A vassal of a lord who held his lands, it being at the season of the
new figs, and the lord walking through his land, saw a fine ripe fig at
the top of a fig-tree. The lord told the vassal to pluck it for him.
The vassal then thought: since he likes them, I will keep them for him.
So he tended the tree and watched it carefully.
When the figs were ripe, he brought the lord a basketful, thinking so
to win his favour. But when he brought them, the season was past, and
there was such an abundance of figs that they were almost given to the
swine.
The lord, seeing the figs, grew indignant, and ordered his servants to
bind the vassal and take the figs from him and to throw them one by one
in his face. And when a fig came near his eye, he cried out: my lord, I
thank you.
The servants owing to the strangeness of this, went and told their lord
who said: why did he say so? And the man answered: Sire, because I had
in mind to bring peaches, and if I had brought them, I should now be
blind.
Then the lord began to laugh, and had the man unbound and gave him
wherewith to dress himself again, and made him a present for the novel
thing he had said [133].