Read Online Stardust by Neil Gaiman - Free Book Online Page B

your mouth.” Tristran licked his fingers and assured his benefactor that they had been the very finest mushrooms he had ever had the privilege of eating.
    “You says that now,” said his host with gloomy relish, “but you’ll not be sayin’ that in an hour’s time.They’ll undoubtedly disagree with you, like the fishwife who disagreed with her young man over a mermaid. And that could be heard from Garamond to Stormhold. Such language! It fair turned my ears blue, it did.” The little hairy personage sighed deeply. “Talkin’ about your guts,” he said, “I’m going to attend to mine behind that tree over there.Would you do me the signal honor of keepin’ an eye on that there pack of mine? I’d be obliged.”
    “Of course,” said Tristran, politely.
    The little hairy man vanished behind an oak tree;Tristran heard a few grunts, and then his new friend reappeared, saying, “There. I knowed a man in Paphlagonia who’d swallow a live snake every morning, when he got up. He used to say, he was certain of one thing, that nothing worse would happen to him all day. ’Course they made him eat a bowlful of hairy centipedes before they hung him, so maybe that claim was a bit presumptive.”
    Tristran excused himself. He urinated against the side of the oak tree, next to which was a small mound of droppings, certainly not produced by any human being. They looked like deer pellets, or rabbit-droppings.
    “My name is Tristran Thorn,” said Tristran, when he returned. His breakfast companion had packed up the morning’s breakfast—fire, pans and all—and made it vanish into his pack.
    He removed his hat, pressed it to his chest, and looked up at Tristran. “Charmed,” he said. He tapped the side of his pack: on it was written: CHARMED , ENCHANTED , ENSORCELLED AND CONFUSTICATED . “I used to be confusticated,” he confided, “but you know how these things go.”
    And with that he set off along the path. Tristran walked behind him. “Hey! I say!” called Tristran. “Slow down, can’t you?” For despite the huge pack (which put Tristran in mind of Christian’s burden in Pilgrim’s Progress , a book from which Mrs. Cherry had read to them every Monday morning, telling them that, although it was written by a tinker, it was a fine book for all of that) the little man—Charmed? Was that his name?—was moving away from him as fast as a squirrel up a tree.
    The little creature hurried back down the path. “Somethin’ wrong?” he asked.
    “I cannot keep up,” confessed Tristran. “You walk so confoundedly fast.”
    The little hairy man slowed his pace. “Beg your puddin’,” he said, as Tristran stumbled after him. “Bein’ on me own so much, I gets used to settin’ me own pace.”
    They walked side by side, in the golden-green light of the sun through the newly opened leaves. It was a quality of light Tristran had observed, unique to springtime. He wondered if they had left summer as far behind as October. From time to time Tristran would remark on a flash of color in a tree or bush, and the little hairy man would say something like, “Kingfisher. Mr. Halcyon they used to call him. Pretty bird,” or “Purple hummingbird. Drinks nectar from flowers. Hovers,” or “Redcap.They’ll keep their distance, but don’t you go scrutinizin’ ’em or looking for trouble, ’cos you’ll find it with those buggers.”
    They sat beside a brook to eat their lunch. Tristran produced the cottage loaf, the ripe, red apples, and round of cheese—hard, tart and crumbly—that his mother had given him. And although the little man eyed them both suspiciously, he wolfed them down and licked the crumbs of bread and cheese from his fingers, and munched noisily on the apple. Then he filled a kettle from the brook and boiled it up for tea.
    “Suppose you tell me what you’re about?” said the little hairy man as they sat on the ground and drank their tea.
    Tristran thought for some moments, and then he said,