TWILIGHT LAND

smote his hands together, and there appeared in the ante-
room twenty handsome young men, each with a marble
bowl filled with gold money, and when Jacob Stuck came
out dressed in his fine clothes there they all were.

Jacob Stuck mounted upon the horse as white as milk,
the young men mounted each upon one of the black horses,
the troopers in the gold-and-silver armour wheeled their
horses, the trumpets blew, and away they rode—such a
sight as was never seen in that town before, when they
had come out into the streets. The young men with
the basins scattered the gold money to the people, and
a great crowd ran scrambling after, and shouted and
cheered.

So Jacob Stuck rode up to the king’s palace, and the
king himself came out to meet him with the princess
hanging on his arm.

As for the princess, she knew him the moment she laid
eyes on him. She came down the steps, and set the lock
of hair against his head, where she had trimmed it off the
night before, and it fitted and matched exactly. ‘This is
the young man,” said she, “and I will marry him, .and
none other.”

But the pie minister whispered and whispered in the
king’s ear: “T tell you this young man is nobody at all,”
said he, “but just some fellow who has had a little bit of
good luck.”

“ Pooh !” said the king, ‘stuff and nonsense! Just look
at all the gold and jewels and horses and men. What
will you do,” said he to soe Stuck, “if I let you marry
the princess ?”

“Twill,” said Jacob Stuck, “build for her the finest
palace that ever was seen in all this world.”

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