FullReads

“Who are you?” said his brother. “And what make you in the dun?”

“I am your elder brother,” he replied. “And I am come to marry the maid, for I have brought the touchstone of truth.”

Then the younger brother laughed aloud. “Why,” said he, “I found the touchstone years ago, and married the maid, and there are our children playing at the gate.”

Now at this the elder brother grew as gray as the dawn. “I pray you have dealt justly,” said he, “for I perceive my life is lost.”

“Justly?” quoth the younger brother. “It becomes you ill, that are a restless man and a runagate, to doubt my justice, or the King my father’s, that are sedentary folk and known in the land.”

“Nay,” said the elder brother, “you have all else, have patience also; and suffer me to say the world is full of touchstones, and it appears not easily which is true.”

“I have no shame of mine,” said the younger brother. “There it is, and look in it.”

So the elder brother looked in the mirror, and he was sore amazed; for he was an old man, and his hair was white upon his head; and he sat down in the hall and wept aloud.

“Now,” said the younger brother, “see what a fool’s part you have played, that ran over all the world to seek what was lying in our father’s treasury, and came back an old carle for the dogs to bark at, and without chick or child. And I that was dutiful and wise sit here crowned with virtues and pleasures, and happy in the light of my hearth.”

“Methinks you have a cruel tongue,” said the elder brother; and he pulled out the clear pebble and turned its light on his brother; and behold the man was lying, his soul was shrunk into the smallness of a pea, and his heart was a bag of little fears like scorpions, and love was dead in his bosom. And at that the elder brother cried out aloud, and turned the light of the pebble on the maid, and, lo! she was but a mask of a woman, and withinside’s she was quite dead, and she smiled as a clock ticks, and knew not wherefore.

“Oh, well,” said the elder brother, “I perceive there is both good and bad. So fare ye all as well as ye may in the dun; but I will go forth into the world with my pebble in my pocket.”