individuals. Yes, indeed, yield, or hear the penalty that awaits you.


PART IV.

PETER THE GRAYBEARD.


Peter the Graybeard did not at all resemble Gudbrand. He was
self-willed, imperious, passionate, and had no more patience than a dog
when you snatch away his bone or a cat when you're trying to strangle
her. He would have been insufferable, had not Heaven, in its mercy,
given him a wife who was a match for him. She was headstrong,
quarrelsome, discontented and morose--always ready to keep quiet when
her husband preserved silence, and just as ready to scream at the top of
her voice the moment he opened his mouth.

It was great good fortune for Peter to have such a spouse. Without her,
would he ever have known that patience is not the merit of fools?

One day, in the mowing Season, when he came home, after a fifteen hours'
spell of hard work, in worse humor than usual, and was swearing, cursing
and execrating all women and their laziness, because his soup was not
yet ready for him, his wife exclaimed,--

'Good Lord! Peter, you talk away at a fine rate. Would you like to
change places? To-morrow, I will mow, instead of you, and you stay at
home here and play housekeeper. Then, we'll see which of us will have
the hardest task and come out of it the best.'