But the king stepped down from his golden throne, dressed all in his golden robes, just as he was, and took the princess by the hand. “And do you not know me?” said he; “look! I am the gooseherd.”
And so he was! She could see it easily enough now, but that made her more ashamed than ever.
And listen: the king had more to tell her yet. He was the tipsy countryman and had knocked over her basket of eggs himself, and more than that he was the swineherd who had driven his pigs over her basket of apples so that they were spilled on the ground. But the princess only bowed her head lower and lower, for her pride was broken.
“Come,” says the king, “you are my own sweetheart now;” and he kissed her on the cheek and seated her beside himself, and if the princess cried any more the king wiped away her tears with his own pocket-handkerchief. As for the poor and rough clothes in which she was dressed, he thought nothing of them, for they were nothing to him.
That is the end of this story, for everything ends aright in a story worth the telling.
But if the princess was proud and haughty before, she never was again; and that is the plain truth, fresh from the churn and no hairs in it, and a lump of it is worth spreading your bread with, I can tell you.
Ten O’clock·