Part 12

"Then she took the lad on one side, and said,--

"'I've laid up some woollen stuff for my husband, but I'll give it to you for clothes, if you'll only get our clerk buried, so that he shall never be seen or heard of again.'

"'There's no saying what one can do till one tries. If we drive in the frost, we shall find it slippery, to our cost. Have you ropes and cord, master? if so, I'll see if I can't cure this.'

"Well! he got our clerk fast in a slipknot, threw him on his back, caught up his hat as well, and away he went. But he hadn't gone far along the path in the meadow when he met some horses; so he caught one of these, and tied and bound our clerk fast on his back. He put his hat, too, on his head, and his hand down on his thigh, and there he sat upright, and jogged up and down just as a man on horseback.

"'One may kill trolls at any time of night,' said the lad, when he got home; 'who can say when a man is 'fey.' But he will never rise up who is safe buried under ground, and the cock that is slain crows never again.'

"Now, whether all this were true or no, there was a way from the meadow across the fields to a barn, and along it they had carted hay, and dropped it as they went along; so the horse went that way, picking up the hay as he went, and out in that barn were two men watching for thieves who used to steal the hay, for it had been a bad year for fodder.

"'Here comes the thief,' they said, when they heard the horse's hoofs; 'now we shall catch him.'

"'Who's there,' they called out, so that it rang against the hillside. No! there was no answer, the horse paid little heed, and our clerk less.

"'If you don't answer I'll send a bullet through your brains, you horse-thief,' they both called out, and then off went the gun, at which the horse gave such a sudden jump, that our clerk gave a bob, and fell bump on the ground.

"'I think,' said one of the watchers, as he jumped up to look, 'I think you've shot him dead as mutton;' and then, when he saw who it was, 'Oh Lord!' he said, 'if it ain't our parish clerk. You ought to have aimed at his legs, and not killed him outright.'

"'What's done is done, and can't be helped,' said the other. 'Least said soonest mended. We must keep our ears close, and bury him for a little while among the hay in the barn.'

"Yes! They did that, and when it was over, they lay them down to rest. In a little while came some one puffing and stamping, that the field shook again. The two who lay among the hay nudged one another, for they thought it was thieves again. Close to the barn was a stepping-stone, and there the new-comer sat down with his load, and began to talk to himself. He had been killing pigs at a farm a few days before, and thought he had been paid too little for his work, too little pay and too little board, and so he had set off and stolen the biggest porker. 'He that swaps with a bear always comes worst off,' he said; 'and so it's best to help one's self to what is right, and a little share is better than a long law-suit. But, bitter death! If I haven't forgotten my gloves; if they find them at the farm, they'll soon find out who has inherited their porker.' And, as he said this, he bolted back after his gloves.

"The two who were in the barn lay and listened to all this.

"'He who lays traps for others, comes into the trap himself,' said one.

"'There's no sin in stealing from a thief,' said the other; 'and no one is hanged, save those who can't steal right. It would be fine fun to get rid of our clerk in an easy way, and get a fat pig instead. I think, old chap, we had better make a swap.'

"The other burst out laughing at this, and so they tumbled the pig out of the sack and tossed in our clerk, head foremost, hat and all, and tied up the mouth of the sack as tight as they could.

"Just as they had done, back came the thief flying with his gloves, snatched up the sack, and strode off home. There he cast the sack down on the floor at his goody's feet.

"'Here's what I call a porker, old lass,' he said.

"'How grand!' said the goody. 'Nothing is all very fine to the eye, but not to the mouth. One can't get on without meat, for meat is man's strength. Thank Heaven we have now a bit of meat in the house, and shall be able to live well awhile.'

"'I took the biggest I could,' said the man, who sat down in his armchair, and puffed and wiped the sweat off his brow. 'He had both breeches and drawers, he was well covered, that he was.' By which he meant the pig was well fed and fat. Then he went on, 'Have you any meat in the house, old lass?'

"'No,' she said; 'meat! where should I get meat?'

"'Make up the fire then,' said the man; 'and sharpen your knife, and cut off a wee bit, and fry it with salt, and let's have a pork chop.'

"She did as he bade, and tore open the mouth of the sack, and was just going to cut off a steak.

"'What's all this?' she cried. 'He has got his trotters on,' when she saw his shoes; 'and he's as black as a coal.'

"'Don't you know,' said her husband; 'all cats are grey in the dark, and all pigs black.'

"'I dare say,' she said; 'but black or white is always bright, and a fog is not like a bilberry. This pig has got breeches on.'

"'Plague take him!' said the man. 'I know well enough he is covered with fat all down his legs. Haven't I carried him till the sweat ran down my face?'

"'Nay, nay!' said the goody. 'He has silver buckles in his shoes, and silver buttons at his knees. My! if it isn't our Parish Clerk!' she screamed out.

"'I tell you it was a fat pig I took,' said the man, as he jumped up to see how things stood. 'Well! Well! Seeing is believing.' It was our clerk, both with shoes and buckles; but, for all, he stuck to it, it was the fattest pig he had put into the sack.

"'But what's done can't be undone,' he said; 'the best servant is one's own self; but, for all that, help is good, even if it comes out of the porridge-pot; wake up our Mary, old girl.'

"Now you must know Mary was their daughter, a ready and trusty lass; she had the strength of a man too, and always had her wits about her. So she was to take our clerk and bury him in an out-of-the-way dale, so that nothing should ever be heard of him. If she did this, she was to have a new suit of working clothes, which were meant for her mother.

"Well! The lassie took our clerk round the body, tossed him on her back, and strode off from the farm, not forgetting to take his hat. But when she had gone a bit of the way, she heard a fiddle going, for there was a dance at a farm near the road, and so she crept in and set our clerk down upright behind the back-stairs. There he sat with his hat between his hands, just as though he were begging an alms, and leaning against the wall and a post.

"After a while came a girl in a flurry.

"'I wonder whoever this can be,' she said. 'The master of the house is as grey as a goose, but this fellow is black as a raven. Halloa, you sir, why are you sitting there, blocking up the way? One can scarce get by.'

"But our clerk said never a word.

"'Are you poor? Do you beg for a penny for Heaven's sake? Ah! poor fellow! Here's two pence for you,' and as she said this she tossed them into his hat. Still our clerk said never a word. She waited a little, for she thought he would say 'Thank you,' but our clerk did not so much as nod his head.

"'No, I never,' said the girl, when she went back into the ball-room. 'I never did see the like of a beggar who sits out yonder by the staircase. He isn't at all like a starling on a fence,' she went on; 'for he won't answer, and he won't say "Thank you," and won't so much as lift a finger, though I did give him two pence.'

"'The least a beggar can do is to say "Thank you,"' cried a young sheriff's clerk who was of the party. 'He must be a pretty fellow whom I cannot get to speak, for I've made thieves and stiff-necked folk open their mouths wide before this.'

"As he said this he ran out to the stairs, and bawled out in our clerk's ear, for he thought he was hard of hearing.

"'What do you sit here for, you sir?' And then again, 'Are you poor? Do you beg?'

"No, our clerk said never a word. So he took out half-a-dollar, and threw it into his hat, saying, 'There's something for you.' But our clerk was still silent, and made no sign. So when he could get no thanks out of him, the sheriff's officer gave him a blow under the ear, as hard as he could, and down fell our clerk head over heels across the staircase. And you may be sure the girl Mary was not slow in running to the spot.

"'Are you in a swoon, or are you dead, father,' she screeched out, and then she went on screaming and bewailing herself.

"'It's quite true,' she said; 'there's no peace for the poor after all, but I never yet heard of any one laying themselves out to strike beggars dead.'

"'Hush! Hold your tongue,' said the sheriff's officer. 'Don't make a fuss. Here you have ten dollars, keep your peace and take him away. I only gave him a blow that made him swoon.'

"Well! She was glad enough. 'Money brings money,' she thought; 'with fair words and money, one can go far in a day, and one need never care for food with a purse full of pence.' So she took our clerk on her back again, and strode off to the nearest farm, and there she put him athwart the brink of the well. When our Mary got home she said she had borne him off to the wood, and buried him far far away in a side dale.

"'Thank Heaven,' said the goody. 'Now we are well quit of him, you shall have all I promised, and more besides. Be sure of that.'

"So there lay our clerk, as though he were peering down into the well, till at dawn of day the ploughboy came running up to draw water.

"'Why are you lying there, and what are you gazing at? Out of the way. I want some water,' said the lad.

"No! He neither stirred hand or foot. Then the lad let drive at him, so that it went _plump_, and there lay our clerk in the well. Then he must have help to get him out, but there was no help for it till the hind came with a boat-hook and dragged him out.

"'Why! it's our Parish Clerk!' they all bawled out, and they all thought he had eaten and drank so much at some feast, that he had fallen asleep by the well-side.

"But when the master of the house came and saw our clerk, and heard how it had all happened, he said,--

"'Harm watches while men sleep; but man's scathe is the worst scathe. When one pot strikes against another, both break. Take the saddle and lay it on Blackie, and ride to fetch the sheriff, my lad, and then we shall be out of harm's way, for our clerk's sake. Mishaps never come single, but it's hard to drown on dry land.' That was what the master said.

"Yes! The lad rode off to the sheriff, and after a while the sheriff came. But, as the saying is, more haste, worse speed, and work done in haste will never last. So it took time before they got the doctor and witnesses to come. Now you all know we owe a death to God; but then it was made as plain as day that our clerk had been killed three times before he tumbled into the well. First the ladle of lead had taken away his breath, next he had a bullet through his forehead, and third and last his neck was broken. Surely he was 'fey' when he set out to see the goody. It is hard to tell how all this was found out at last; but tongues will clack behind a man's back, and hard things are said of a man when he's dead."

SILLY MEN AND CUNNING WIVES.

"Once on a time there were two Goodies, who quarrelled, as women often will; and when they had nothing else to quarrel about, they fell to fighting about their husbands, as to which was the silliest of them. The longer they strove the worse they got, and at last they had almost come to pulling caps about it, for, as every one knows, it is easier to begin than to end, and it is a bad look out when wit is wanting. At last, one of them said there was nothing she could not get her husband to believe, if she only said it, for he was as easy as a Troll. Then the other said there was nothing so silly that she could not get her husband to do, if she only said it must be done, for he was such a fool, he could not tell B from a bull's foot.

"'Well! let us put it to the proof, which of us can fool them best, and then we'll see which is the silliest.' That was what they said once, and so it was settled.

"Now when the first husband, Master Northgrange came home from the wood, his goody said--

"'Heaven help us both! what is the matter! you are surely ill, if you are not at death's door?'

"'Nothing ails me but want of meat and drink,' said the man.

"'Now, Heaven be my witness!' screamed out the wife, 'it gets worse and worse. You look just like a corpse in face; you must go to bed! Dear! dear! this never can last long!' And so she went on till she got her husband to believe he was hard at death's door, and she put him to bed; and then she made him fold his hands on his breast, and shut his eyes; and so she stretched his limbs, and laid him out, and put him into a coffin; but that he might not be smothered while he lay there, she had some holes made in the sides, so that he could breathe and peep out.

"The other goody, she took a pair of carding combs, and began to card wool; but she had no wool on them. In came the man, and saw this tomfoolery.

"'There's no use,' he said, 'in a wheel without wool; but carding combs, without wool, is work for a fool.'

"'Without wool!' said the goody; 'I have wool, only you can't see it; it's of the fine sort.' So, when she had carded it all, she took her wheel, and fell a-spinning.

"'Nay! nay! this is all labour lost!" said the man. 'There you sit, wearing out your wheel, as it spins and hums, and all the while you've nothing on it.'

"'Nothing on it!' said the goody; 'the thread is so fine, it takes better eyes than yours to see it, that's all.'

"So, when her spinning was over, she set up her loom, and put the woof in, and threw the shuttle, and wove cloth. Then she took it out of the loom and pressed it and cut it out, and sewed a new suit of clothes for her husband out of it, and when it was ready, she hung the suit up in the linen closet. As for the man, he could see neither cloth nor clothes; but as he had once for all got it into his head that it was too fine for him to see, he went on saying, 'Aye, aye, I understand it all, it is so fine because it is so fine.'

"Well! in a day or two his goody said to him,

"'To-day you must go to a funeral. Farmer Northgrange is dead, and they bury him to-day, and so you had better put on your new clothes.'

"'Yes, very true, he must go to the funeral;' and she helped him on with his new suit, for it was so fine, he might tear it asunder if he put it on alone.

"So when he came up to the farm, where the funeral was to be, they had all drank hard and long, and you may fancy their grief was not greater when they saw him come in in his new suit. But when the train set off for the churchyard, and the dead man peeped through the breathing holes, he burst out into a loud fit of laughter.

"'Nay! nay!' he said, 'I can't help laughing, though it is my funeral, for if there isn't Olof Southgrange walking to my funeral stark naked!'

"When the bearers heard that, they were not slow in taking the lid off the coffin, and the other husband, he in the new suit, asked how it was that he, over whom they had just drank his funeral ale, lay there in his coffin and chatted and laughed, when it would be more seemly if he wept.

"'Ah!' said the other; 'you know tears never yet dug up any one out of his grave--that's why I laughed myself to life again.'

"But the end of all their talk was that it came out that their goodies had played them those tricks. So the husbands went home, and did the wisest thing either of them had done for a long time; and if any one wishes to know what it was, he had better go and ask the birch cudgel."

TAPER TOM.

"Once on a time there was a King, who had a daughter, and she was so lovely, that her good looks were well known far and near; but she was so sad and serious, she could never be got to laugh; and, besides, she was so high and mighty, that she said 'No' to all who wooed her to wife, and she would have none of them, were they ever so grand--lords and princes, it was all the same. The king had long ago got tired of this, for he thought she might just as well marry, she, too, like the rest of the world. There was no good waiting; she was quite old enough, nor would she be any richer, for she was to have half the kingdom, that came to her as her mother's heir.

"So he had it given out at the church door both quick and soon, that any one who could get his daughter to laugh should have her and half the kingdom. But if there were any one who tried and could not, he was to have three red stripes cut out of his back, and salt rubbed in; and sure it was that there were many sore backs in that kingdom, for lovers and wooers came from north and south, and east and west, thinking it nothing at all to make a king's daughter laugh; and brave fellows they were, some of them, too; but for all their tricks and capers, there sat the princess, just as sad and serious as she had been before.

"Now, hard by the Palace lived a man who had three sons, and they too had heard how the king had given it out that the man who could make the princess laugh was to have her to wife and half the kingdom.

"The eldest, he was for setting off first; so he strode off; and when he came to the king's grange, he told the king he would be glad to try to make the princess laugh.

"'All very well, my man,' said the king; 'but it's sure to be no good, for so many have been here and tried. My daughter is so sorrowful, it's no use trying, and I don't at all wish that any one should come to grief.'

"But he thought there was use. It couldn't be such a very hard thing for him to get a princess to laugh, for so many had laughed at him, both gentle and simple, when he listed for a soldier, and learnt his drill under Corporal Jack. So he went off to the courtyard, under the princess's window, and began to go through his drill as Corporal Jack had taught him. But it was no good, the princess was just as sad and serious, and did not so much as smile at him once. So they took him, and cut three broad red stripes out of his back, and sent him home again.

"Well! he had hardly got home before his second brother wanted to set off. He was a schoolmaster, and a wonderful figure of fun besides; he was lop-sided, for he had one leg shorter than the other, and one moment he was as little as a boy, and in another, when he stood on his long leg, he was as tall and long as a Troll. Besides this, he was a powerful preacher.

"So when he came to the king's grange, and said he wished to make the princess laugh, the king thought it might not be so unlikely after all. 'But Heaven help you!' he said, 'if you don't make her laugh. We are for cutting the stripes broader and broader for every one that tries.'

"Then the schoolmaster strode off to the courtyard, and put himself before the princess's window, and read and preached like seven parsons, and sang and chanted like seven clerks, as loud as all the parsons and clerks in the country round. The king laughed loud at him, and was forced to hold the posts in the gallery, and the princess was just going to put a smile on her lips, but all at once she got as sad and serious as ever; and so it fared no better with Paul the schoolmaster than with Peter the soldier--for you must know one was called Peter and the other Paul. So they took him and cut three red stripes out of his back, and rubbed the salt well in, and then they sent him home again.

"Then the youngest was all for setting out, and his name was Taper Tom; but his brothers laughed and jeered at him, and showed him their sore backs, and his father would not give him leave, for he said, how could it be of any use to him, when he had no sense, for, wasn't it true that he neither knew anything or could do anything? There he sat in the ingle by the chimney corner, like a cat, and grubbed in the ashes and split fir tapers. That was why they called him 'Taper Tom.' But Taper Tom wouldn't give in, for he growled and grizzled so long, that they got tired of his growling, and so, at last, he too got leave to go to the king's grange, and try his luck.

"When he got to the king's grange he did not say he wished to try to make the princess laugh, but asked if he could get a place there. 'No,' they had no place for him; but for all that Taper Tom wouldn't take an answer; they must want some one, he said, to carry wood and water for the kitchen-maid, in such a big grange as that--that was what he said; and the king thought it might very well be, for he, too, got tired of his worry, and the end was, Taper Tom got leave to stay there and carry wood and water for the kitchen-maid.

"So, one day, when he was going to fetch water from the beck, he set eyes on a big fish, which lay under an old fir stump, where the water had eaten into the bank, and he put his bucket so softly under the fish, and caught it. But as he was going home to the grange he met an old woman who led a golden goose by a string.

"'Good day, godmother,' said Taper Tom; 'that's a pretty bird you have got; and what fine feathers!--they dazzle one a long way off. If one only had such feathers one might leave off splitting fir tapers.'

"The goody was just as pleased with the fish Tom had in his bucket, and said, if he would give her the fish, he might have the golden goose; and it was such a goose, that when any one touched it, he stuck fast to it, if Tom only said, 'Hang on, if you care to come with us.'

"Yes! that swap Taper Tom was willing enough to make.

"'A bird is as good as a fish, any day,' he said to himself; and if it's such a bird as you say, I can use it as a fish-hook.' That was what he said to the goody, and was so pleased with the goose. Now, he hadn't gone far before he met another old woman, and as soon as she saw the lovely gold goose she was all for running up to it and patting it; and she spoke so prettily, and coaxed him so, and begged him give her leave to stroke his lovely golden goose.

"'With all my heart,' said Taper Tom; 'but, mind you don't pluck out any of its feathers.'

"Just as she stroked the goose, he said,

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us!'

"The goody pulled and tore, but she was forced to hang on, whether she would or no, and Taper Tom went before, as though he alone were with the golden goose. So when he had gone a bit further, he met a man who had a thorn in his side against the goody for a trick she had played him. So, when he saw how hard she struggled and strove to get free, and how fast she stuck, he thought he would be quite safe in giving her one for her nob, to pay off the old grudge, and so he just gave her a kick with his foot.

"'Hang on, if you care to come with us!' called out Tom, and then the man had to limp along on one leg, whether he would or no, and when he jibbed and jibed, and tried to break loose, it was still worse for him, for he was all but falling flat on his back every step he took.

"So they went on a good bit till they had about come to the king's grange. There they met the king's smith, who was going to the smithy, and had a great pair of tongs in his hand. Now you must know this smith was a merry fellow, who was as full of tricks and pranks as an egg is full of meat, and when he saw this string come hobbling and limping along, he laughed so that he was almost bent in two, and then he bawled out, 'Surely this is a new flock of geese the princess is going to have; who can tell which is goose and which gander! Ah! I see, this must be the gander that toddles in front. Goosey! goosey! goosey!' he called out; and with that he coaxed them to him, and threw his hands about as though he were scattering corn for the geese.