“It would be a good thing,” said Nomerfide, “if you had a wife like one who, after her husband’s death, proved that she loved her money better than her conscience.”

“I pray you,” said Saffredent, “tell us that tale.  I give you my vote.”

“I had not intended,” said Nomcrfide, “to relate so short a story, but, since it is suited to the occasion, I will do so.”

[Illustration:  042.jpg Tailpiece]

[Illustration:  043a.jpg The Servant selling the Horse with the Cat]

[The Servant selling the Horse with the Cat]

[Illustration:  043.jpg Page Image]

TALE LV.

     A merchant’s widow, whilst carrying out her husband’s will,
     interpreted its purport to the advantage of herself and her
     children. (1)

In the town of Safagossa there lived a rich merchant, who, finding his death draw nigh, and himself no longer able to retain possession of his goods—–­which he had perchance gathered together by evil means—­thought that if he made a little present to God, he might thus after his death make part atonement for his sins, just as though God sold His pardon for money.  Accordingly, when he had settled matters in respect of his house, he declared it to be his desire that a fine Spanish horse which he possessed should be sold for as much as it would bring, and the money obtained for it be distributed among the poor.  And he begged his wife that she would in no wise fail to sell the horse as soon as he was dead, and distribute the money in the manner he had commanded.

1 Whether the incidents here related be true or not, it is probable that this was a story told to Queen Margaret at the time of her journey to Spain in 1525.  It will have been observed (ante, pp. 36 and 42) that both the previous tale and this one are introduced into the Heptameron in a semi- apologetic fashion, as though the Queen had not originally intended that her work should include such short, slight anecdotes.  However, already at this stage—­the fifty-fifth only of the hundred tales which she proposed writing—­she probably found fewer materials at her disposal than she had anticipated, and harked back to incidents of her earlier years, which she had at first thought too trifling to record.  Still, slight as this story may be, it is not without point.  The example set by the wife of the Saragossa merchant has been followed in modern times in more ways than one.—­Ed.

When the burial was over and the first tears were shed, the wife, who was no more of a fool than Spanish women are used to be, went to the servant who with herself had heard his master declare his desire, and said to him—­

“Methinks I have lost enough in the person of a husband I loved so dearly, without afterwards losing his possessions.  Yet would I not disobey his word, but rather better his intention; for the poor man, led astray by the greed of the priests, thought to make a great sacrifice to God in bestowing after his death a sum of money, not a crown of which, as you well know, he would have given in his lifetime to relieve even the sorest need.  I have therefore bethought me that we will do what he commanded at his death, and in still better fashion than he himself would have done if had he lived a fortnight longer.  But no living person must know aught of the matter.”