My mother opposed all this.  “The lad needs none of thy wiles,” she gibed.  “He is no stripling; he is a man’s man, and a fit son of his mother.”

“Aye,” quoth my father slyly.  “He has thy muscle and thy courage.  Thank Jon, he hath not thy empty head!”

Whereat she flew at him.  Had she caught him, she would have destroyed him, such was her rage; and afterwards she would have mourned her folly and mayhap have injured herself; for she loved him greatly.  But he stepped aside just in the nick of time, and she crashed into the wall behind him with such force that she was senseless for a time.  I remember it well.

And yet, to give credit where credit is due, I must admit that I owe a great deal to that gray-beard, Maka, the star-gazer.  But for him, perchance, the name of Strokor would mean but little, for ’twas he who gave me ambition.

Truly it was an uncommon affair, my first meeting with him.  Now that I shake my memory for it, it seems that something else of like consequence came to pass on the same occasion.  Curious; but I have not thought on it for many days.

Yes, it is true; I met Maka on the very morn that I first laid eyes on the girl Ave.

I was returning from the northland at the time.  A rumor had come down to Vlama that one of the people in the snow country had seen a lone specimen of the mulikka.  Now these were but a myth.  No man living remembers when the carvings on the House of Learning were made, and all the wise men say that it hath been ages since any being other than man roamed the world.  Yet, I was young.  I determined to search for the thing anyhow; and ’twas only after wasting many days in the snow that I cursed my luck, and turned back.

I was afoot, for the going was too rough for my chariot.  I had not yet quit the wilderness before, from a height, I spied a group of people ascending from the valley.  Knowing not whether they be friends or foes, I hid beside the path up which they must come; for I was weary and wanting no strife.

Yet I became alert enough when the three—­they were two ditch-tenders, one old, one young, and a girl—­came within earshot.  For they were quarreling.  It seemed that the young man, who was plainly eager to gain the girl, had fouled in a try to force her favor.  The older man chided him hotly.

And just when they came opposite my rock, the younger man, whose passion had got the better of him, suddenly tripped the older, so that he fell upon the ledge and would have fallen to his death on the rocks below had not the girl, crying out in her terror, leaped forward and caught his hand.

At once the ditch-tender took the lass about the waist, and strove to pull her away.  For a moment she held fast, and in that moment I, Strokor, stood forth from behind the rock.

Now, be it known that I am no champion of weaklings.  I have no liking for the troubles of others; enough of my own, say I. I was but angered that the ditch-tender should have done the trick so clumsily, and upon an old man, at that.  I cared not for the gray beard, nor what became of the chit.  I clapped the trickster upon the shoulder and spun him about.