torn, but "everything in its place" cannot always be managed, and
therefore he stuck the piece in the ground. "Grow and prosper till you
can furnish a good flute for them up yonder," he said; for he would
have liked to play the "rogue's march" for my lord the baron, and my
lord's whole family. And then he betook himself to the castle, but not
into the ancestral hall, he was too humble for that! He went to the
servants' quarters, and the men and maids turned over his stock of
goods, and bargained with him; and from above, where the guests were
at table, came a sound of roaring and screaming that was intended for
song, and indeed they did their best. Loud laughter, mingled with the
barking and howling of dogs, sounded through the windows, for there
was feasting and carousing up yonder. Wine and strong old ale foamed
in the jugs and glasses, and the dogs sat with their masters and dined
with them. They had the pedlar summoned upstairs, but only to make fun
of him. The wine had mounted into their heads, and the sense had flown
out. They poured wine into a stocking, that the pedlar might drink
with them, but that he must drink quickly; that was considered a rare
jest, and was a cause of fresh laughter. And then whole farms, with
oxen and peasants too, were staked on a card, and won and lost.

"Everything in its right place!" said the pedlar, when he had at last
made his escape out of what he called "the Sodom and Gomorrah up
yonder." "The open high-road is my right place," he said; "I did not
feel at all happy there." And the little maiden who sat keeping the
geese nodded at him in a friendly way, as he strode along beside the
hedges.

And days and weeks went by; and it became manifest that the willow
branch which the pedlar had stuck into the ground by the castle moat
remained fresh and green, and even brought forth new twigs. The little
goose-girl saw that the branch must have taken root, and rejoiced
greatly at the circumstance; for this tree, she said, was now her
tree.

The tree certainly came forward well; but everything else belonging to
the castle went very rapidly back, what with feasting and
gambling--for these two things are like wheels, upon which no man can
stand securely.

Six years had not passed away before the noble lord passed out of the
castle-gate, a beggared man, and the mansion was bought by a rich
dealer; and this purchaser was the very man who had once been made a
jest of there, for whom wine h