th, but he is bitter ugly," said the Earl's daughter. "How if
the gallows be so near at hand?"

"It was not so," said the Earl, "that my fathers did in the ancient
ages. I am like the man, and can give you neither a better reason nor a
worse. But do you, prithee, speak with him again."

So the Earl's daughter spoke to the man. "If you were not so bitter
ugly," quoth she, "my father the Earl would have us marry."

"Bitter ugly am I," said the man, "and you as fair as May. Bitter ugly
I am, and what of that? It was so my fathers----"

"In the name of God," said the Earl's daughter, "let your fathers be!"

"If I had done that," said the man, "you had never been chaffering with
me here in the market, nor your father the Earl watching with the end of
his eye."

"But come," quoth the Earl's daughter, "this is a very strange thing,
that you would have me wed for a shoe of a horse, and it rusty."

"In my thought," quoth the man, "one thing is as good----"

"O, spare me that," said the Earl's daughter, "and tell me why I should
marry."

"Listen and look," said the man.

Now the wind blew through the Poor Thing like an infant crying, so that
her heart was melted; and her eyes were unsealed, and she was aware of
the thing as it were a babe unmothered, and she took it to her arms and
it melted in her arms like the air.

"Come," said the man, "behold a vision of our children, the busy hearth,
and the white heads. And let that suffice, for it is all God offers."

"I have no delight in it," said she; but with that she sighed.

"The ways of life are straight like the grooves of launching," said the
man; and he took her by the hand.

"And what shall we do with the horse-shoe?" quoth she.

"I will give it to your father," said the man; "and he can make a kirk
and a mill of it for me."

It came to pass in time that the Poor Thing was born; but memory of
these matters slept with him, and he knew not that which he had done.
But he was a part of the eldest son; rejoicing manfully to launch the
boat into the surf, skilful to direct the helm, and a man of might where
the ring closes and the blows are going.

XX

THE SONG OF THE MORROW

The King of Duntrine had a daughter when he was old, and she was the
fairest King's daughter between two seas; her hair was like spun gold,
and her eyes like pools in a river; and the King gave her a castle upon
the sea beach, with a terrace, and a court of the hewn stone, and four