"Now," said the Poor Thing, "do so and so, and you shall find a
wife and I a mother."
It befell that the Earl's daughter came forth to go into the Kirk
upon her prayers; and when she saw the poor man stand in the market
with only the shoe of a horse, and it rusty, it came in her mind it
should be a thing of price.
"What is that?" quoth she.
"It is a shoe of a horse," said the man.
"And what is the use of it?" quoth the Earl's daughter.
"It is for no use," said the man.
"I may not believe that," said she; "else why should you carry it?"
"I do so," said he, "because it was so my fathers did in the
ancient ages; and I have neither a better reason nor a worse."
Now the Earl's daughter could not find it in her mind to believe
him. "Come," quoth she, "sell me this, for I am sure it is a thing
of price."
"Nay," said the man, "the thing is not for sale."
"What!" cried the Earl's daughter. "Then what make you here in the
town's market, with the thing in your creel and nought beside?"
"I sit here," says the man, "to get me a wife."
"There is no sense in any of these answers," thought the Earl's
daughter; "and I could find it in my heart to weep."
By came the Earl upon that; and she called him and told him all.
And when he had heard, he was of his daughter's mind that this
should be a thing of virtue; and charged the man to set a price
upon the thing, or else be hanged upon the gallows; and that was
near at hand, so that the man could see it.
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