hat tree he prepared to accomplish his pleasant purposes.

And when he came to that place, his desires soon inflamed him, and he
waited not to begin his work, but attacked his wife and threw her on the
ground, for at that time he was very merry and his wife also.

He would fain see her both before and behind, and for that reason took
off her dress, so that she was only in her petticoat, and that he pulled
up very high in spite of her efforts, and that he might the better see
at his ease her beauties, he turned her this way and that, and three
or four times did his strong hand fall upon her big buttocks. Then he
turned her on the other side, and as he had regarded her backside,
so did he her front, to which the good, honest woman would in no wise
consent, and besides the resistance that she made, her tongue was not
idle.

She called him "ungracious", "a fool", "a madman", "disgusting", and
many other things, but it was no good; he was stronger than she was,
and would make an inventory of all her charms, and she was forced to
let him,--preferring, like a wise woman, to please her husband, than to
annoy him by a refusal.

Having broken down all her defences, this valiant man feasted his eyes
on her front part, and, shame to say, was not content until his hands
had revealed to his eyes all the secrets for which he searched.

And as he was profoundly studying her body, he would say, "I see this!
I see that! Now again this! Now again that!" until whosoever heard him
would have thought he saw all the world and much beside. And, finally,
after a long and thorough examination, he cried, "Holy Mary! what a lot
of things I see!"

"Alas, good people," then said the labourer in the tree; "you do not
happen to see my calf? It seems to me, sir, that I can see its tail."

The other was much vexed and astonished, and replied quickly,

"That tail is not the tail of your calf," and with that he walked away,
and his wife after him.

If it should be asked what moved the labourer to put that question, the
writer of this story would reply that the hair in front of this woman
was very long and thick, as is usual with the Dutch women, and he might
well have thought it was the tail of his calf, and as also her husband
was saying that he could see so many things--nearly everything there was
in the world--the labourer thought to himself that the calf could hardly
be far off, but might be hidden inside along with the other things.

***