Some time afterwards, it happened that the Prior of the Abbey of Saint
Amand sent to the Lord of Avesnes a basket of oranges, with a
beautifully-written letter saying that these golden fruit, then unknown
in Flanders, came straight from a land where the sun always shone.
That evening Tubby and his son ate the golden apples at supper, and
thought them delicious.
Next morning as the day dawned, Désiré went down to the stable and
saddled his pretty white horse. Then he went, all dressed for a
journey, to the bedside of Tubby, and found him smoking his first pipe.
‘Father,’ he said gravely, ‘I have come to bid you farewell. Last night
I dreamed that I was walking in a wood, where the trees were covered
with golden apples. I gathered one of them, and when I opened it there
came out a lovely princess with a golden skin. That is the wife I want,
and I am going to look for her.’
The Lord of Avesnes was so much astonished that he let his pipe fall to
the ground; then he became so diverted at the notion of his son
marrying a yellow woman, and a woman shut up inside an orange, that he
burst into fits of laughter.
Désiré waited to bid him good-bye until he was quiet again; but as his
father went on laughing and showed no signs of stopping, the young
man took his hand, kissed it tenderly, opened the door, and in the
twinkling of an eye was at the bottom of the staircase. He jumped
lightly on his horse, and was a mile from home before Tubby had ceased
laughing.
‘A yellow wife! He must be mad! fit for a strait waistcoat!’ cried the
good man, when he was able to speak. ‘Here! quick! bring him back to
me.’
The servants mounted their horses and rode after the Prince; but as
they did not know which road he had taken, they went all ways except
the right one, and instead of bringing him back they returned
themselves when it grew dark, with their horses worn out and covered
with dust.