Besides, it was easy for them to get along, since the farm belonged to them, and they had a hundred solid crowns in a drawer of their closet and two excellent cows in their stable.  They lacked nothing, and could quietly pass their old age without fear of poverty or toil, and without having to look to the friendship or the commiseration of any of their fellow-creatures.

One evening, while they were talking over their various little tasks and projects, says the wife of Gudbrand to her husband,—­

’Husband, I’ve got a new notion in my head:  you must take one of our cows to town and sell her.  We’ll keep the other, and she’ll be quite enough to furnish us with all the milk and butter we can use.  Why should we toil for other people?  We’ve money lying in the drawer, and have no children to look after.  So, wouldn’t it be better to spare these arms of ours, now that they are growing old?  You will always find something to occupy your time about the house;—­there’ll be no lack of furniture and things to mend, and I’ll be more than ever beside you with my distaff and my knitting-needles.’

Gudbrand bethought him that his wife was right, as usual, and so, as the next morning was a beautiful one, he set off for the town, at an early hour, with the cow he wanted to sell.  But it was not market day, and he found no purchaser to take the animal off his hands.

‘Well! well!’ said Gudbrand, ’at all events, I can take Sukey back to the place I brought her from; I’ve got hay and litter in plenty, there, for the poor brute, and it’s no farther returning than it was coming hither.’  Whereupon, he very quietly started again on the road to his home.

After walking on for a few hours, and just as he was beginning to feel a little tired, he met a man leading a horse by the bridle toward the town.  The horse was in fine condition, and was all saddled and ready for a rider.  ‘The way is long and night rapidly coming on,’ thought Gudbrand.  ’I can hardly drag my cow along, and to-morrow I’ll have to take this same walk over again.  Now, here’s an animal that would suit me a great deal better, and I’d go back home with him, as proud as a lord.  Who would be delighted to see her husband returning in triumph, like a Roman general?  Why, the wife of Gudbrand!’

Upon this happy thought, Gudbrand stopped the trader and exchanged his cow for the horse.

Once mounted on the charger’s back, our hero felt some qualms of regret, for he was old and heavy, while the horse was young, frisky, and headstrong, so that, in less than half an hour, behold, our would-be cavalier was on foot again, vainly striving to drag along by the bridle a creature that cocked up his head at every puff of wind, and capered and pranced at every stone that lay in his path.

‘This is a poor bargain I’ve made,’ thought Gudbrand, when, just at that moment, he descried a peasant driving along a hog so fine and fat that its stomach touched the ground.