him on shore asleep, and that Athene had sent him to the swineherd's hut. "But now tell me of the suitors. How many are they and what manner of men? Can the two of us make head against the throng?"
Make haste, and come on board"; and he made room for the stranger to sit by him in the stern of the vessel. After a quick and prosperous voyage they sighted the coast of Ithaca, and landed on a deserted part of the coast within easy reach of the swineherd's dwelling.
What the king said in reply the tradition which has preserved this pleasant tale fails to relate. Doubtless it needed some of the swineherd's eloquence to induce his irate wife to bake a fresh supply for their careless guest. It had been Guthrum's main purpose, as we may be assured, in his rapid ride to Chippenham, to seize the king.
The swineherd's race was prodigal, excepting the 'Great Friar' himself, and, like the Prodigal Son, it was not long before the Peretti were reduced to eating the husks.
He had no one to play with, and was obliged to be always by himself. He dressed only in the coarsest and roughest clothes; he seldom had enough to eat, and he slept on straw in a loft under the roof of the swineherd's hut. But all this did not prevent his being strong and rosy and active.
Peiræus readily undertook the charge, and this point being settled they thrust out from the shore and rowed away in the direction of the harbour, while Telemachus strode off with rapid footsteps along the path which led to the swineherd's hut.
Presently Ulysses and the swineherd came up to the house and stood by it, amid a sound of music, for Phemius was just beginning to sing to the suitors. Then Ulysses took hold of the swineherd's hand, and said: "Eumaeus, this house of Ulysses is a very fine place. No matter how far you go, you will find few like it. One building keeps following on after another.
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