He moaned and groaned, and tried to think of a rhyme, but as he had never in his life made one waking, it was not likely he should find one in his sleep. But when he awoke at dawn, he could not help thinking his dream a very strange one, and sitting down at the table, with his head in his hands, he began to ponder over the whispers he had heard, and which still rang in his ears.
“Rhyme, foolish Peter, rhyme!” he kept saying to himself, and tapped his forehead with his finger, yet no rhyme came forth. But as he sat there, puzzling over a rhyme to “green,” three lads went by the house, and one was singing:
“I stood upon the hill-top green,
And gazed into the vale below,
For there it was I last had seen
Her——”
Peter Munk waited to hear no more, but springing from his chair and out at the door like an arrow, he caught the singer roughly by the arm.
“Stay, friend,” he cried; “only tell me! what didst thou rhyme to ‘green’?”
But the other was startled and angered, and shaking himself free, rejoined: “A plague on thee for a rude fellow! What business is it of thine? Take that!” And he gave him a stinging box on the ear, which his comrades followed up with more blows.
Poor Peter sank to his knees, quite stunned. “I pray you to forgive me,” he moaned; “I meant no harm, and was but over anxious about a certain matter. But since I have got the blows now, will ye not also plainly tell me the words of your song?”