Page:Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (Volume 2).djvu/323

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Kibitz.
311

sently a stately equipage passed by, and the lady who was in the carriage, being smitten with the beauty of the flowers, ordered one of her lacquays to enquire the price. This he did several times, but receiving no answer, and therefore supposing that she was asleep, he shook her somewhat rudely in order to wake her. Instantly she fell down into a deep ditch, Kibitz having taken care to place her in a ticklish situation; and he, being on the watch, now rushed out upon the fellow, exclaiming, that he had killed his wife, and protesting that he would accuse all of them of murder. The lady alarmed at the accident, and the unpleasant circumstances in which she might be involved, offered, by way of pacifying him, to give all the money she had about her, and also a fine horse, upon which a groom was mounted. Kibitz protested that he had lost the best wife in the world, yet he was far from bearing malice, seeing that the lady was heartily sorry for what had happened, and would therefore comply with her request, out of pure good