The session over, the judge called Alois aside, and inquired how he had come to find so accurate an answer; upon which Alois, who burnt to proclaim the merit of his child, at once referred the honour to Katharina.
“That is it, is it?” replied the judge. “I have often seen the girl at church, and am not surprised that so comely a form is inhabited by so clever a mind. Now, go home, and tell your daughter that if she finds out the way to come to me without any clothes on, and yet not naked; not by day, and yet not by night; and by a way which shall be neither a high-road nor yet a by-path, I shall take the opportunity of her so coming to ask her to be my wife.”
Alois lost no time in returning home to tell the good news to his daughter. “I suppose you’ll find one of your clever ways of doing it, though, for myself, I confess I don’t understand a word of it.”
“But do you really mean that that good, noble, handsome judge really means to make his wife of a poor peasant girl like me?”
“He might do worse,” answered her father, with archness and pride. “But there is no doubt he was in earnest. You should have seen the fire in his eye when he spoke!”
“In that case, you may depend I will find the way to fulfil his directions: trust me for that!”
Nor was she long in finding a way which satisfied the judge completely. She took off all her clothes, and then covered herself with fishing-nets; this for the first condition. Then, for the second, she timed her journey in the dusk of evening, which is neither called day nor night; and, for the third, she had previously had the road covered with boards, and upon these she walked, so that she neither trod the high-road nor yet a by-path.
Delighted at acquiring such a prize, and having so clever a maiden for his future companion through life, the judge married Katharina before the end of the month. There were great rejoicings at the wedding, to which all the country-side was invited; and then the poor peasant girl was installed in the judge’s house. The judge, however, had exacted of her one condition, which was that she should never interfere with any of her clever suggestions in any case brought before him for decision, but let justice take its free and uninterrupted course.
Years passed by happily enough. The judge rejoiced more and more every day over the wisdom of his choice, and Katharina sedulously observed the condition imposed upon her, and never interfered with her husband’s dealings in the court.
Nevertheless, it happened one day that a peasant whom she had known from her infancy had a case before the judge which was nearly as perplexed as that of her father had been, and, despairing of making his right apparent, the peasant came to Katharina, and begged her, by their lifelong friendship, to give him one of those good counsels for which she had been so famous at home in the days gone by.