Everything went well for a week or a fortnight, and then the woman said, “Hark you, Husband, this cottage is far too small for us, and the garden and yard are little. The Flounder might just as well have given us a larger house. I should like to live in a great stone castle. Go to the Flounder, and tell him to give us a castle.”
“Ah, Wife,” said the man, “the cottage is quite good enough. Why should we live in a castle?”
“What!” said the woman; “go at once, the Flounder can always do that.”
“No, Wife,” said the man, “the Flounder has just given us the cottage. I do not like to go back so soon, it might make him angry.”
“Go,” said the woman, “he can do it quite easily, and will be glad to do it. Just you go to him.”
The man’s heart grew heavy, and he did not wish to go. He said to himself, “It is not right,” and yet he went.
And when he came to the sea, the water was quite purple and dark-blue, and gray and thick, and no longer green and yellow, but it was still quiet. And he stood there and said:
“Flounder, Flounder in the sea,
Come, I pray thee, here to me;
For my wife, Dame Ilsabil,
Wills not as I’d have her will.”
“Well, what does she want, now?” said the Flounder.
“Alas,” said the man, half scared, “she wants to live in a great stone castle.”