Part 28 (1/2)

”'Heaven help us both! what is the matter! you are surely ill, if you are not at death's door?'

”'Nothing ails me but want of meat and drink,' said the man.

”'Now, Heaven be my witness!' screamed out the wife, 'it gets worse and worse. You look just like a corpse in face; you must go to bed! Dear!

dear! this never can last long!' And so she went on till she got her husband to believe he was hard at death's door, and she put him to bed; and then she made him fold his hands on his breast, and shut his eyes; and so she stretched his limbs, and laid him out, and put him into a coffin; but that he might not be smothered while he lay there, she had some holes made in the sides, so that he could breathe and peep out.

”The other goody, she took a pair of carding combs, and began to card wool; but she had no wool on them. In came the man, and saw this tomfoolery.

”'There's no use,' he said, 'in a wheel without wool; but carding combs, without wool, is work for a fool.'

”'Without wool!' said the goody; 'I have wool, only you can't see it; it's of the fine sort.' So, when she had carded it all, she took her wheel, and fell a-spinning.

”'Nay! nay! this is all labour lost!” said the man. 'There you sit, wearing out your wheel, as it spins and hums, and all the while you've nothing on it.'

”'Nothing on it!' said the goody; 'the thread is so fine, it takes better eyes than yours to see it, that's all.'

”So, when her spinning was over, she set up her loom, and put the woof in, and threw the shuttle, and wove cloth. Then she took it out of the loom and pressed it and cut it out, and sewed a new suit of clothes for her husband out of it, and when it was ready, she hung the suit up in the linen closet. As for the man, he could see neither cloth nor clothes; but as he had once for all got it into his head that it was too fine for him to see, he went on saying, 'Aye, aye, I understand it all, it is so fine because it is so fine.'

”Well! in a day or two his goody said to him,

”'To-day you must go to a funeral. Farmer Northgrange is dead, and they bury him to-day, and so you had better put on your new clothes.'

”'Yes, very true, he must go to the funeral;' and she helped him on with his new suit, for it was so fine, he might tear it asunder if he put it on alone.

”So when he came up to the farm, where the funeral was to be, they had all drank hard and long, and you may fancy their grief was not greater when they saw him come in in his new suit. But when the train set off for the churchyard, and the dead man peeped through the breathing holes, he burst out into a loud fit of laughter.

”'Nay! nay!' he said, 'I can't help laughing, though it is my funeral, for if there isn't Olof Southgrange walking to my funeral stark naked!'

”When the bearers heard that, they were not slow in taking the lid off the coffin, and the other husband, he in the new suit, asked how it was that he, over whom they had just drank his funeral ale, lay there in his coffin and chatted and laughed, when it would be more seemly if he wept.

”'Ah!' said the other; 'you know tears never yet dug up any one out of his grave--that's why I laughed myself to life again.'

”But the end of all their talk was that it came out that their goodies had played them those tricks. So the husbands went home, and did the wisest thing either of them had done for a long time; and if any one wishes to know what it was, he had better go and ask the birch cudgel.”

TAPER TOM.

”Once on a time there was a King, who had a daughter, and she was so lovely, that her good looks were well known far and near; but she was so sad and serious, she could never be got to laugh; and, besides, she was so high and mighty, that she said 'No' to all who wooed her to wife, and she would have none of them, were they ever so grand--lords and princes, it was all the same. The king had long ago got tired of this, for he thought she might just as well marry, she, too, like the rest of the world. There was no good waiting; she was quite old enough, nor would she be any richer, for she was to have half the kingdom, that came to her as her mother's heir.

”So he had it given out at the church door both quick and soon, that any one who could get his daughter to laugh should have her and half the kingdom. But if there were any one who tried and could not, he was to have three red stripes cut out of his back, and salt rubbed in; and sure it was that there were many sore backs in that kingdom, for lovers and wooers came from north and south, and east and west, thinking it nothing at all to make a king's daughter laugh; and brave fellows they were, some of them, too; but for all their tricks and capers, there sat the princess, just as sad and serious as she had been before.

”Now, hard by the Palace lived a man who had three sons, and they too had heard how the king had given it out that the man who could make the princess laugh was to have her to wife and half the kingdom.

”The eldest, he was for setting off first; so he strode off; and when he came to the king's grange, he told the king he would be glad to try to make the princess laugh.

”'All very well, my man,' said the king; 'but it's sure to be no good, for so many have been here and tried. My daughter is so sorrowful, it's no use trying, and I don't at all wish that any one should come to grief.'

”But he thought there was use. It couldn't be such a very hard thing for him to get a princess to laugh, for so many had laughed at him, both gentle and simple, when he listed for a soldier, and learnt his drill under Corporal Jack. So he went off to the courtyard, under the princess's window, and began to go through his drill as Corporal Jack had taught him. But it was no good, the princess was just as sad and serious, and did not so much as smile at him once. So they took him, and cut three broad red stripes out of his back, and sent him home again.

”Well! he had hardly got home before his second brother wanted to set off. He was a schoolmaster, and a wonderful figure of fun besides; he was lop-sided, for he had one leg shorter than the other, and one moment he was as little as a boy, and in another, when he stood on his long leg, he was as tall and long as a Troll. Besides this, he was a powerful preacher.