give you the virtue they
withheld".

And the man said: "Bones of my fathers, greeting! for I am sprung of your
loins. And now, behold, I break open the piled stones of your cairn, and
I let in the noon between your ribs. Count it well done, for it was to
be; and give me what I come seeking in the name of blood and in the name
of God."

And the spirits of the dead stirred in the cairn like ants; and they
spoke: "You have broken the roof of our cairn and let in the noon between
our ribs; and you have the strength of the still-living. But what virtue
have we? what power? or what jewel here in the dust with us, that any
living man should covet or receive it? for we are less than nothing. But
we tell you one thing, speaking with many voices like bees, that the way
is plain before all like the grooves of launching: So forth into life and
fear not, for so did we all in the ancient ages." And their voices
passed away like an eddy in a river.

"Now," said the Poor Thing, "they have told you a lesson, but make them
give you a gift. Stoop your hand among the bones without drawback, and
you shall find their treasure."

So the man stooped his hand, and the dead laid hold upon it many and
faint like ants; but he shook them off, and behold, what he brought up in
his hand was the shoe of a horse, and it was rusty.

"It is a thing of no price," quoth the man, "for it is rusty."

"We shall see that," said the Poor Thing; "for in my thought it is a good
thing to do what our fathers did, and to keep what they kept without
question. And in my thought one thing is as good as another in this
world; and a shoe of a horse will do."

Now they got into their boat with the horseshoe, and when the dawn was
come they were aware of the smoke of the Earl's town and the bells of the
Kirk that beat. So they set foot to shore; and the man went up to the
market among the fishers over against the palace and the Kirk; and he was
bitter poor and bitter ugly, and he had never a fish to sell, but only a
shoe of a horse in his creel, and it rusty.

"Now," said the Poor Thing, "do so and so, and you shall find a wife and
I a mother."

It befell that the Earl's daughter came forth to go into the Kirk upon
her prayers; and when she saw the poor man stand in the market with only
the shoe of a horse, and it rusty, it came in her mind it should be a
thing of price.

"What is that?" quoth she.

"It is a shoe of a horse," said the man.

"And wha