“Ah!” said Hans quite loud as he passed, “what a fine thing riding must be. You are as comfortable as if you were in an arm-chair; you don’t stumble over any stones; you save your shoes, and you get over the road you hardly know how.”
The horseman, who heard him, stopped and said: “Hallo, Hans, why are you on foot?”
“I can’t help myself,” said Hans, “for I have this bundle to carry home. It is true that it is a lump of gold, but I can hardly hold my head up for it, and it weighs down my shoulder frightfully.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said the horseman, “we will change. I will give you my horse, and you shall give me your bundle.”
“With all my heart,” said Hans; “but you will be rarely weighted with it.”
The horseman dismounted, took the gold, and helped Hans up, put the bridle into his hands, and said: “When you want to go very fast, you must click your tongue and cry ‘Gee-up! Gee-up!’”
Hans was delighted when he found himself so easily riding along on horseback. After a time it occurred to him that he might be going faster, and he began to click with his tongue, and to cry, “Gee-up! Gee-up!” The horse broke into a gallop, and before Hans knew where he was he was thrown off into a ditch which separated the fields from the highroad. The horse would have run away if a peasant coming along the road leading a cow, had not caught it. Hans felt himself all over, and picked himself up; but he was very angry, and said to the peasant: “Riding is poor fun at times, when you have a nag like mine, which stumbles and throws you, and puts you in danger of breaking your neck. I will never mount it again. I think much more of your cow there. You can walk comfortably behind her, and you have her milk into the bargain every day, as well as butter and cheese. What would I not give for a cow like that!”
“Well,” said the peasant, “if you have such a fancy for it as all that, I will exchange the cow for the horse.”
Hans accepted the offer with delight, and the peasant mounted the horse and rode rapidly off.
Hans drove his cow peacefully on, and thought what a lucky bargain he had made. “If only I have a bit of bread, and I don’t expect ever to be without it, I shall always have butter and cheese to eat with it. If I am thirsty, I only have to milk my cow and I have milk to drink. My heart! what more can you desire?”