of Spare, and charmed with Scrub's good
sense, more so when he showed them the golden leaf, and told that the
cuckoo would bring him one every spring. The new cobbler at once made
him a partner. The greatest people sent him their shoes to mend.
Fairfeather smiled kindly on him, and in the course of the summer they
were married, with a grand wedding feast, at which the whole village
danced, except Spare, who was not invited, because the bride said he was
low-minded, and his brother thought he was a disgrace to the family.

Indeed, all who heard the story thought that Spare must be mad, and
nobody would take up with him but a lame tinker, a beggar boy, and a
poor woman, who was looked upon as a witch because she was old and ugly.
As for Scrub, he went with Fairfeather to a cottage close by that of the
new cobbler, and quite as fine. There he mended shoes so as to please
everyone, had a scarlet coat for holidays, and a fat goose for dinner
every wedding-day. Fairfeather, too, had a crimson gown and fine blue
ribbons. But neither she nor Scrub were content, for to buy all these
grand things the golden leaf had to be broken and parted with piece by
piece, so the last morsel was gone before the cuckoo came with another.

Spare lived on in the old hut, and worked in the cabbage garden. (Scrub
had got the barley field, because he was the elder.) Every day his coat
grew more ragged, and the hut more weather-beaten, but the people
remarked that he never looked sad nor sour. The wonder was, that from
the time they began to keep his company, the tinker grew kinder to the
ass with which he travelled the country, the beggar boy kept out of
mischief, and the old woman was never cross to her cat or angry with the
children.

Every first of April the cuckoo came tapping at their doors with the
golden leaf to Scrub and the green to Spare. Fairfeather would have
treated him nobly with wheaten bread and honey, for she had some notion
of trying to make him bring two gold leaves instead of one. But the
cuckoo flew away to eat barley bread with Spare, saying he was not fit
company for fine people, and liked the old hut where he slept so snugly
from Christmas to Spring.

Scrub spent the golden leaves, and Spare kept the merry ones; and I know
not how many years passed in this manner, when a great lord, who owned
that village, came to dwell near. His castle stood on the moor. It was
old and strong, with high towers and a deep moat. All the c