STORY THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH — A HUSBAND IN HIDING. [88]
By Alardin.
Of a poor, simple peasant married to a nice, pleasant woman, who did much as she liked, and who in order that she might be alone with her lover, shut up her husband in the pigeon-house in the manner you will hear.
In a pretty, little town near here, but which I will not name, there recently occurred an incident which will furnish a short story. There lived there a good, simple, unlettered peasant, married to a nice, pleasant woman, and as long as he had plenty to eat and drink he cared for little else. He was accustomed to often go into the country to a house he had there, and stay, three, or four days—sometimes more, sometimes less, as suited his pleasure, and left his wife to enjoy herself in the town, which she did, for, in order that she might not be frightened, she had always a man to take her husband’s place, and look after the workshop and see that the tools did not rust. Her method was to wait until her husband was out of sight, and not until she was quite sure that he would not return did she send for his deputy, in order that she might not be surprised.
But she could not always manage so well as not to be surprised, for once when her husband had remained away two or three days, and on the fourth day she had waited as long as possible until the gates of the town were closed; thinking he would not come that day, she closed the doors and the windows as on the other days, brought her lover into the house, and they began to drink and enjoy themselves.
They were scarcely seated at the table, when her husband came and thundered at the door, which he was much surprised to find closed.
When the good woman heard it, she hid her lover under the bed; then went to the door and demanded who knocked?
“Open the door,” replied her husband.