"Once on a time there was a priest, who was such a bully, that he bawled
out, ever so far off, whenever he met anyone driving on the king's
highway,--
"'Out of the way, out of the way! Here comes the priest!'
"One day when he was driving along and behaving so, he met the king
himself.
"'Out of the way, out of the way,' he bawled a long way off. But the
king drove on and kept his own; so that time it was the priest who had
to turn his horse aside, and when the king came alongside him, he said,
'To-morrow you shall come to me to the palace, and if you can't answer
three questions which I will set you, you shall lose hood and gown for
your pride's sake.'
"This was something else than the priest was wont to hear. He could bawl
and bully, shout, and behave worse than badly. All THAT he could do, but
question and answer was out of his power. So he set off to the clerk who
was said to be better in a gown than the priest himself, and told him he
had no mind to go to the king.
"'For one fool can ask more than ten wise men can answer;' and the end
was, he got the clerk to go in his stead.
"Yes! The clerk set off, and came to the palace in the priest's gown and
hood. There the king met him out in the porch with crown and sceptre,
and was so grand it glittered and gleamed from him.
"'Well! Are you there?' said the king.
"Yes; he was there, sure enough.
"'Tell me first,' said the king; 'how far the east is from the west?'
"'Just a day's journey,' said the clerk.
"'How is that?' asked the king.
"'Don't you know,' said the clerk, 'that the sun rises in the east and
sets in the west, and he does it just nicely in one day.'
"'Very well!' said the king; 'but tell me now what you think I am worth,
as you see me stand here?'
"'Well,' said the clerk; 'Our Lord was valued at thirty pieces of
silver, so I don't think I can set your price higher than twenty-nine.'
"'All very fine!' said the king; 'but as you are so wise, perhaps you
can tell me what I am thinking about now?'
"'Oh!' said the clerk; 'you are thinking it's the priest who stands
before you, but so help me, if you don't think wrong, for I am the
clerk.'
"'Be off home with you,' said the king, 'and be you priest, and let him
be clerk,' and so it was."