Part 14 (1/2)

”'It ought to be a good sum,' said Peik, 'for there wasn't a coach ready to start for Paradise every day.'

”So the man said he would give all he had, and so he knocked out the head of the cask and crept into it instead of Peik.

”'A happy journey,' said the King, when he came to roll him down; 'now you'll go faster to the firth than if you were in a sledge with reindeer; and now it's all over with you and your fooling rods.'

”Before the cask was half-way down the fell, there wasn't a whole stave of it left, nor a limb of him who was inside. But when the King came back to the Grange, Peik was there before him, and sat in the courtyard playing on the Jews' harp.

”'What! you sitting here, you Peik?'

”'Yes! here I sit, sure enough; where else should I sit?' said Peik.

'Maybe I can get house-room here for all my horses and sheep and money.'

”'But whither was it that I rolled you that you got all this wealth?'

asked the King.

”'Oh, you rolled me into the firth,' said Peik, 'and when I got to the bottom there was more than enough and to spare, both of horses and sheep and of gold and silver. The cattle went about in great flocks, and the gold and silver lay in large heaps as big as houses.'

”'What will you take to roll me down the same way?' asked the King.

”'Oh,' said Peik, 'it costs little or nothing to do it. Besides, you took nothing from me, and so I'll take nothing from you either.'

”So he stuffed the King into a cask and rolled him over, and when he had given him a ride down to the firth for nothing, he went home to the King's Grange. Then he began to hold his bridal feast with the youngest princess, and afterwards he ruled both land and realm, but he kept his fooling rods to himself, and kept them so well that nothing was ever afterwards heard of Peik and his tricks, but only of OURSELF THE KING.”

KARIN'S THREE STORIES.

”Now,” said Karin, ”as you have told _Peik_, which I did not want to tell, I'll tell you three stories all of a row, _Death and the Doctor_, _The Way of the World_, and _The Pancake_.” So she began with the first.

DEATH AND THE DOCTOR.

'Once on a time there was a lad, who had lived as a servant a long time with a man of the North Country. This man was a master at ale-brewing; it was so out-of-the-way good the like of it was not to be found. So, when the lad was to leave his place and the man was to pay him the wages he had earned, he would take no other pay than a keg of yule-ale. Well!

he got it and set off with it, and he carried it both far and long, but the longer he carried the keg the heavier it got, and so he began to look about to see if anyone were coming with whom he might have a drink, that the ale might lessen, and the keg lighten. And after a long, long time, he met an old man with a big beard.

”'Good-day,' said the man.

”'Good-day to you,' said the lad.

”'Whither away?' asked the man.

”'I'm looking after some one to drink with, and get my keg lightened,'

said the lad.

”'Can't you drink as well with me as with anyone else?' said the man. 'I have fared both far and wide, and I am both tired and thirsty.'

”'Well! why shouldn't I?' said the lad; 'but tell me, whence do you come, and what sort of man are you?'

”'I am ”Our Lord,” and come from Heaven,' said the man.