But as he went the man met his sober cousin coming from the field for his first morning meal, having already worked a space since dawn, and this cousin called, “Where do you go and not at work?”
And the man answered complaining and very weak, “That woman of mine has cursed me ill over some small thing I scarcely know, and there is no pleasing her, and she cursed me so sore I had an illness in the night and it frightened even her so that she bade me rest myself today and I go to drink a little hot tea for the comfort of my belly.”
Then the cousin spat and passed on, saying nothing, for he was by nature a man who did not speak unless he must, and kept what few thoughts he had close in him.
So was the man impatient with his life and it seemed to him a thing not to be borne forever that there was to be no new thing for him, and only this wheel of days, year upon year, until he grew old and died. The more hard was it to him because the few travelers who came past the wayside inn told him of strange and wonderful things beyond the circle of the hills and at the mouth of the river that flowed past them. There the river met the sea, they said, and there was a vast city full of people of many hues of skin, and money was easy come by with very little work for it and gaming houses everywhere and pretty singing girls in every gaming house, such girls as the men in this hamlet had never even seen and could not hope to see their lives long. Strange sights there were in that city, streets as smooth as threshing-floors and carts of every sort, houses tall as mountains and shops with windows filled with merchandise of all the world that ships brought there from over seas. A man could spend a lifetime there looking at those windows and he could not finish with the looking. Good food and plenty was there, too, sea fish and sea meats, and after he had eaten a man might enter into a great playhouse where there was every sort of play and picture, some merry to make a man burst his belly with laughing and some strange and fierce and some very witty and vile to see. And strangest thing of all was this, that in the great city all the night was light as day with a sort of lamp they had, not made with hands nor lit with any flame, but with some pure light that was caught from out of heaven.
Sometimes the man gamed a while with such a traveler and ever the traveler was astonished at so skilled a gamester as he in this small country hamlet, and would cry, “Good fellow, you play as lucky as a city man, I swear, and you could play in any city pleasure house!”
The man smiled to hear this, then, and he said earnestly, “Do you think I could in truth?” and he would say in his own heart with scorn and longing, “It is true there is not one in this little dull place who dares play with me any more, and even in the town I hold my own against the townsmen.”
When he thought of this more than ever did he long exceedingly to leave this life of his upon the land he hated and often he muttered to himself as his hoe rose and fell lagging over the clods, “Here I be, young and pretty and with my luck all in my fingers, and here I be, stuck like a fish in a well. All I can see is this round sky over my head and the same sky in rain or shine, and in my house the same woman and one child after another and all alike weeping and brawling and wanting to be fed. Why should I wear my good body to the bone to feed them and never find any merry thing at all for me in my own life?”
And indeed, when the mother had conceived and borne this last son he was even sullen and angered against her because she bore so easily and so quickly after the last birth, although very well he knew this is a thing for which a wife should be praised and not blamed, and he might complain with justice only if she were barren, but never if she bore in her due season every year and sons more often than not.
But in these days justice was not in him. He was but a lad still in some ways, and younger by some two years than his wife was, as the custom was in those parts, where it was held fitting for a man to be younger than his wife, and his heart rose hot and high within him and it was nothing to him that he was the father of sons, seeing that he longed for pleasure and strange sights and any idle joy that he could find in some city far away.
And indeed he was such a one as heaven had shaped for joy. He was well formed and not tall, but strong and slight and full of grace, his bones small and exquisite. He had a pretty face, too, his eyes bright and black and full of laughter at what time he
