Then he prepared to return home with his wife, and they both mounted their horses. And as they rode on, the husband got a little ahead, while the wife fell behind. At last the husband’s horse neighed, and called to the mare—
“Come on! make haste! Why do you lag behind!”
And the mare answered him, “Ah yes, it is all very easy for you: you have only one to carry, the master; while I have to carry two, the mistress and her baby.”
The husband turned round and laughed, and his wife seeing this, urged the mare forward, overtook her husband, and asked him what he had been laughing at.
“Nothing; I do not know; just something that came into my mind,” answered the husband.
But the wife was not satisfied with this answer, and she pressed him again and again to tell her why he had laughed.
But he excused himself, and said—
“Let me alone, wife! What is the matter with you? I do not know myself why I laughed.”
But the more he denied her the more she insisted upon his telling her what he had been laughing at. At last the husband said to her—
“Know then, that if I tell you the reason, I shall instantly die.”