"Listen, Hirsko; I'll give you a new suit from head to foot, if you'll take this letter through. If you return, you shall have wine enough for a lifetime."
"And if I go to the bottom, I shall have water enough for a lifetime."
"Just try it. It's not so very dangerous. See this purse, it's full of money; that too is yours, if you succeed."
The Fool shook his big head. He was not ready to accept her proposition that he should "just try it, for he could float like a pumpkin."
"Now listen, Hirsko; I know that you have always been in love with me. If you carry this letter over and come back, I'll be your wife."
At this the Fool gave a bound, and then began tugging with both hands at his shoe strings.
"Tira li! You're not joking, just give me a kiss."
Idalia offered her lips to the monster. He hurried out of the room with the letter, down to the Waag, striding along with a six-foot pole. Idalia stationed herself at the balcony window and watched her messenger. The ice had already begun to move on the Waag; single fields of it floated down the centre of the stream, and giant cakes were heaped one above another; only a Fool would undertake such a task. The messenger's figure disappeared at times behind the barricades and then reappeared: now and then, he broke in, and worked his way out again with his pole. After an hour's struggle in the very face of Providence, he reached the other shore.
"He's well over," said Idalia, and left the window. For Hirsko it was hardly well; for Lord Grazian, when he had read the letter, in his first outburst of anger, had him bound and scourged to the full value of a woman's kiss. But the arrow had not missed its mark; it clung fast by the barb to his heart.—
Now Idalia can go to breakfast. Father Peter was already there; his face showed no change.