Part 25 (1/2)

”'Now, now!' said the king, 'what's the matter my man. If you have suffered wrong, I will see you righted.'

”No, it wasn't that, he said, but he had a son who had brought him great sorrow, for he could never make a man of him, and now he must say he had gone clean out of the little wit he had before, and then he went on,--

”'For now he has hunted me up to the palace gate with a big birch cudgel, and forced me to ask for the king's daughter to wife.'

”'Hold your tongue, my man,' said the king; 'and as for this son of yours, go and ask him to come here indoors to me, and then we will see what to make of him.'

”So the lad ran in before the king till his rags fluttered behind him.

”'Am I to have your daughter?'

”'That was just what we were to talk about,' said the king; 'perhaps she mayn't suit you, and perhaps you mayn't suit her either.'

”'That was very likely!' said the lad.

”Now you must know there had just come a big s.h.i.+p from over the sea, and she could be seen from the palace windows.

”'All the same!' said the King. 'If you are good to make a s.h.i.+p in an hour or two like that lying yonder in the fjord and looking so brave, you may perhaps have her.' That was what the king said.

”'Nothing worse than that!' said the lad.

”So he went down to the strand and sat down on a sandhill, and when he had sat there long enough, he wished that a s.h.i.+p might be out on the fjord fully furnished with masts, and sails and rigging, the very match of that which lay there already. And as he wished for it there it lay, and when the king saw there were two s.h.i.+ps for one, he came down to the strand to see the rights of it, and there he saw the lad standing out in a boat with a brush in his hand as though he were painting out spots and making blisters in the paint good--but as soon as he saw the king down on the sh.o.r.e he threw away the brush and said,--

”'Now the s.h.i.+p is ready, may I have your daughter?'

”'This is all very well,' said the king, 'but you try your hand at another masterpiece first. If you can build a palace, a match to my palace in one or two hours, we will see about it.' That was what the king said.

”'Nothing worse than that,' bawled out the lad and strode off. So when he had sauntered about so long, that the time was nearly up, he wished that a palace might stand there the very match of that which stood there already. It was not long, I trow, before it stood there, and it was not long either before the king came, both with queen and princess to look about him in the new palace. There stood the lad again with his broom and swept.

”'Here's the palace right and ready,' he called out 'may I have her now?'

”'Very well, very well,' said the king, 'you may come in and we will talk it over,' for he saw clearly the lad could do more than eat his meat, and so he walked up and down, and thought and thought how he might be rid of him. Yes! there they walked, the king first and foremost, and after him the queen, and then the princess next before the lad. So as they walked along, all at once the lad wished that he might become the handsomest man in all the world, and so he was in a trice. When the princess saw how handsome he had grown in no time, she gave the queen a nudge, and the queen pa.s.sed it on to the king, and when they had all stared their full, they saw still more plainly, the lad was more than he seemed to be when he first came in all tattered and torn. So they settled it among them, that the princess should go daintily to work till she had found out all about him. Yes! the princess made herself as sweet and as soft as a whole firkin of b.u.t.ter, and coaxed and hoaxed the lad, telling him she could not bear him out of her eyes, day or night. So when the first evening was coming to an end, she said,--

”'As we are to have one another, you and I, you must keep nothing back from me, dearest, and so you will tell me, I am sure, how you came to make all these grand things.'

”'Aye, aye,' then said the lad, 'all that you'll come to know in good time. Only let us be man and wife; there's no good talking about it till then.' That was what he said.

”The next evening the princess was rather put out. She could see with half an eye, she said, 'that he couldn't care very much for his sweetheart, when he wouldn't tell her what she asked him. So it would be with all the rest of his love-making, when he wouldn't meet her wishes in such a little thing.'

”Now the lad was quite cut to the heart, and that they might be friends again he told her the whole story from beginning to end. She was not slow in telling it to the king and queen, and so they laid their heads together how they might get the ring from the lad, and when they had done that they thought it would be no such hard thing to be rid of him.

”At night the princess came with some sleeping-drops, and said, now she would pour out a little philtre for her own true love, for she was sure he did not care enough for her; that was what she said. Yes! he thought no harm could come of it, and so he drained off the drink like a man, and in a trice he fell so sound asleep, they might have pulled the house down over his head without waking him. So the princess took the ring off his finger and put it on her own, and wished the lad might lie on the dung-heap outside in the street, just as tattered and beggarly as he was when he came in, and in his place she wished for the handsomest prince in the world. In the twinkling of an eye it all happened. As the night wore on the lad woke up on the dunghill, and at first he thought it was only a dream, but when he found the ring was gone he knew how it had all happened, and then he got so bewildered that he set off and was just going to jump into the lake and drown himself.

”But just then he met the cat which his master had bought for him.

”'Whither away?' asked the cat.

”'To the lake to drown myself,' said the lad.