Part 21 (2/2)

”But lo! next day stood a tall lovely linden tree on the spot where they had buried the lump of silver, and that linden had leaves which gleamed like silver. So when they told the king that, he thought it pa.s.sing strange; but the princess said it was nothing but witchcraft, and they must cut down the linden at once. The king was against that; but the princess plagued him so long that at last he had to give way to her in this also.

”But lo! when the la.s.ses went out to gather the chips of the linden to light the fires, they were pure silver.

”'It isn't worth while,' one of them said, 'to say anything about this to the king or the princess, or else they, too, will be burnt and melted. It is better to hide them in our drawers. They will be good to have when a lover comes, and we are going to marry.'

”Yes! They were all of one mind as to that; but when they had borne the chips a while, they grew so fearfully heavy that they could not help looking to see what it was; and then they found the chips had been changed into a child, and it was not long before it grew into the loveliest princess you ever set eyes on.

”The la.s.ses could see very well that something wrong lay under all this.

So they got her clothes, and flew off to find the lad, who was to fetch the loveliest princess in twelve kingdoms, and told him their story.

”So when Taper Tom came, the princess told him her story, and how the cook had come and torn her from the tree and thrown her into the dam; and how she had been the silver fish, and the silver lump, and the linden, and the chips, and how she was the true princess.

”It was not so easy to get the king's ear, for the ugly black cook hung over him early and late; but at last they made out a story, and said that a challenge had come from a neighbour king, and so they got him out; and when he came to see the lovely princess, he was so taken with her, he was for holding the bridal feast on the spot; and when he heard how badly the ugly black cook had behaved to her, he said they should take her and roll her down hill in a cask full of nails. Then they kept the bridal feast at such a rate that it was heard and talked of over twelve kingdoms.”

THE PRIEST AND THE CLERK.

”Once on a time there was a priest, who was such a bully, that he bawled out, ever so far off, whenever he met anyone driving on the king's highway,--

”'Out of the way, out of the way! Here comes the priest!'

”One day when he was driving along and behaving so, he met the king himself.

”'Out of the way, out of the way,' he bawled a long way off. But the king drove on and kept his own; so that time it was the priest who had to turn his horse aside, and when the king came alongside him, he said, 'To-morrow you shall come to me to the palace, and if you can't answer three questions which I will set you, you shall lose hood and gown for your pride's sake.'

”This was something else than the priest was wont to hear. He could bawl and bully, shout, and behave worse than badly. All THAT he could do, but question and answer was out of his power. So he set off to the clerk who was said to be better in a gown than the priest himself, and told him he had no mind to go to the king.

”'For one fool can ask more than ten wise men can answer;' and the end was, he got the clerk to go in his stead.

”Yes! The clerk set off, and came to the palace in the priest's gown and hood. There the king met him out in the porch with crown and sceptre, and was so grand it glittered and gleamed from him.

”'Well! Are you there?' said the king.

”Yes; he was there, sure enough.

”'Tell me first,' said the king; 'how far the east is from the west?'

”'Just a day's journey,' said the clerk.

”'How is that?' asked the king.

”'Don't you know,' said the clerk, 'that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and he does it just nicely in one day.'

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