As I am to a Bantam, the Big Man was to the other men of the country. And if they were surprised at his bigness, he was astonished at their smallness. For he came from a time when all were as big as he. A hundred and a hundred years before he had hunted with his companions, and he was then called, not Big Man, but Little Fawn. And one day--a hundred and a hundred years ago it was--he had gone to chase a deer. The deer fled into a cave. He followed with his hounds and his sword, his trumpet and his missile-ball. He went astray and fell asleep in the Cave. And when he wakened up, his hounds were heaps of dust beside him. He went into the world, and he found that his companions were dead for a hundred and a hundred years and that the men of the earth had become smaller and smaller. In the Cave he left his sword and his trumpet and his missile-ball. * * * * * The Cock put his two feet on the ground and shook his red comb from over his left to over his right eye. Then said he, Everyone in the house was friendly to Little Fawn except one person--Murrish the Cook-woman. From the first day he came there were disputes between them. "Big men have big appetites," said she to him the day he came, "and so to-night I will give you two eggs for your supper." But when she handed him the eggs Little Fawn said "It was not the eggs of the hedge-sparrow we were wont to eat in my time." "Eggs of the hedge-sparrow!" said Murrish, "I have handed you the biggest eggs laid by the best hens in the country." "In my time there were bigger eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow," said Little Fawn. [Illustration: All flew from the mountain except one bird and he was the greatest amongst them all.] The next day she gave him a barley-cake for his breakfast. He ate it and then sent the boy--Ardan was his name--to ask what else she was going to give him. "Give him!" said Murrish the Cook-woman, "I have given him a whole barley cake, and that is enough for two men's breakfasts." "Tell her," said Little Fawn, "that I often saw an ivy-leaf that was as big as her barley cake." "Tell him," said Murrish the Cook-woman, "that I am not here to listen to old men's romances." Now when he heard that his words were taken as old men's romances Little Fawn was an angry man. He was hungry, for the food he got did not stay his appetite, but what Murrish said in doubt of his word gave him more hurt than his hunger did. For in his day and amongst his companions a lie was never told and nothing a man said was ever doubted. The next day he sent back the dish for more butter. "Tell him," said Murrish the Cook-woman, "that I put a whole pat of butter on his dish--enough to do two men for two days." "Tell her," said Little Fawn, "that often I saw a rowan berry that was bigger as her pat of butter." "The child just out of the cradle would not believe that story," said Murrish the Cook-woman.