The Wonder Clock; or, four & twenty marvellous Tales / being one for each hour of the day

by Howard Pyle; Katharine Pyle

But you should have seen what a stew the princess was in at this! Five-and-twenty kisses, indeed! And did the fellow think that it was for the likes of her to be kissing a poor gooseherd? He might keep his musical box if that was the price he asked for it; that was what she said.

As for the lad, he just played the music and played the music, and the more the princess heard and saw the more she wanted it. “After all,” said she, at last, “a kiss is only a kiss, and I will be none the poorer for giving one or two of them; I’ll just let him have them, since he will take nothing else.” So off she marched, with all of her maidens, to pay the gooseherd his price, though it was a sour face she made of it, and that is the truth.

Now, somebody had been buzzing in the king’s ear, and had told him that the gooseherd over yonder was wearing the princess’s kerchief and her golden necklace, and folks said she had given them to him of her own free will.

“What!” says the king, “is that so? her kerchief! golden necklace! we will have to look into this business.” So off he marched, with his little dog at his heels, to find out what he could about it. Up the hill he went to where the gooseherd watched his flock; and when he came near the hedge where the kissing was going on, he heard them counting—“Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—” and he wondered what in the world they were all about. So he just peeped over the bushes, and there he saw the whole business.

Mercy on us! what a rage he was in! So; the princess would turn up her nose at folks as good as herself, would she? And here she was kissing the gooseherd back of the hedge. If he was the kind she liked she should have him for good and all.

So the minister was called in, and the princess and the gooseherd were married then and there, and that was the end of the business. Then off they were packed to shift for themselves in the wide world, for they were not to live at the king’s castle, and that was the long and the short of it.

But the lad did nothing but grumble and growl, and seemed as sore over his bargain as though he had been trying to trick a Jew. What did he want with a lass for a wife who could neither brew nor bake nor boil blue beans? That is what he said. All the same, they were hitched to the same plough, and there was nothing for it but to pull together the best they could. So off they packed, and the poor princess trudged after him and carried his bundle.

So they went on until they came to a poor, mean little hut. There she had to take off her fine clothes and put on rags and tatters; and that was the way she came home.

“Well,” said the gooseherd one day, “it’s not the good end of the bargain that I have had in marrying; all the same, one must make the best one can of a crooked stick when there is none other to be cut in the hedge. It is little or nothing you are fit for; but here is a basket of eggs, and you shall take them to the market and sell them.”