“There is no sense in any of these answers,” thought the Earl’s daughter; “and I could find it in my heart to weep.”
By came the Earl upon that; and she called him and told him all. And when he had heard, he was of his daughter’s mind that this should be a thing of virtue; and charged the man to set a price upon the thing, or else be hanged upon the gallows; and that was near at hand, so that the man could see it.
“The way of life is straight like the grooves of launching,” quoth the man. “And if I am to be hanged let me be hanged.”
“Why!” cried the Earl, “will you set your neck against a shoe of a horse, and it rusty?”
“In my thought,” said the man, “one thing is as good as another in this world; and the shoe of a horse will do.“
“This can never be,” thought the Earl; and he stood and looked upon the man, and bit his beard.
And the man looked up at him and smiled. “It was so my fathers did in the ancient ages,” quoth he to the Earl, “and I have neither a better reason nor a worse.”
“There is no sense in any of this,” thought the Earl, “and I must be growing old.” So he had his daughter on one side, and says he: “Many suitors have you denied, my child. But here is a very strange matter that a man should cling so to a shoe of a horse, and it rusty; and that he should offer it like a thing on sale, and yet not sell it; and that he should sit there seeking a wife. If I come not to the bottom of this thing, I shall have no more pleasure in bread; and I can see no way, but either I should hang or you should marry him.”
“By my troth, but he is bitter ugly,” said the Earl’s daughter. “How if the gallows be so near at hand?”
“It was not so,” said the Earl, “that my fathers did in the ancient ages. I am like the man, and can give you neither a better reason nor a worse. But do you, prithee, speak with him again.”