"Glass shoes," said he, "are not by any means such rare articles, my
good friend, as you think here in Rodenkirchen, because you do not
happen to go much into the world. However," said he, after humming a
little, "I will give you a good price for it, because I happen to have
the very fellow of it."
He bid the countryman a thousand dollars for it.
"A thousand dollars are money, my father used to say when he drove fat
oxen to market," replied John Wilde, in a mocking tone; "but it will not
leave my hands for that shabby price, and, for my own part, it may
ornament the foot of my daughter's doll! Hark ye, my friend, I have
heard a sort of little song sung about the glass shoe, and it is not for
a parcel of dirt it will go out of my hands. Tell me now, my good
fellow, should you happen to know the knack of it, how in every furrow I
make when I am ploughing I may find a ducat? If not, the shoe is still
mine; and you may inquire for glass shoes at those other markets."
The merchant made still a great many attempts, and twisted and turned in
every direction to get the shoe; but when he found the farmer
inflexible, he agreed to what John desired, and swore to the performance
of it. Cunning John believed him, and gave him up the glass shoe, for he
knew right well with whom he had to do. So, the business being ended,
away went the merchant with his glass shoe.
Without a moment's delay John repaired to his stable, got ready his
horses and his plough, and went out to the field. He selected a piece of
ground where he would have the shortest turns possible, and began to
plough. Hardly had the plough turned up the first sod when up sprang a
ducat out of the ground, and it was the same with every fresh furrow he
made. There was now no end of his ploughing, and John Wilde soon bought
eight new horses, and put them into the stable to the eight he already
had, and their mangers were never without plenty of oats in them, that
he might be able every two hours to yoke two fresh horses, and so be
enabled to drive them the faster.
John was now insatiable in ploughing. Every morning he was out before
sunrise, and many a time he ploughed on till after midnight. Summer and
winter it was plough, plough with him ever-more, except when the ground
was frozen as hard as a stone. He always ploughed by himself, and never
suffered any one to go out with him, or to come to him when he was at
work, for John understood too well the nature of his crop to let people
see for what it was he ploughed so constantly.
However, it fared far worse with him than with his horses, who ate good
oats, and were regularly changed and relieved, for he grew pale and
meagre by reason of his continual working and toiling. His wife and
children had no longer any comfort for him. He never went to the
ale-house or to the club. He withdrew himself from every one, and
scarcely ever spoke a single word, but went about silent and wrapped up
in his own thoughts. All the day long he toiled for his ducats, and at
night he had to count them, and to plan and meditate how he might find
out a still swifter kind of plough.
His wife and the neighbours lamented over his strange conduct, his
dulness and melancholy, and began to think he was grown foolish.
Everybody pitied his wife and children, for they imagined the numerous
horses that he kept in his stable, and the preposterous mode of
agriculture he pursued, with his unnecessary and superfluous ploughing,
must soon leave him without house or land.
Their anticipations, however, were not fulfilled. True it is, the poor
man never enjoyed a happy or contented hour since he began to plough the
ducats up out of the ground. The old saying held good in his case, that
he who gives himself up to the pursuit of gold is half-way in the claws
of the evil one. Flesh and blood cannot bear perpetual labour, and John
Wilde did not long hold out against his running through the furrows day
and night. He got through the first spring; but one day in the second he
dropped down at the tail of the plough like an exhausted November fly.
Out of the pure thirst for gold he was wasted away and dried up to
nothing, whereas he had been a very strong and hearty man the day the
shoe of the little underground man fell into his hands.
His wife, however, found he had left a great treasure--two great
nailed-up chests full of good new ducats; and his sons purchased large
estates for themselves, and became lords and noblemen.
But what good did all that to poor John Wilde?