The old woman stared after it, till it was fairly out of sight.
“WELL!” she said at last, “I
Once there was a man Gobborn Seer, and he had a son called Jack.
One day he sent him out to sell a sheep skin, and Gobborn said, “You must bring me back the skin and the value of it as well.”
So Jack started, but he could not find any who would leave him the skin and give him its price too. So he came home discouraged.
But Gobborn Seer said, “Never mind, you must take another turn at it to-morrow.”
So he tried again, and nobody wished to buy the skin on those terms.
When he came home his father said, “You must go and try your luck to-morrow,” and the third day it seemed as if it would be the same thing over again. And he had half a mind not to go back at all, his father would be so vexed. As he came to a bridge, like the Creek Road one yonder, he leaned on the parapet thinking of his trouble, and that perhaps it would be foolish to run away from home, but he could not tell which to do; when he saw a girl washing her clothes on the bank below. She looked up and said:
“If it may be no offence asking, what is it you feel so badly about?”
“My father has given me this skin, and I am to fetch it back and the price of it beside.”
“Is that all? Give it here, and it’s easy done.”
So the girl washed the skin in the stream, took the wool from it, and paid him the value of it, and gave him the skin to carry back.
His father was well pleased, and said to Jack, “That was a witty woman; she would make you a good wife. Do you think you could tell her again?”
Jack thought he could, so his father told him to go by-and-by to the bridge, and see if she was there, and if so bid her come home to take tea with them.
And sure enough Jack spied her and told her how his old father had a wish to meet her, and would she be pleased to drink tea with them.
The girl thanked him kindly, and said she could come the next day; she was too busy at the moment.
“All the better,” said Jack, “I’ll have time to make ready.”
So when she came Gobborn Seer could see she was a witty woman, and he asked her if she would marry his Jack. She said “Yes,” and they were married.
Not long after, Jack’s father told him he must come with him and build the finest castle that ever was seen, for a king who wished to outdo all others by his wonderful castle.
And as they went to lay the foundation-stone, Gobborn Seer said to Jack, “Can’t you shorten the way for me?”
But Jack looked ahead and there was a long road before them, and he said, “I don’t see, father, how I could break a bit off.”
“You’re no good to me, then, and had best be off home.”
So poor Jack turned back, and when he came in his wife said, “Why, how’s this you’ve come alone?” and he told her what his father had said and his answer.
“You stupid,” said his witty wife, “if you had told a tale you would have shortened the road! Now listen till I tell you a story, and then catch up with Gobborn Seer and begin it at once. He will like hearing it, and by the time you are done you will have reached the foundation-stone.”
So Jack sweated and overtook his father. Gobborn Seer said never a word, but Jack began his story, and the road was shortened as his wife had said.
When they came to the end of their journey, they started building of this castle which was to outshine all others. Now the wife had advised them to be intimate with the servants, and so they did as she said, and it was “Good-morning” and “Good-day to you” as they passed in and out.
Now, at the end of a twelvemonth, Gobborn, the wise man, had built such a castle thousands were gathered to admire it.
And the king said: “The castle is done. I shall return to-morrow and pay you all.”
“I have just a ceiling to finish in an upper lobby,” said Gobborn, “and then it wants nothing.”
But after the king was gone off, the housekeeper sent for Gobborn and Jack, and told them that she had watched for a chance to warn them, for the king was so afraid they should carry their art away and build some other king as fine a castle, he meant to take their lives on the morrow. Gobborn told Jack to keep a good heart, and they would come off all right.
When the king had come back Gobborn told him he had been unable to complete the job for lack of a tool left at home, and he should like to send Jack after it.
“No, no,” said the king, “cannot one of the men do the errand?”
“No, they could not make themselves understood,” said the Seer, “but Jack could do the errand.”
“You and your son are to stop here. But how will it do if I send my own son?”
“That will do.”
So Gobborn sent by him a message to Jack’s wife. “Give him
There was an old woman, as I’ve heard tell.
She went to the market her eggs for to sell;
She went to the market, all on a market-day,
And she fell asleep on the king’s highway.
There came by a pedlar, whose name was Stout,
He cut her petticoats round about;
He cut her petticoats up to the knees,
Which made the old woman to shiver and freeze.
When this old woman first did wake,
She began to shiver, and she began to shake;
She began to wonder, and she began to cry—
“Lawkamercyme, this is none of I!”
“But if it be I, as I do hope it be,
I’ve a little dog at home, and he’ll know me;
If it be I, he’ll wag his little tail,
And if it be not I, he’ll loudly bark and wail.”
Home went the little woman, all in the dark;
Up got the little dog, and he began to bark;
He began to bark, so she began to cry—
“Lawkamercyme, this is none of I!”
Tattercoats
In a great Palace by the sea there once dwelt a very rich old lord, who had neither wife nor children living, only one little granddaughter, whose face he had never seen in all her life. He hated her bitterly, because at her birth his favourite daughter died; and when the old nurse brought him the baby, he swore, that it might live or die as it liked, but he would never look on its face as long as it lived.
So he turned his back, and sat by his window looking out over the sea, and weeping great tears for his lost daughter, till his white hair and beard grew down over his shoulders and twined round his chair and crept into the chinks of the floor, and his tears, dropping on to the window-ledge, wore a channel through the stone, and ran away in a little river to the great sea. And, meanwhile, his granddaughter grew up with no one to care for her, or clothe her; only the old nurse, when no one was by, would sometimes give her a dish of scraps from the kitchen, or a torn petticoat from the rag-bag; while the other servants of the Palace would drive her from the house with blows and mocking words, calling her “Tattercoats,” and pointing at her bare feet and shoulders, till she ran away crying, to hide among the bushes.
And so she grew up, with little to eat or wear, spending her days in the fields and lanes, with only the gooseherd for a companion, who would play to her so merrily on his little pipe, when she was hungry, or cold, or tired, that she forgot all her troubles, and fell to dancing, with his flock of noisy geese for partners.
But, one day, people told each other that the King was travelling through the land, and in the town near by was to give a great ball, to all the lords and ladies of the country, when the Prince, his only son, was to choose a wife.
One of the royal invitations was brought to the Palace by the sea, and the servants carried it up to the old lord who still sat by his window, wrapped in his long white hair and weeping into the little river that was fed by his tears.
But when he heard the King’s command, he dried his eyes and bade them bring shears to cut him loose, for his hair had bound him a fast prisoner and he could not move. And then he sent them for rich clothes, and jewels, which he put on; and he ordered them to saddle the white horse, with gold and silk, that he might ride to meet the King.
Meanwhile Tattercoats had heard of the great doings in the town, and she sat by the kitchen-door weeping because she could not go to see them. And when the old nurse heard her crying she went to the Lord of the Palace, and begged him to take his granddaughter with him to the King’s ball.
But he only frowned and told her to be silent, while the servants laughed and said: “Tattercoats is happy in her rags, playing with the gooseherd, let her be—it is all she is fit for.”
A second, and then a third time, the old nurse begged him to let the girl go with him, but she was answered only by black looks and fierce words, till she was driven from the room by the jeering servants, with blows and mocking words.
Weeping over her ill-success, the old nurse went to look for Tattercoats; but the girl had been turned from the door by the cook, and had run away to tell her friend the gooseherd, how unhappy she was because she could not go to the King’s ball.
But when the gooseherd had listened to her story, he bade her cheer up, and proposed that they should go together into the town to see the King, and all the fine things; and when she looked sorrowfully down at her rags and bare feet, he played a note or two upon his pipe, so gay and merry, that she forgot all about her tears and her troubles, and before she well knew, the herdboy had taken her by the hand, and she, and he, and the geese before them, were dancing down the road towards the town.
Before they had gone very far, a handsome young man, splendidly dressed, rode up and stopped to ask the way to the castle where the King was staying; and when he found that they too were going thither, he got off his horse and walked beside them along the road.
The herdboy pulled out his pipe and played a low sweet tune, and the stranger looked again and again at Tattercoats’ lovely face till he fell deeply in love with her, and begged her to marry him.
But she only laughed, and shook her golden head.
“You would be finely put to shame if you had a goosegirl for your wife!” said she; “go and ask one of the great ladies you will see to-night at the King’s ball, and do not flout poor Tattercoats.”
But the more she refused him the sweeter the pipe played, and the deeper the young man fell in love; till at last he begged her, as a proof of his sincerity, to come that night at twelve to the King’s ball, just as she was, with the herdboy and his geese, and in her torn petticoat and bare feet, and he would dance with her before the King and the lords and ladies, and present her to them all, as his dear and honoured bride.
So when night came, and the hall in the castle was full of light and music, and the lords and ladies were dancing before the King, just as the clock struck twelve, Tattercoats and the herdboy, followed by his flock of noisy geese, entered at the great doors, and walked straight up the ball-room, while on either side the ladies whispered, the lords laughed, and the King seated at the far end stared in amazement.
But as they came in front of the throne, Tattercoats’ lover rose from beside the King, and came to meet her. Taking her by the hand, he kissed her thrice before them all, and turned to the King.
“Father!” he said, for it was the Prince himself, “I have made my choice, and here is my bride, the loveliest girl in all the land, and the sweetest as well!”
Before he had finished speaking, the herdboy put his pipe to his lips and played a few low notes that sounded like a bird singing far off in the woods; and as he played, Tattercoats’ rags were changed to shining robes sewn with glittering jewels, a golden crown lay upon her golden hair, and the flock of geese behind her, became a crowd of dainty pages, bearing her long train.
And as the King rose to greet her as his daughter, the trumpets sounded loudly in honour of the new Princess, and the people outside in the street said to each other:
“Ah! now the Prince has chosen for his wife the loveliest girl in all the land!”
But the gooseherd was never seen again, and no one knew what became of him; while the old lord went home once more to his Palace by the sea, for he could not stay at Court, when he had sworn never to look on his granddaughter’s face.
So there he still sits by his window, if you could only see him, as you some day may, weeping more bitterly than ever, as he looks out over the sea.