Page:The Way of a Virgin.djvu/60

Rh "Ah!" aswered the young wife. "Had I known, had I truly known the business, I had not listened to my father or my mother. I thought to lose my life, and my tongue hung from my mouth a foot in length."

The young friend was so affrighted that she had no wish to speak further of fiancés.

"I will wed with none," quoth she. "And if my father seeks to employ violence, I will espouse, for form's sake, the first bachelor I encounter."

Now there was in the same village a young lad and a very poor. None would give him a seemly maid in marriage, and he did not desire an ill; by chance he overheard the conversation of the young girls.

"Wait," thought he to himself. "I will play a trick on that one. At a suitable moment I will say that I have no yard."

Came a day when the young girl went to mass; she beheld the lad leading his horse, thin and unshod, to the watering place; the poor beast went limping, and the young girl laughed. They came to a steep slope; the mare climbed with difficulty, then fell and rolled on her back. The lad was annoyed, seized the mare by her tail, and fell to beating her without pity, saying:

"Get up! Thou wilt flay all the skin off thyself!"

"Why beatest thou the horse,brigand?" asked the young girl.

The lad lifted the tail, looked at it and said:

"And what should I do? Futter her? But I have no yard."

When the girl heard his words, she pissed herself with joy, saying: