come here to the wood and take
out the bridle and shake it, and at once I will be with you." Then he
galloped away into the wood.

The lad in his moss wig went on until he came to the castle. He went
to the kitchen door and knocked, and asked if he might take service
there.

The kitchen wench looked at him and made a face as though she had a
sour taste in her mouth. "Take off that wig and let me see how you
look," said she. "With that on your head you are so ugly that no one
would want you around."

"I cannot take off my wig," said the lad, "for that I have been told
not to do."

"Then you may seek service elsewhere, for I cannot bear the look of
you," said the kitchen wench, and she shut the door in his face.

Next the lad went to the gardener and asked if he could help him in
the gardens, digging and planting.

The gardener looked and stared. "You are not a beauty," said he, "but
out here in the garden no one will be apt to see you, and I need a
helper, so you may stay."

So the lad became the gardener's helper and dug and hoed in the garden
all day.

Now the King and Queen of that country had one fair daughter, and she
was as pretty and as fresh as a rose.

One day the gardener set the lad to spading under the Princess's
window. She looked out, and there she saw him. "Br-r-r! But he is an
ugly one," said she. Nevertheless she couldn't keep her eyes off him.

After a while the lad grew hot with his work. He looked about him, and
he saw nobody, so he whipped off his wig to wipe his forehead, and
then he was as handsome a lad as ever was seen, so that the Princess's
heart turned right over at the sight of him. Then he put on his wig
and became ugly again, and went on spading, but now the Princess knew
what he was really like.

The next day there was the lad at work under her window again, but as
he had his wig on he was just as ugly as before. Then the Princess
said to her maid, "Go down there where the gardener's lad is working
and creep up behind him and twitch his wig off."

The maid went down to the garden and crept up back of the lad and gave
the wig a twitch, but he was too clever for her. He heard her coming,
and he held the wig tight down over his ears. All the same the
Princess had once seen what he was like without it, and she made up
her mind that if she could not have the gardener's lad for a husband
she would never marry any one.

Now after this there was a great war and disturbance in the