Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/371

Rh sooty and smutty, that the king thought it a shame that such a fellow should have his daughter. So he said he had a cellar full of ale and old wine, three hundred casks of each kind, which he must have drunk out first, and said the king—

"All the same, if you are man enough to drink them out by this time to-morrow, you shall have her."

"I can but try," said Boots; "but I may have leave, perhaps, to take one of my comrades with me."

"With all my heart," said the king, who thought he had so much ale and wine that the whole seven of them would soon get more than their skins could hold.

But Boots only took with him the man who sucked the tap, and who had such a swallow for ale, and then the king locked them both up in the cellar.

So he drunk cask after cask as long as there were any left, but at last he spared a drop or two, about as much as a quart or two, for each of his comrades. Next morning they unlocked the cellar, and Boots strode off at once to the king, and said he was done with the ale and wine, and now he must have his daughter as he had given his word.

"Ay, ay! but I must first go down into the cellar and see," said the king, for he didn't believe it. But when he got to the cellar, there was nothing in it but empty casks. But Boots was still black and smutty, and the king thought he never could bear to have such a fellow for his son-in-law. So he said, "No;" but all the same, if he could fetch him water from the world's end in ten minutes for the princess's tea, he should have both her and half the realm; for he thought that quite out of his power.