Part 11

"'That was cheap enough,' said the lad, 'and he would have it, for he was to buy the first thing he met.'

"'Now you may take it, basket and all,' said the old hag; 'but mind you don't look inside it before you get home. Do you hear what I say?'

"'Nay, nay, never fear, he wouldn't look inside it; was it likely?' But for all that he walked and wondered what there could be inside the basket, and whether he would or no he could not help just lifting the lid and peeping in. In the twinkling of an eye out popped a little lizard, and ran away so fast along the street that the air whistled after it. There was nothing else in the basket.

"'Nay! nay!' cried the lad, 'stop a bit, and don't run off so. You know I have bought you.'

"'Stick me in the tail--stick me in the tail!' bawled the lizard.

"Well, the lad was not slow in running after it and sticking his knife into its tail just as it was crawling into a hole in the wall, and that very minute it was turned into a young man as fine and handsome as the grandest prince, and a prince he was indeed.

"'Now you have saved me,' said the prince, 'for that old hag with whom you and your master have dealt is a witch, and me she has changed into a lizard, and my brother and sister into a puppy and kitten.'

"'A pretty story!' said the lad.

"'Yes,' said the prince; 'and now she was on her way to cast us into the fjord and kill us; but if any one came and wanted to buy us she must sell us for fourpence each; that was settled, and that was all my father could do. Now you must come home to him and get the meed for what you have done.'

"'I dare say,' said the lad, 'it's a long way off?'

"'Oh,' said the prince, 'not so far after all. There it is yonder,' he said, as he pointed to a great hill in the distance.

"So they set off as fast as they could, but as was to be weened it was farther off than it looked, and so they did not reach the hill till far on in the night.

"Then the prince began to knock and knock.

"'WHO IS THAT,' said some one inside the hill, 'that knocks at my door, and spoils my rest?' and that some one was so loud of speech that the earth quaked.

"'Oh! open the door, father, there's a dear,' said the prince. 'It is your son who has come home again.'

"Yes! he opened the door fast and well.

"'I almost thought you lay at the bottom of the sea,' said the grey-beard. 'But you are not alone, I see,' he said.

"'This is the lad who saved me,' said the prince. 'I have asked him hither that you may give him his meed.'

"Yes, he would see to that, said the old fellow.

"'But now you must step in,' he said; 'I am sure you have need of rest."

"Yes! they went in and sat down, and the old man threw on the fire an armful of dry fuel and one or two logs, so that the fire blazed up and shone as clear as the day in every corner, and whichever way they looked it was grander than grand. Anything like it the lad had never seen before, and such meat and drink as the grey-beard set before them he had never tasted either; and all the plates, and cups, and stoops, and tankards were all of pure silver or real gold.

"It was not easy to stop the lads. They ate and drank and were merry, and afterwards they slept till far on next morning. But the lad was scarcely awake before the grey-beard came with a morning draught in a tumbler of gold.

"So when he had huddled on his clothes and broken his fast, the old man took him round with him and showed him everything that he might choose something that he would like to have as his meed for saving his son. There was much to see and to choose from you may fancy.

"'Now what will you have?' said the king; 'you see there is plenty of choice, you can have what you please.'

"But the lad said, he would think it over and ask the prince. Yes! the king was willing he should do that.

"'Well!' said the prince, 'you have seen many grand things.'

"'Yes, I have, as was likely,' said the lad; 'but tell me, what shall I choose of all the wealth. Do tell me, for your father says I may choose what I please.'

"'Do not take anything of all you have seen,' said the prince; 'but he has a little ring on his finger, that you must ask for.'

"Yes! he did so, and begged for the little ring which he had on his finger.

"'Why! it is the dearest thing I have,' said the king; 'but, after all, my son is just as dear and so you shall have it all the same. Do you know now what it is good for?'

"No! he knew nothing about it.

"'When you have this ring on your finger,' said the king, 'you can have anything you wish for."

"So the lad thanked the king, and the king and the prince bade him God speed home, and told him to be sure and take care of the ring.

"So he had not gone far on his way before he thought he would prove what the ring was worth, and so he wished himself a new suit of clothes, and he had scarce wished for them before he had them on him. And now he was as grand and bright as a new-struck penny. So he thought it would be fine fun to play his father a trick.

"'He was not so very nice all the time I was at home;' and so he wished he was standing before his father's door, just as ragged as he was of old, and in a second he stood at the door.

"'Good day, father, and thank you for our last meal,' said the lad.

"But when the father saw that he had come back still more ragged and tattered than when he set out, he began to bellow and to bemoan himself.

"'There's no helping you,' he said. 'You have not so much as earned clothes to your back all the time you have been away.'

"'Don't be in such a way, father,' said the lad, 'you ought never to judge a man by his clothes; and now you shall be my spokesman, and go up to the palace and woo the king's daughter for me.' That was what the lad said.

"'Oh, fie, fie,' said the father, 'this is only gibing and jeering.'

"But the lad said it was the right down earnest, and so he took a birch cudgel and drove his father up to the gate of the palace, and there he came hobbling right up to the king with his eyes full of tears.

"'Now, now!' said the king, 'what's the matter my man. If you have suffered wrong, I will see you righted.'

"No, it wasn't that, he said, but he had a son who had brought him great sorrow, for he could never make a man of him, and now he must say he had gone clean out of the little wit he had before, and then he went on,--

"'For now he has hunted me up to the palace gate with a big birch cudgel, and forced me to ask for the king's daughter to wife.'

"'Hold your tongue, my man,' said the king; 'and as for this son of yours, go and ask him to come here indoors to me, and then we will see what to make of him.'

"So the lad ran in before the king till his rags fluttered behind him.

"'Am I to have your daughter?'

"'That was just what we were to talk about,' said the king; 'perhaps she mayn't suit you, and perhaps you mayn't suit her either.'

"'That was very likely!' said the lad.

"Now you must know there had just come a big ship from over the sea, and she could be seen from the palace windows.

"'All the same!' said the King. 'If you are good to make a ship in an hour or two like that lying yonder in the fjord and looking so brave, you may perhaps have her.' That was what the king said.

"'Nothing worse than that!' said the lad.

"So he went down to the strand and sat down on a sandhill, and when he had sat there long enough, he wished that a ship might be out on the fjord fully furnished with masts, and sails and rigging, the very match of that which lay there already. And as he wished for it there it lay, and when the king saw there were two ships for one, he came down to the strand to see the rights of it, and there he saw the lad standing out in a boat with a brush in his hand as though he were painting out spots and making blisters in the paint good--but as soon as he saw the king down on the shore he threw away the brush and said,--

"'Now the ship is ready, may I have your daughter?'

"'This is all very well,' said the king, 'but you try your hand at another masterpiece first. If you can build a palace, a match to my palace in one or two hours, we will see about it.' That was what the king said.

"'Nothing worse than that,' bawled out the lad and strode off. So when he had sauntered about so long, that the time was nearly up, he wished that a palace might stand there the very match of that which stood there already. It was not long, I trow, before it stood there, and it was not long either before the king came, both with queen and princess to look about him in the new palace. There stood the lad again with his broom and swept.

"'Here's the palace right and ready,' he called out 'may I have her now?'

"'Very well, very well,' said the king, 'you may come in and we will talk it over,' for he saw clearly the lad could do more than eat his meat, and so he walked up and down, and thought and thought how he might be rid of him. Yes! there they walked, the king first and foremost, and after him the queen, and then the princess next before the lad. So as they walked along, all at once the lad wished that he might become the handsomest man in all the world, and so he was in a trice. When the princess saw how handsome he had grown in no time, she gave the queen a nudge, and the queen passed it on to the king, and when they had all stared their full, they saw still more plainly, the lad was more than he seemed to be when he first came in all tattered and torn. So they settled it among them, that the princess should go daintily to work till she had found out all about him. Yes! the princess made herself as sweet and as soft as a whole firkin of butter, and coaxed and hoaxed the lad, telling him she could not bear him out of her eyes, day or night. So when the first evening was coming to an end, she said,--

"'As we are to have one another, you and I, you must keep nothing back from me, dearest, and so you will tell me, I am sure, how you came to make all these grand things.'

"'Aye, aye,' then said the lad, 'all that you'll come to know in good time. Only let us be man and wife; there's no good talking about it till then.' That was what he said.

"The next evening the princess was rather put out. She could see with half an eye, she said, 'that he couldn't care very much for his sweetheart, when he wouldn't tell her what she asked him. So it would be with all the rest of his love-making, when he wouldn't meet her wishes in such a little thing.'

"Now the lad was quite cut to the heart, and that they might be friends again he told her the whole story from beginning to end. She was not slow in telling it to the king and queen, and so they laid their heads together how they might get the ring from the lad, and when they had done that they thought it would be no such hard thing to be rid of him.

"At night the princess came with some sleeping-drops, and said, now she would pour out a little philtre for her own true love, for she was sure he did not care enough for her; that was what she said. Yes! he thought no harm could come of it, and so he drained off the drink like a man, and in a trice he fell so sound asleep, they might have pulled the house down over his head without waking him. So the princess took the ring off his finger and put it on her own, and wished the lad might lie on the dung-heap outside in the street, just as tattered and beggarly as he was when he came in, and in his place she wished for the handsomest prince in the world. In the twinkling of an eye it all happened. As the night wore on the lad woke up on the dunghill, and at first he thought it was only a dream, but when he found the ring was gone he knew how it had all happened, and then he got so bewildered that he set off and was just going to jump into the lake and drown himself.

"But just then he met the cat which his master had bought for him.

"'Whither away?' asked the cat.

"'To the lake to drown myself,' said the lad.

"'Don't think of it,' said the cat; 'you shall get your ring back again, never fear.'

"'Oh, shall I, shall I?' said the lad.

"By this time the cat was already off, and as she started she met a rat.

"'Now I'll take and gobble you up,' said the cat.

"'Oh! pray don't,' said the rat, 'and I'll get you the ring again.'

"'If so, be quick about it,' said the cat, 'or----'

"So after they had taken up their abode in the palace, the rat ran about poking his nose into everything, trying to get into the prince and princess's bedroom. At last he found a little hole and crept through it. Then he heard how they lay awake talking, and the rat could tell that the prince had the ring on his finger, for the princess said, 'Mind you take great care of my ring, dear.' That was what she said; but what the prince said was,--

"'Pooh, no one will come in hither after the ring through stone and mortar; but, for all that, if you think it isn't safe on my finger, I can just as well put it into my mouth.'

"In a little while the prince turned over on his back, and tried to go to sleep, and as he did so the ring was just slipping down into his throat, and then he coughed it up, so that it shot out of his mouth and rolled away over the floor--Pop!--up the rat snapped it and crept off with it to the cat who sat outside watching at the rat-hole.

"All this while the king had laid hands on the lad and put him into a strong tower and doomed him to lose his life, for that he had made jeers and gibes at him and his daughter, and there he was to stay till the day of his death. Now, as the cat was hard at work prowling about trying to steal into the tower with the ring to the lad, a great eagle came flying and pounced down on her and caught her up in his claws and flew away with her over the sea. But just in the nick of time came a falcon and struck at the eagle, so that he let the cat fall into the sea; but when the cat felt the cold water, she got so frightened she dropped the ring and swam to shore. She had not shaken the water off her, and smoothed her coat, before she met the dog which his master had bought for the lad.

"'Nay! nay!' said the cat, and purred and was in a sad way, 'what's to be done now? the ring is gone and they will take the lad's life.'

"'I'm sure I don't know,' said the dog, 'all I know is that something is riving and rending my inside. It couldn't be worse, if I were going to turn inside out.'

"'Now you see what comes of over-eating yourself,' said the cat.

"'I never eat more than I can carry,' said the dog; 'and this time I have eaten nothing but a dead fish which lay floating up and down on the ebb.'

"'May be that fish had swallowed the ring,' said the cat. 'And now I dare say you are going to pay for it too, for you know you can't digest gold.'

"'It may well be,' said the dog. 'It's much the same whether one loses life first or last. Perhaps, the lad's life might then be saved.'

"'Oh!' said the rat, for he was there too, 'don't say that. I don't want much of a hole to creep into, and if the ring is there may I never tell the truth, if I don't poke it out.'

"Well! the rat crept down the dog's throat, and it was not long before he came out again with the ring. Then the cat set off to the tower and clambered up about it, till she found a hole into which she could put her paw, and so she gave back his ring to the lad.

"The lad no sooner got it on his finger than he wished the tower might rend asunder, and at the same moment he stood in the doorway and scolded both the king and queen and the princess as a pack of rogues. The king was not slow in calling out his warriors, and bade them throw a ring round the tower and seize the lad and settle him whether they took him dead or alive. But the lad only wished that all the soldiers might stand up to the armpits in the big moss up in the fjeld, and then they had more than enough to get out again, all that were not left sticking there. After that he began again where he left off with the king and his folk, and when he had got his mouth to say all the bad of them that he knew and willed, he wished they might be shut up all their days in the tower into which they had thrown him. And when they were safe shut up there, he took the land and realm as his own. Then the dog became a prince and the cat a princess again, her he took and married, and the last I heard of them, was, that they kept it up at the bridal both well and long."

OUR PARISH CLERK.

"Once on a time there was a clerk in our parish, who was very sharp set after all that was nice and good. All the parish said his brains were in his belly, for though he was very fond of pretty girls and buxom wives, still he liked good meat and drink even better.

"'Aye, aye,' said our clerk; 'one can't live long on love and the south wind.' That was his motto, and that was why he kept company most with well-to-do-house-wives, with those who were new wedded, or with pretty lasses who were sure to marry rich husbands, for there you were sure to find titbits both of beauty and food. That was what our clerk thought. It wasn't every one, indeed, who thought it so fine to have such a cupboard lover, but yet there were some who looked on it as fine enough for them, for, after all, a parish clerk stands a little higher than a farmer.

"Now it fell out there was a rich young lass who had married our clerk's next-door neighbour. There he crept in and out, and soon got good friends with the husband, and better friends still with his wife. When the husband was at home all went well between them, but as soon as he was away at the mill, or in the wood, or at floating timber, or at a meeting, the goody sent word to the clerk, and then the two spent the day in revelling and mirth. There was no one who found this out, before the ploughboy got wind of it, and he thought he would just speak of it to his master; but, somehow or other, he couldn't find a fitting time till one day when they were together in the outfield gathering leaves for litter. There they chatted this and that about lasses and wives, and the master thought he had made a lucky hit in marrying such a rich and pretty wife, and he said as much outright.

"'Thank God, she is both good and clever.'

"'Aye, aye,' said the lad; 'every man is welcome to believe what he likes, but if you knew her as well as I do, you wouldn't say such words at random. Pretty women are like wind in warm summer weather.

'And love is such that, willy, nilly, It takes up with a clerk as well as a lily.'

"'What's that you say?' said the man.

"'I have long thought I would tell you that there's a black bull that walks hoof to hoof and horn to horn with that milk-white cow in your mead, master--that's what I wanted to say.'

"'One can say much in a summer day,' said the man; 'but I can't understand what this points to.'

"'Is it so?' said the lad. 'Well, I have long thought of telling you that our clerk is often and ever in our house with the mistress, and how they lived as though there was a bridal every day, while we scarce get so much as the leavings of their good cheer.'

"'He who will ever taste and try, Will burn his fingers in the pie,'

said his master. 'I don't believe a word of what you say.'

"'It's a strange ear that will never hear,' said the lad; 'but seeing is believing, and if you will listen to me, I'm ready to wager ten dollars that you shall soon have the proof in your own hands.'

"'Done,' said the master; 'he would bet ten dollars; nay, for that matter, he would bet horse and farm, and a hundred dollars into the bargain.'

"Well, that wager was to stand. 'But an old fox is hard to hunt,' said the lad, and so his master must say and do all that his ploughboy wished. When they got home he was to say they must set off for the river and land timber, and his wife must put up some food for them in hot haste; it was best to look out while the weather was fine, it might turn to storm in a trice. Yes! That was what the husband said, and the food was ready to the minute. The lad put the horses to the timber drags, and off they went, but no farther than half a mile; there they put the horses up at a farm, and turned in themselves. As the night came on they went back, and when they got home, the door was locked fast.

"'Now we have him,' said the lad; 'it's hard to keep off the field to which one is wont.'

"So they went by the back way from the garden, and so through a trap-door in the cellar into the kitchen. Then they struck a light and went into the parlour, and saw what they saw. Well! our clerk had eaten so well that he lay snoring with his mouth open and his nose in the air; as for the goody, she was not awake either.

"'Now you see I was right; seeing is believing, master,' said the lad.

"'May I never speak the truth again,' said the man, 'if I would have believed ten men telling it.'

"'Hush, be still,' said the lad, and took him out again.

"'Man's law is not land's law,' said the lad; 'but even a bear can be tamed if you know how to deal with him. Have you any lead, master?

"Yes! He had, he was sure, more than seventy bullets in his pouch. Then it was all right. They took a sauce-pan, and melted the lead on the spot, and ran it down our clerk's throat.

"'Every man has his own taste,' said the lad, 'and that's why all meat is eaten,' as he heard the molten lead bubbling and frizzling in our clerk's throat.

"Then they went out by the way they got in, and began to knock and thunder at the front door. The wife woke up and asked who was there.

"'It is I, open the door, I say,' said the husband.

"Then she gave our clerk a nudge in the ribs. 'It is the master; the master is back,' she said. But no! he did not mind her, and never so much as stirred. Then she put her knees to his side, and tumbled him on to the floor, and jumped up and took him by the legs, and dragged him to the heap of wood behind the stove, and there she hid him. Till she had done that she had no time to open the door to her husband.

"'Were you gone after christening water, that you were gone so long?' asked the man.

"'Oh!' she answered; 'I dozed off again to sleep, and I did not think it could ever be you either.'

"'Well!' said her husband; 'now you must bring out some food, for me and the boy, we are a'most starved.'

"'I've got no food ready,' said the goody. 'How can you think of such a thing? I never thought you would be back either to-day or to-morrow. Why you know you were to go to the river to land timber.'

"'One can't hang a hungry man up on the wall like a clock,' said the lad; 'and self-help is the best help; shall I bring in the food we packed up, master.'

"Yes; they did that, and they sat down to eat out of the knapsack; but when they got up to put a log or two on the fire, there lay our clerk among the pile of wood.

"'Why who in the world is this?' asked the man.

"'Oh! oh! It's only a beggar man who came here so late and begged for house-room; he was quite content if he might only lie among the firewood,' said the goody.

"'A pretty beggar,' said the man; 'why he has got silver buckles to his shoes, and silver buttons at his knees.'

"'All are not beggars who are tattered and torn,' said the lad; 'but I'm blessed if this isn't our parish clerk.'

"'What was he doing here, mistress,' asked her husband, who all the while kept on pulling and kicking at him. But our clerk never so much as stirred or lifted a finger, There stood the goody fumbling and stammering, and not knowing what to say. All she could do was to bite her thumb.

"'I see it in your face, what you have done, mistress,' said her husband. 'But life is hard to lose, and, after all, he was our parish clerk. If I did what was right, I should send off at once for the sheriff.'

"'Heaven help us,' said his wife; 'only get our clerk out of the way.'

"'This is your matter, and not mine,' said the man. 'I never asked him hither, nor sent for him; but if you can get any one to help you to get rid of him, I won't stand in your way.'