Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/210

188 "Am I to have your daughter?"

"That was just what we were to talk about," said the king; "perhaps she mayn't suit you, and perhaps you mayn't suit her either."

"That was very likely!" said the lad.

Now you must know there had just come a big ship from over the sea, and she could be seen from the palace windows.



"All the same!" said the king. "If you are good to make a ship in an hour or two like that lying yonder in the fjord and looking so brave, you may perhaps have her." That was what the king said.

"Nothing worse than that!" said the lad.

So he went down to the strand and sat down on a sandhill, and when he had sat there long enough, he wished that a ship might be out on the fjord fully furnished with masts and sails and rigging, the very match of that which lay there already. And as he