"Ah!" said the fisherman, "how happily we shall live!"
"We will try to do so at least," said his wife.
Everything went right for a week or two, and then Dame Alice said, "Husband, there is not room enough in this cottage; the court-yard and garden are a great deal too small. I should like to have a large stone castle to live in; so go to the fish again, and tell him to give us a castle."
"Wife," said the fisherman, "I don't like to go to him again, for perhaps he will be angry. We ought to be content with the cottage."
"Nonsense!" said the wife; "he will do it very willingly. Go along, and try."
The fisherman went; but his heart was very heavy: and when he came to the sea, it looked blue and gloomy, though it was quite calm, and he went close to it and said,
"O man of the sea!
Come listen to me,
For Alice my wife,
The plague of my life,
Hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!"
"Well, what does she want now?" said the fish.
"Ah!" said the man very sorrowfully, "my wife wants to live in a stone castle."
"Go home then," said the fish. "She is standing at the door of it already." So away went the fisherman and found his wife standing before a great castle.