"What stirrup?"
"Didn't you take one from me?"
"How in the world could I take one from you? This is the first time I have seen you, and I have not even had a stirrup. Before God!—I never have!" And so the gipsy perjured himself.
What could he do? He could struggle and fight it out, Egóri could, and so he did; but it was all no good. It is perfectly true, and the gipsy spoke the truth: "If I had not given him the stirrup!—if I had not only known him! Now I shall forget him no more."
So the gipsy took the golden stirrup and began hawking it. And as he went on his way, a fine lord came and met him. "Hullo, gipsy!" he said. "Will you sell the stirrup?"
"Yes— all right!"
"What will you take?"
"Fifteen hundred roubles."
"Much too dear, isn't that?"
"Well, you see, it is all gold."
"Very well!" said his lordship; and he put his hand into his pocket, and he only had a thousand. "You just take this thousand, gipsy, and then give me the stirrup: I will send you on the odd five hundred."
"Oh, no, my lord! One thousand roubles I will certainly take, but I shall not give up the stirrup. When you carry out your part of the bargain, then you shall receive the stirrup." So the lord gave him the thousand, and he went home.
The very instant he got there he took out five hundred roubles, and sent his man up to the gipsy, telling him to give the money to him and to take the golden stirrup.
When his lordship's groom came to the gipsy's izbá,[1] "Hail, gipsy!" he said. "How fare you, good man? I have brought you the money from his lordship."
- ↑ Hut.
