Donegal Fairy Tales - McManus Seumas - Страница 13
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“Well,” says Jack, says he, “those must be wonderful chaps. I wish I had been there; but I had to be away on a message for your father all day.”
“Oh, my poor Hookedy-Crookedy,” says she, “it was better so, for what could you do?”
The next day, when it was near dinner time, he went off to the wood to the mare and the bear and got on the suit he had worn the day before in the battle, and mounted the mare and rode for the castle, and when he came there all the gates happened to be closed, but he put the mare at the walls, which were nine miles high, and leapt them.
The King scolded the gate-keepers, but Jack said a trifle like that didn’t harm him or his mare. After dinner the King asked him what he thought of his two daughters and their husbands. Jack said they were very good and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.
The King said he used to have another, the youngest, but she would not consent to marry as he wished, and he had banished her out of his sight.
Jack said he would like to see her.
The King said he never wished to let her enter company again, but he could not refuse Jack; so the Yellow Rose was sent for.
Jack fell a-chatting with her and used all his arts to win her, and of course, in this handsome Jack she did not recognize ugly little Hookedy-Crookedy. He told her he had heard that she had the very bad taste to fall in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in her father’s garden.
“I am a handsome fellow, and a rich prince,” says Jack, “and I will give you myself and all I possess if you will only say you will accept me.”
She was highly insulted, and she showed him that very quickly. She said, “I won’t sit here and hear the man I love abused;” and she got up to leave.
“Well,” says Jack, “I admire your spirit; but before you go,” says he,“ let me make you a little present,” and he handed her a tablecloth. “There,” says he, “if you marry Hookedy-Crookedy, as long as you have this tablecloth, you will never want eating and drinking of the best.” The other two sisters grabbed to get the tablecloth from her, but Jack put out his hands and pushed them back.
At dinner-time the next day Jack came in the dress in which he had gone into the second battle, and with the mare he cleared the walls as on the day before.
The King was enraged at the gate-keepers and began to scold them, but Jack laughed at them and said a trifle like that was nothing to him or his mare.
After dinner was over the King asked what he thought of his two daughters and their husbands.
Jack said they were very good, and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.
The King said, “I have no more except one who won’t do as I wish and who has fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in my garden, and I ordered her never to come into my sight.”
But Jack said he would very much like to see her.
The King said that on Jack’s account he would break his vow and let her come in. So the Yellow Rose was brought in, and Jack fell to chatting with her. He did all he could to make her fall in love with him, and told her of all his great wealth and possessions and offered himself to her, and said if she only would marry him she should live in ease and luxury and happiness all the days of her life, as she never could do with Hookedy-Crookedy.
But Yellow Rose got very angry, and said: “I won’t sit here and listen to such things,” and she got up to leave the room.
“Well,” says Jack, “I admire your spirit, and before you go let me make you a little present.”
So he handed her a purse. “Here,” says he, “is a purse, and all the days yourself and Hookedy-Crookedy live you will never want for money, for that purse will never be empty.”
Her sisters made a grab to snatch it from her, but Jack shoved them back, and went out. And Jack rode away with the mare after dinner and left her in the wood.
When he came back to his garden he always came in the Hookedy-Crookedy shape and always pretended he had been off on a message for the King.
The third day he went to the wood again. He dressed in the suit in which he had gone to the first battle, and when he came back he went to the castle and cleared the walls, and when the King scolded the gate-keepers Jack told him never to mind, as that was a small trifle to him and his mare.
A very grand dinner indeed Jack had this day, and when they chatted after dinner the King asked him how he liked his two daughters and their husbands.
He said he liked them very well, and asked him if he had any more daughters in his family.
The King said no, except one foolish one who wouldn’t do as he wished, and who had fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in his garden, and she was never to come within his sight again.
Says Jack, “I would like to see that girl.”
The King said he could not refuse Jack any request he made, so he sent for the Yellow Rose. When she came in, Jack fell into chat with her, and did his very, very best to make her fall in love with him. But it was of no use. He told her of all his wealth and all his grand possessions, and said if she would marry him she should own all these, and all the days she should live she should be the happiest woman in the wide world, but if she married Hookedy-Crookedy, he said, she would never be free from want and hardships, besides having an ugly husband.
If the Yellow Rose was in a rage on the two days before, she was in a far greater rage now. She said she wouldn’t sit there to listen. She told Jack that Hookedy-Crookedy was in her eyes a far more handsome and beautiful man than he or than any king’s son she had ever seen. She said to Jack, that if he were ten times as handsome and a hundred times as wealthy, she wouldn’t give Hookedy-Crookedy’s little finger for himself, or for all his wealth and possessions, and then she got up to leave the room.
“Well,” says Jack, says he, “I admire your spirit very much, and,” says he, “I would like to make you a little present. Here is a comb,” he said, “and it will comb out of your hair a bushel of gold and a bushel of silver every time you comb with it, and, besides,” says he, “it will make handsome the ugliest man that ever was.”
When the other sisters heard this they rushed to snatch the comb from her, but Jack threw them backwards so very roughly that their husbands sprang at him. With a back switch of his two hands Jack knocked the husbands down senseless. The King flew into a rage, and said, “How dare you do that to the two finest and bravest men of this world ?”
“Fine and brave, indeed!” said Jack. “One and the other they are worthless creatures, and not even your lawful sons-in-law.”
“How dare you say that ?” says the King.
“Strip their backs where they lie and see far yourself.” And there the King saw written, “An unlawfully married man.”
“What is the meaning of this?” says the King. “They were lawfully married to my two daughters, and they have the golden tokens of the marriage.”
Jack drew out from his pocket the golden balls and handed them to the King, and said, “It is I who have the tokens.”
The Yellow Rose had gone off to the garden in the middle of all this. Jack made the King sit down, and told him all his story, and how he came by the golden balls. He told him how he was Hookedy-Crookedy, and that it reflected a great deal of honor on his youngest daughter that she whom the King thought so worthless should refuse to give up Hookedy-Crookedy for the one she thought a wealthy prince. The King, you may be sure, was now highly delighted to grant him all he desired. A couple of drops of loca brought the King’s two sons to their senses again, and at Jack’s request, they were ordered to go and live elsewhere. Jack went off, left his mare in the wood, and came into the garden as Hookedy-Crookedy. He told the Yellow Rose he had been gathering bilberries.
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