Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/125

Rh is it true that you once sold your daughters in order to become rich?"

In reply to his question, the father related to him, with tears in his eyes, all the particulars of that sad event. And when the son had heard the whole melancholy story, he stood for some time wrapped in thought, and then he said: "Father, I can bear this no longer. I am determined to go and seek my sisters, and find out, if I can, what has become of them. If they are unhappy or badly treated, I may be able to rescue them from their tormentors."

In vain did the father try to dissuade him; nothing could shake his determination. He accordingly started on his journey at hap-hazard, striking into the first turning that offered—a zig-zag path along the course of a mountain stream.

He had not travelled many leagues when fortune already began to favour him. He met three boys, fighting and quarrelling, and fearing from their angry words and blows they might come to harm, he went up to them and endeavoured to pacify them. He asked them the reason of their angry contention, and they, in reply, said to him: "Sir, we are brothers. Our good father has just died and left us as inheritance this pair of boots, cloak, and key, and our quarrel arose because each one of us wishes to possess the boots."

The fisherman's son then said: "How is it that