The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw Read Free Book Online Page B

onto you. I . . . I . . . ” He stood still, his scowl fading into a puzzled frown. “This time you’re bigger.”
    He’s addled, she thought. A real Tom Noddy. “I’m Yanno’s child,” she repeated. “He’s the blacksmith in the village. Ask him yourself!”
    “What village?”
    “Torskaal! Down there.” She pointed.
    “Ah, Torskaal. I never go there. I’m from over the moor.”
    “Well, go there now, if you don’t believe me!” Saaski was backing away, shrilling at him. “Ask my da’, he’ll tell you! Let me be!” She turned and ran as fast as she could go, hoping he wouldn’t loose the dog after her. But when she reached a high outcrop and peered back, he was standing where she had left him, scratching under his rabbit-felt cap and gazing after her. The dog had lost interest and was gnawing at its flank.
    She dodged behind the outcrop and climbed on until she was out of his sight. She had never ventured this far before, preferring to keep the village where she could see it, whether she went back before nightfall or not. But she meant to give a wide berth to that rattlehead shepherd. Pixie!
    Still, he scared her. She kept thinking she’d seen him before.
    But no doubt she had seen him before, when she was much smaller, as he’d said—in fact too young to remember much about it—when she’d been forever running away up to the moor.
    It was nothing at all to be scared of.

6
    She was on top of the world now, feeling as tall as a giant with far distance all around. The sun had slipped behind thin clouds, and mist drifted around her, touching her with chill fingers. Tightening her cloak strings, she wandered on, stepping warily now, though she did not know why. The ground was stony and rough, covered with coarse long grass like matted hair between the clumps of broom. The grass was—different—here and there, slightly shining. Glimmering streaks of it swerved around rocks and between the broom, back and forth like the rutted paths the sheep made. But these were not sheep paths.
    Squinting hard to keep one in sight—the glimmer kept vanishing and reappearing up ahead—and careful not to step on it, Saaski followed a slim trail into a hollow, then started scrambling up the steep bank on the other side. Shewas brought up short by a loud “Blaaaat!” so close that she slipped and gave a squeak of fright.
    She found herself confronting a large black goat, who had thrust its forequarters over the lip of the hollow to stare down at her enigmatically from its yellow eyes. She stared back. She knew nothing about goats except that they were not like sheep. “Get away, you!” she ventured. It merely began to chew its cud, setting its beard waggling and the little bell around its neck tinkling. It didn’t move.
    “Well, then, stay there, I’ll go around,” she muttered, glancing down to be sure not to step on the trail she had been following. It had vanished—or she had lost it. She started up the last steep bit, giving the goat a wide berth, only to see another goat appear against the sky beside it and stare down in its turn. This one was white, and smaller. An instant later a gray one shoved up beside the white.
    It was a flock, then. Maybe with a rattlehead goatherd and a dog. She had best turn back.
    At that moment the goatherd appeared beside his animals—and it was only a boy not much older than herself, dressed in an odd assortment of rags and tatters. He was dark haired and gangly, with bright blue eyes and a stubby nose. He didn’t look rattleheaded. He looked funny, and friendly, and nice.
    “Oh, ’twas you, was it?” he said in an interested tone. “I wondered what they was gawking at. Don’t be afeard—they won’t hurt you. Come on along.”
    “Nay, I won’t go through your flock.”
    “There’s only the three of them. Hey, you! Divil! Git! Get along, all ’a you, go eat somewheres else.” He bounced hisstick impartially on three bony rumps, and the black goat pushed