The boy did as the damsel advised him, and matters proceeded so satisfactorily that by a little after midday the work was completed. In the evening the gentleman said to him:
“Have you accomplished your task?”
“Yes, sir. Do you wish to see it? The wood is cut and tied into bundles of the proper weight and measurement.”
“It is well,” said the gentleman. “To-morrow I will set you the second task.”
On the following morning he took the lad to a knoll some distance from the castle, and said to him:
“You see this rising ground? By this evening you must have made it a garden well planted with fruit-trees and having a fish-pond in the middle, where ducks and other water-fowl may swim. Here are your tools.”
The tools were a pick of glass and a spade of earthenware. The boy commenced the work, but at the first stroke his fragile pick and spade broke into a thousand fragments. For the second time he sat down helplessly. Time passed slowly, and as before at midday the damsel in white brought him his dinner.
“So I find you once more with your arms folded,” she said.
“I cannot work with a pick of glass and an earthenware spade,” complained the youth.