“Nonsense! Nonsense!” cried the king irritably. “Build me a bridge that will stand earthquakes, then, and be quick about it too.” And he climbed back into the coach, and drove off home in a very bad humor indeed.
The master mason and his men worked till long past sunset. When they had finished, there was a bridge twice as high, twice as wide, and twice as solid as before.
The next morning the king was up at daybreak calling for his coach and his crown; and before the dewdrops were off the grass, he was driving off with the queen and Jack down the hill toward town. But just as they got to the river, back lunged the horses again, down clambered the gilt footmen, and out burst the king all a-tremble.
Sure enough, the bridge the master mason had built so solid and so strong was nothing but a jagged pile of stones, with the stream gushing impudently between them as if it were the best joke in the world.
The king called for the master mason in a tone that made the gilt footmen scamper; and back they came with him as red and flustered as the king himself.
“Just one more chance for you,” raged the king, shaking his scepter, “to build me a bridge that will last over night. If by to-morrow morning I don’t find as good a bridge here as ever was built in Ireland, I’ll—I’ll have you buried beneath your own stones and mortar.”
“Your Majesty,” cried the master mason tensely, “it can’t be done. There is some enchantment. The bridges I built here were the best in Ireland. The river could never have washed them away. It can’t be done, I say. It can’t—”
But the king had already slammed the coach door and driven violently away. So there was nothing for the master mason to do but to call his men and get to work harder than ever. All day long they drilled great holes in the bed of the stream and set huge rocks in them, one on top of the other. And over those piers from bank to bank they laid a bridge so bulky and so solid that the like of it was never seen before or since.
The master mason and his men worked harder than ever