“Ah! my God!” he cried. “When a child falleth, the good Lord placeth a cushion under it, but when an old man tumbleth, the devil putteth a harrow beneath him. Behold me all sore and bruised. Of a certainty I shall ne’er find that brigand of a labourer.”
Quoth the labourer to the priest:
“Seek him no more, I counsel thee. Go home, and may the Lord go with thee. It were better for thy health.”
EXCURSUS to THE PRIEST AND THE LABOURER.
The foregoing story reminds one of the device employed by “The Youth who would Futter his Father’s Wives,” (The Thousand Nights and a Night: Supplemental Nights, vol. 6: Translated by Sir Richard F. Burton.) In the latter case the father sets out on a journey, but, having forgotten his shoes, instructs his son, who is accompanying him for a short way, to return and fetch them. The youth goes back, informs his father’s wives that they are to sleep with him in his parent’s absence, and, when they are incredulous, shouts to his father in the distance:
“O my papa, one of them or the two of them?”
The father, referring, of course, to his shoes, shouts back:
“The two! The two!”
The wives are convinced by this remark, as were the virgin daughters of the priest in our story from Kruptadia. We shall reserve further extracts from this Oriental narrative for a subsequent volume of Anthologica Rarissima, the plot and details being inappropriate to our present theme.