[Illustration]
The Ploughman--of whom Chaucer remarked, "A worker true and very good was
he, Living in perfect peace and charity"--protested that riddles were not
for simple minds like his, but he would show the good pilgrims, if they
willed it, one that he had frequently heard certain clever folk in his
own neighbourhood discuss. "The lord of the manor in the part of Sussex
whence I come hath a plantation of sixteen fair oak trees, and they be so
set out that they make twelve rows with four trees in every row. Once on
a time a man of deep learning, who happened to be travelling in those
parts, did say that the sixteen trees might have been so planted that
they would make so many as fifteen straight rows, with four trees in
every row thereof. Can ye show me how this might be? Many have doubted
that 'twere possible to be done." The illustration shows one of many ways
of forming the twelve rows. How can we make fifteen?