t is the use of it?" quoth the Earl's daughter.

"It is for no use," said the man.

"I may not believe that," said she; "else why should you carry it?"

"I do so," said he, "because it was so my fathers did in the ancient
ages; and I have neither a better reason nor a worse."

Now the Earl's daughter could not find it in her mind to believe him.
"Come," quoth she, "sell me this, for I am sure it is a thing of price."

"Nay," said the man, "the thing is not for sale."

"What!" cried the Earl's daughter. "Then what make you here in the
town's market, with the thing in your creel and nought beside?"

"I sit here," says the man, "to get me a wife."

"There is no sense in any of these answers," thought the Earl's daughter;
"and I could find it in my heart to weep."

By came the Earl upon that; and she called him and told him all. And
when he had heard, he was of his daughter's mind that this should be a
thing of virtue; and charged the man to set a price upon the thing, or
else be hanged upon the gallows; and that was near at hand, so that the
man could see it.

"The way of life is straight like the grooves of launching," quoth the
man. "And if I am to be hanged let me be hanged."

"Why!" cried the Earl, "will you set your neck against a shoe of a horse,
and it rusty?"

"In my thought," said the man, "one thing is as good as another in this
world and a shoe of a horse will do."

"This can never be," thought the Earl; and he stood and looked upon the
man, and bit his beard.

And the man looked up at him and smiled. "It was so my fathers did in
the ancient ages," quoth he to the Earl, "and I have neither a better
reason nor a worse."

"There is no sense in any of this," thought the Earl, "and I must be
growing old." So he had his daughter on one side, and says he: "Many
suitors have you denied, my child. But here is a very strange matter
that a man should cling so to a shoe of a horse, and it rusty; and that
he should offer it like a thing on sale, and yet not sell it; and that he
should sit there seeking a wife. If I come not to the bottom of this
thing, I shall have no more pleasure in bread; and I can see no way, but
either I should hang or you should marry him."

"By my troth, but he is bitter ugly," said the Earl's daughter. "How if
the gallows be so near at hand?"

"It was not so," said the Earl, "that my fathers did in the ancient ages.
I am like the man, and can give you neither a better rea