“With all my heart,” responded the compliant spouse; and thus disposed, they went to rest.
At midnight the villagers came, faithful to their appointment, in a strong body, and mounted the stairs[95] as quietly as might be. The foremost pushed open the shutter, and exclaimed, “Why, here’s the old idiot lying ready for us, across the window-sill!”
“Then we’re spared the trouble of hunting for him,” exclaimed the next.
“So here goes!” cried all together; and they showered their blows on the devoted body of the old wife, while Taland, comfortably enveloped in his coverlet, once more laughed at the success of his deceit, and the discomfiture of his foes.
Towards morning he rose, and taking up the dead body, placed it in a chair, and bore it along, together with the old spinning-wheel, a good distance down the high road; and there he left it, while he sat behind a bush to see what would happen.
Presently a fine lord came along the road driving a noble chariot.
“Holloa, good woman! get out of the way!” shouted the lord, while yet at a considerable distance; for he thought the old woman was silly, spinning in the roadway. But the corpse moved not for his shouting.
“Holloa! holloa, I say! you’ll be killed! move, can’t you?” he cried, thinking she was deaf, and hadn’t heard his first appeal. But still the corpse moved not.
“Get out of the way! get out of the road! can’t you?” at last fairly screamed the lord; for, never dreaming but that the woman would move in time, he had not reined in his fiery steeds—and now it was all too late! On one side went the old lady in the chair, and on the other side the fragments of the spinning-wheel, while the chariot dashed wildly on between them.
“What have I done?” said the lord, alighting from his chariot as soon as he could stop, and looking round him in wild despair.