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Meandering on his way to the cellar, Gurth sat down, and, like a heap of flesh turning by degrees to stone, his aggressive drunkenness became maudlin. He wept preposterously, ruddying his already bringht complexion, rubbing dirt into his face.
Then he picked his frame up and dragged the length of his body back to the wooden keenel which kept Grendel, though he still did not think on the dog itself. Before the chained slat-door to the kennel, he threw himself down and snored, gaseous mead pouring from his nostrils.
His rough sleep was punctuated by stirrings and flailings. He ripped off most of his green and yellow garments as if boiling with heat and cast the rags aside. Then he pulled the kennel open by force, fracturing the chain, and whistled Grendel to him, who followed without question.
Taking up his cudgel, the giant walked from Sorn's lands as quickly as possible, some mysterious wanderlust driving him. He would be his own man, such as he was, for some time hence. Perhaps he had been contented enough with Sorn, but Gurth had his own strange yearning for a higher part in the web of Fate, though he usually did not realise it.
He did not know when he would come back, nor greatly care, though something in him did register that it was a pity to leave that poor bitch-pup in the "care" of the weakling slyster Scyld. Perhaps he would return and retrieve her. Perhaps he would find a better source of mead.
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