The good-looking shopman did not wait to be asked twice. He wooed straightway, and, before the Christmas cheer was on the table, he got yes for an answer.
Then years and years passed over them, and they thrived and prospered in house and home.
They had pretty and clever children. He rejoiced in his wife; nothing was good enough for her, and honour and ease were her portion, both at home and abroad.
But in the seventh year, when it was drawing towards Yule-tide, such a strange restlessness came over him. He wandered about all by himself, and could find peace nowhere.
His wife fretted and sorrowed over it. She knew not what it could be, and it seemed to her that he oddly avoided her. He would wander for hours together about the dark packhouse loft, among coffers and casks and barrels and sacks, and it was as though he didn't like folks to come thither when he was there.
Now it chanced on the day before Little Christmas Eve1 that one of the workpeople had to fetch something from the loft.
There stood the master, deep in thought, by one of the meal sacks, staring down on the ground before him.
"Don't you see the iron ring down in the floor there?" he asked.
But the man saw no ring.
"I see it there--the earth draws," he sighed heavily.