Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/178

156 also;" and as he said this, he held the lid of the tankard tight.

The charcoal-burner only wrung his hands and bemoaned himself.

"Oh! you most wretched crab and cripple on this earth," he cried out, "this is what all your back-slidings and sidelong tricks have brought on you."

"Ah!" cried out the king, "how could you say you did not know?" for you must know he had a crab in the tankard. So the charcoal-burner had to go into the parlour to the queen. He took a chair and sat down in the middle of the floor, while the queen walked up and down the room.

"One should never count one's chickens before they are hatched, and never quarrel about a baby's name before it is born," said the charcoal-burner; "but I never heard or saw such a thing before! When the queen comes toward me, I almost think it will be a prince, and when she goes away from me it looks as if it would be a princess."

Lo! when the time came, it was both a prince and a princess, for twins were born; and so the charcoal-burner had hit the mark that time too. And because he could tell that which no man could know, he got money in carts full, and was the next man to the king in the realm.