Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/211

Rh wished for it there it lay, and when the king saw there were two ships for one, he came down to the strand to see the rights of it, and there he saw the lad standing out in a boat with a brush in his hand as though he were painting out spots and making blisters in the paint good. But as soon as he saw the king down on the shore he threw away the brush and said—

"Now the ship is ready, may I have your daughter?"

"This is all very well," said the king, "but you try your hand at another masterpiece first. If you can build a palace, a match to my palace, in one or two hours, we will see about it." That was what the king said.

"Nothing worse than that!" bawled out the lad and strode off. So when he had sauntered about so long, that the time was nearly up, he wished that a palace might stand there the very match of that which stood there already. It was not long, I trow, before it stood there, and it was not long either before the king came, both with queen and princess, to look about him in the new palace. There stood the lad again with his broom and swept.

"Here's the palace right and ready," he called out; "may I have her now?"

"Very well, very well," said the king, "you may come in and we will talk it over," for he saw clearly the lad could do more than eat his meat, and so he walked up and down, and thought and thought how he might be rid of him. Yes! there they walked, the king first and foremost, and after him the queen, and then the princess next before the lad. So as they walked along, all at once the lad wished that he might become