Were I not a man I would be a woman such as you.' When they entered the barrack yard, the soldiers scattered like autumn leaves before a blast of winter.

They went into the stable unchallenged--and lo! in a stall, before the colonel's eyes, stood the king's white charger, with the royal saddle and bridle hung high beside him! 'Traitorous thieves!' muttered the old man in his beard, and went along the stalls, looking for his own black charger.

Having found him, he returned to saddle first the king's.

But the maid had already the saddle upon him, and so girt that the colonel could thrust no finger tip between girth and skin.

He left her to finish what she had so well begun, and went and made ready his own.