The servants unpacked splendid garments, and
washed him and dressed him, and when that was done, no King could have
looked more handsome. Then the maiden desired to see the horses which
the other apprentices had brought home with them, and one of them was
blind and the other lame. So she ordered the servant to bring the
seventh horse, and when the miller saw it, he said that such a horse as
that had never yet entered his yard. “And that is for the third
miller’s boy,” said she. “Then he must have the mill,” said the miller,
but the King’s daughter said that the horse was there, and that he was
to keep his mill as well, and took her faithful Hans and set him in the
coach, and drove away with him. They first drove to the little house
which he had built with the silver tools, and behold it was a great
castle, and everything inside it was of silver and gold; and then she
married him, and he was rich, so rich that he had enough for all the
rest of his life. After this, let no one ever say that anyone who is
silly can never become a person of importance. 107 The Two Travellers

Hill and vale do not come together, but the children of men do, good
and bad. In this way a shoemaker and a tailor once met with each other
in their travels. The tailor was a handsome little fellow who was
always merry and full of enjoyment. He saw the shoemaker coming towards
him from the other side, and as he observed by his bag what kind of a
trade he plied, he sang a little mocking song to him,

“Sew me the seam,
Draw me the thread,
Spread it over with pitch,
Knock the nail on the head.”


The shoemaker, however, could not endure a joke; he pulled a face as if
he had drunk vinegar, and made a gesture as if he were about to seize
the tailor by the throat. But the little fellow began to laugh, reached
him his bottle, and said, “No harm was meant, take a drink, and swallow
your anger down.” The shoemaker took a very hearty drink, and the storm
on his face began to clear away. He gave the bottle back to the tailor,
and said, “I spoke civilly to you; one speaks well after much drinking,
but not after much thirst. Shall we travel together?” “All right,”
answered the tailor, “if only it suits you to go into a big town where
there is no lack of work.” “That is just where I want to go,” answered
the shoemaker. “In a small nest there is nothing to earn, and in the
country, people like to go barefoot.” They travelled therefore onwards
together, and always set one foot before the other like a weasel in the
snow. Both of them had time enough, but little to bite and to break. When
they reached a town they went about and paid their respects to the
tradesmen, and because the tailor looked so lively and merry, and had
such pretty red cheeks, every one gave him work willingly, and when
luck was good the master’s daughters gave him a kiss beneath the porch,
as well. When he again fell in with the shoemaker, the tailor had
always the most in his bundle. The ill-tempered shoemaker made a wry
face, and thought, “The greater the rascal the more the luck,” but the
tailor began to laugh and to sing, and shared all he got with his
comrade. If a couple of pence jingled in his pockets, he ordered good
cheer, and thumped the table in his joy till the glasses danced, and it
was lightly come, lightly go, with him. When they had travelled for some time, they came to a great forest
through which passed the road to the capital. Two foot-paths, however,
led through it, one of which was a seven days’ journey, and the other
only two, but neither of the travellers knew which way was the short
one. They seated themselves beneath an oak-tree, and took counsel
together how they should forecast, and for how many days they should
provide themselves with bread. The shoemaker said, “One must look
before one leaps, I will take with me bread for a week.” “What!” said
the tailor, “drag bread for seven days on one’s back like a beast of
burden, and not be able to look about. I shall trust in God, and not
trouble myself about anything! The money I have in my pocket is as good
in summer as in winter, but in hot weather bread gets dry, and mouldy
into the bargain; even my coat does not go as far as it might. Besides,
why should we not find the right way? Bread for two days, and that’s
enough.” Each, therefore, bought his own bread, and then they tried
their luck in the forest. It was as quiet there as in a church. No wind stirred, no brook
murmured, no bird sang, and through the thickly-leaved branches no
sunbeam forced its way. The shoemaker spoke never a word, the heavy
bread weighed down his back until the perspiration streamed down his
cross and gloomy face. The tailor, however, was quite merry, he jumped
about, whistled on a leaf, or sang a song, and thought to himself, “God
in heaven must be pleased to see me so happy.”

This lasted two days, but on the third the forest would not come to an
end, and the tailor had eaten up all his bread, so after all his heart
sank down a yard deeper. In the meantime he did not lose courage, but
relied on God and on his luck. On the third day he lay down in the
evening hungry under a tree, and rose again next morning hungry still;
so also passed the fourth day, and when the shoemaker seated himself on
a fallen tree and devoured his dinner, the tailor was only a looker-on. If he begged for a little piece of bread the other laughed mockingly,
and said, “Thou hast always been so merry, now thou canst try for once
what it is to be sad: the birds which sing too early in the morning are
struck by the hawk in the evening,” In short he was pitiless. But on
the fifth morning the poor tailor could no longer stand up, and was
hardly able to utter one word for weakness; his cheeks were white, and
his eyes red. Then the shoemaker said to him, “I will give thee a bit
of bread to-day, but in return for it, I will put out thy right eye.”
The unhappy tailor who still wished to save his life, could not do it
in any other way; he wept once more with both eyes, and then held them
out, and the shoemaker, who had a heart of stone, put out his right eye
with a sharp knife. The tailor called to remembrance what his mother
had formerly said to him when he had been eating secretly in the
pantry. “Eat what one can, and suffer what one must.” When he had
consumed his dearly-bought bread, he got on his legs again, forgot his
misery and comforted himself with the thought that he could always see
enough with one eye. But on the sixth day, hunger made itself felt
again, and gnawed him almost to the heart. In the evening he fell down
by a tree, and on the seventh morning he could not raise himself up for
faintness, and death was close at hand.