But, instead of doing this, he ran away with the horse, and soon after met a marriage procession, in which the bridegroom was walking beside the bride’s litter or dooly. “Get on my horse: why do you walk?” said the rabbit gaily.
So the man got on, and the rabbit ran off with the bride; but her husband ran after, and advised his wife to kill the rabbit.
When they got to a quiet place, and rested under a tree, she asked the rabbit to let her comb his hair; but as soon as he put his head down, she gave him a severe knock on it, which stunned him, and then ran back to her husband. Thus ended the adventures of the rabbit.
RUPA AND BISUNTHA
There was once a woman who had no little children of her own; every day she used to watch the sparrows building their nests, and bringing up their young, and it so happened that one day a mother bird died, leaving several young ones. After a time a new mother bird was brought, and she was not at all good to the young fledglings.
The woman felt hurt for them, and said to her husband: “If I had children of my own, and after a time I died, would you do as the birds have done, and let my children be unkindly treated?”
But the man replied: “These are birds, and I am a man.”
After some years the woman had two sons, and when they had grown to be big boys, she died. Her husband had forgotten her conversation about the birds, and he married another wife.
One day the eldest boy was playing with a ball, when it fell into his stepmother’s room. He asked if he might fetch it; but when he went inside, she made it an occasion for all sorts of complaints against him to his father, so his father turned him out of the house, and he went away with his little brother.