Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/50

Rh Forthwith she put upon the table all manner of meats and beverages, and they fell to eating and drinking. Having feasted, they betook themselves to bed. When he had pierced his wife with this yard, she, for three whole days, was ever peering 'neath his garment; it seemed to her that the yard was ever thrusting between her legs.

She went to pay a visit to her mother, what time her husband hied him to the garden and lay down 'neath an apple tree.

"Well," asked the mother of her daughter, "have ye bought back the yard?"

"We have bought it back, little mother."

And the mother had but one thought: to steal away, profiting by her daughter's visit, to run to the house of her son-in-law, and to make trial of his great yard.

And while the daughter chattered, the mother came to the house of the son-in-law and sped into the garden. The son-in-law was aslumbering; the ring was on his finger nail, and his yard stood erect to the height of a cubit's span.

"I will mount upon his yard," said the good mother to herself.

And she mounted, in sooth, upon the yard, and balanced herself thereon.

But, by ill fortune, the ring slipped to the base of the finger of the son-in-law what time he slept, and the yard raised the good mother to the height of seven versts.

The daughter perceived that her mother had gone forth, she divined the reason, and hastened to return home. In her house there was no one. She went into the garden, and what saw she? Her husband aslumbering, his yard raised to a vast