Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/36

14 That was neither a long nor perilous piece of work: he was quite game to do that, said Osborn Boots. So he began to tell how it had all happened from the very first. He told about the old wife and her nose in the log, and then he went on to say, "Well, but I must lie faster if the vat is to be full." So he went on to tell of the pipe and how he got it; and of the maid, how she came to him and wanted to buy it for a hundred dollars, and of all the kisses she had to give besides, away there in the wood. Then he told of the princess how she came and kissed him so sweetly for the pipe when no one could see or hear it all away there in the wood. Then he stopped and said, "I must lie faster if the vat is ever to be full." So he told of the queen, how close she was about the money and how overflowing she was with her smacks. "You know I must lie hard to get the vat full," said Osborn.

"For my part," said the queen, "I think it's pretty full already."

"No! no! it isn't," said the king.

So he fell to telling how the king came to him, and about the white horse down on the marsh, and how, if the king was to have the pipe, he must—"Yes, your majesty, if the vat is ever to be full I must go on and lie hard," said Osborn Boots.

"Hold! hold, lad! It's full to the brim," roared out the king; "don't you see how it is foaming over?"

So both the king and the queen thought it best he should have the princess to wife and half the kingdom. There was no help for it.

"That was something like a pipe," said Osborn Boots.