The Five SwordsThe spirit of story-telling, which I embody, is a shrewd and waggish soul who knows his business and does not straightway gratify every curiosity; on the other hand he rouses many more, satisfies one and meanwhile puts the others so to speak on ice so they will keep, and perhaps even grow stronger. If anybody feels he must know forthwith what became of the child on God’s wild sea, his mind is diverted and occupied with other tale, which to know is just as needful to him, let it even go to his heart with grief. But that it is so sad may strengthen his hope that out there on the ondes it may go more happily, for the spirit of story-telling is not so unshrewd as to tell only sad tales.
The next news is of the sinful mother and how ill it continued to go with her. The woman had
