East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon Part 12

But it wouldn't boil a bit more on the block than on the bare floor. So he saw that Peik had been out with his fooling rods this time, too. Then he fell a-tearing his hair, and said he would set off at once and slay the lad. He wouldn't spare him this time, whether or no.

But Peik was ready for him. He had filled a leather bag with blood and stuffed it into his sister's bosom, and told her what to say and do.

"Where's Peik?" screamed out the King. He was in such a rage that he stuttered and stammered.

"He is so poorly that he can't stir hand or foot," she said, "and now he's trying to get a nap."

"Wake him up!" said the King.

"Nay, I daren't, he will be so angry," said the sister.

"Well, I am angrier still," said the King, "and if you don't wake him, I will," and with that he tapped his side where his knife hung.

"Well, she would go and wake him," but Peik turned hastily in his bed, drew out a knife and ripped open the leather bag in her bosom, so that the blood gushed out, and down she fell on the floor as though she were dead.

"What an awful fellow you are, Peik," said the King; "you have killed your sister right before my eyes!"

"Oh, there's no trouble with her so long as there's breath in my nostrils," said Peik, and with that he pulled out a ram's horn and began to toot on it.

"Toot-e-too-too," he blew, with one end of the horn to her body, and up she rose as though there was nothing the matter with her.

"Dear me, Peik! Can you kill folk and blow life into them again? Can you do that?" said the King.

"Why!" said Peik, "how could I get on at all if I couldn't? I am always killing every one I come near; don't you know I have a terrible temper?"

"I am hot-tempered, too," said the King, "and that horn I must have.

I'll give you a hundred dollars for it, and besides I'll forgive you for cheating me out of my horse and for fooling me about the pot and the block, and all else."

Peik was loth to part with it, but for his sake he would let him have it. And so the King went off home with it, and he hardly got back before he must try it.

So he fell a-wrangling and quarreling with the queen and his eldest daughter, and they paid him back in the same coin; but before they knew what was happening he had whipped out his knife and cut their throats.

They fell down stone dead and the other two daughters ran from the house, they were so afraid.

The King walked about the floor for a while and kept chattering that there was no harm done so long as there was breath in him, and then he pulled out the horn and began to blow "Toot-e-too-too! Toot-e-too-too!"

but, though he blew and tooted as hard as he could all that day and the next, too, he could not blow life into them again. Dead they were, and dead they stayed. But the people in the kingdom were only glad to get rid of such troll-folk, and were wis.h.i.+ng some one might make an end of the King, too, so that they might have a good King in his place.

But the King was now angrier than ever, and must go right off to kill Peik.

But Peik knew that he was coming and then he said to his sister--

"Now, you must change clothes with me and set off. If you will do that, you may have all we own."

So, she changed clothes with him, packed up and started off as fast as she could; but Peik sat all alone in his sister's clothes.

"Where is that Peik?" roared the King, as as he came, in a towering rage, through the door.

"He has run away," said Peik. "He knew that your Majesty was coming, so he left me all alone without a morsel of bread or a penny in my purse,"

and he made himself as gentle and sweet as a young lady.

"Come along, then, to the King's palace, and you shall have enough to live on. There's no good sitting here and starving in this cabin by yourself," said the King.

So Peik went home with the King, and there he was treated as the King's own daughter, for Miss Peik sewed and st.i.tched and sang and played with the others, and was with them early and late.

But one day a man came to the King and told him that Peik's sister was at a farm in the neighborhood, and that it was Peik he had brought up in his own house. Now, Peik had heard all that the man told the King, so he ran away from the King's palace, out into the wide world.

The King got into a terrible rage then, and called for Peik, but he was nowhere to be found. Then he mounted his horse to go out to look for Peik.

He had not gone far before he came to a ploughed field and there sat Peik on a stone, playing on a mouth organ.

"What! Are you sitting there, Peik?" said the King.

"Here I sit, sure enough," said Peik; "where else should I sit?"

"You have cheated me foully time after time," said the King, "but now you must come along home with me, and I'll kill you."

"Well, well," said Peik, "if it can't be helped, it can't; I suppose I must go along with you."

When they got home to the King's palace they got ready a barrel which Peik was to be put in, and when it was ready they carted it up a high mountain. There he was to lie three days, thinking on all the evil he had done, then they were to roll him down the mountain into the sea.

The third day a rich man pa.s.sed by and when he heard Peik's story he was ready to help him out of his trouble.

They made a stuffed man and put him with some stones into the barrel--but the rich man gave Peik horses and cows, sheep and swine, and money beside.

Now, the King came to roll Peik down the mountain. "A happy journey!"

said the King, "and now it is all over with you and your fooling rods."

Before the barrel was halfway down the mountain there was not a whole stave of it left, nor would there have been a whole limb on Peik, had he been there. But when the King came back to the palace, Peik was there before him, and sat in the court-yard playing on his mouth organ.

"What! You sitting here, you, Peik?"

"Yes! Here I sit, sure enough. Where else should I sit?" said Peik.

"Maybe I can get room here for all my horses and sheep and money."

"But whither was it that I rolled you that you got all this wealth?"

asked the King.

"Oh, you rolled me into the sea," said Peik, "and when I got to the bottom there was more than enough and to spare, both of horses and sheep, and of gold and silver. The cattle went about in great flocks, and the gold and silver lay in large heaps as big as houses."

"What will you take to roll me down the same way?" asked the King.

"Oh," said Peik, "it costs little or nothing to do it. Besides, you took nothing from me, and so I'll take nothing from you either."

So he stuffed the King into a barrel and rolled him over, and when he had given him a ride down to the sea for nothing, he went home to the King's palace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: So he stuffed the King into the barrel and rolled him over]

Then he began to hold his bridal feast with the youngest princess, and afterwards he ruled the land both well and long. But he kept his fooling rods to himself, and kept them so well that nothing was ever heard of Peik and his tricks, but only of "Ourself the King."