Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 2

THE CHEST. 3
he, " give me a gown of the best silk thou hast for my
wife." " Indeed !" said the captain, " thou must have
an exceedingly good wife when thou must have a gown
of the best silk I have on board." " I have that,"
said the king, " a wife many of whose equals are not
to be got." "Wilt thou lay a wager," said the cap-
tain, " that -ndth all her goodness I will not get
leave to enter thy chamber Ì" "I will lay a wager,
anything thou desiredst, that thou wilt not." " What
wager wilt thou lay V said the captain. " I will put
the heirship in pledge," said the king. Said the cap-
tain, " I will put all the silk in ship in pledge to thee
that I will." The captain came on shore and the king
went on board.
The captain went where the hen wife was, to try
if she could make any way to get in with to king's
chamber that night. The henwife thought a wliile,
and she said " That she did not think that there was
any way that would succeed." The captain rose here,
and he was going. " Stop thou," said she, " I have
thought on a way ; her maid servant and I are well
with each other ; I will say to her that I have got word
from a sister of mine tliat I Avill scarce find her alive ;
I will say to the king's wife that I must go to see my
sister ; that I have a big kist, of good worth, and £
should like if she would oblige me and let it into her
own sleeping chamber till I come back." She went
where the queen was, she asked her this, and she got
leave. Here the captain was put into the last, and
the king's gilUes were gathered, and the kist put in
the chamber. The king's wife was within by herself
wearying, for the king was not coming home. At
last she went to bed ; when she was going to bed
she put a gold ring that was on her finger, and a gold
chain that was about her neck, on a board that was op-