"The way of life is straight like the grooves of launching," quoth
the man. "And if I am to be hanged let me be hanged."
"Why!" cried the Earl, "will you set your neck against a shoe of a
horse, and it rusty?"
"In my thought," said the man, "one thing is as good as another in
this world and a shoe of a horse will do."
"This can never be," thought the Earl; and he stood and looked upon
the man, and bit his beard.
And the man looked up at him and smiled. "It was so my fathers did
in the ancient ages," quoth he to the Earl, "and I have neither a
better reason nor a worse."
"There is no sense in any of this," thought the Earl, "and I must
be growing old." So he had his daughter on one side, and says he:
"Many suitors have you denied, my child. But here is a very
strange matter that a man should cling so to a shoe of a horse, and
it rusty; and that he should offer it like a thing on sale, and yet
not sell it; and that he should sit there seeking a wife. If I
come not to the bottom of this thing, I shall have no more pleasure
in bread; and I can see no way, but either I should hang or you
should marry him."
"By my troth, but he is bitter ugly," said the Earl's daughter.
"How if the gallows be so near at hand?"
"It was not so," said the Earl, "that my fathers did in the ancient
ages.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63