"
"If you like we will exchange," said the Rider. "I will give you my
horse, and you can give me your lump of gold."
"With all my heart," cried Hans; "but I tell you fairly you undertake a
very heavy burden."
The man dismounted, took the gold, and helped Hans on to the horse, and,
giving him the reins into his hands, said, "Now, when you want to go
faster, you must chuckle with your tongue and cry, 'Gee up! gee up!'"
Hans was delighted indeed when he found himself on the top of a horse,
and riding along so freely and gaily. After a while he thought he should
like to go rather quicker, and so he cried, "Gee up! gee up!" as the man
had told him. The horse soon set off at a hard trot, and, before Hans
knew what he was about, he was thrown over head and heels into a ditch
which divided the fields from the road. The horse, having accomplished
this feat, would have bolted off if he had not been stopped by a Peasant
who was coming that way, driving a cow before him. Hans soon picked
himself up on his legs, but he was terribly put out, and said to the
countryman, "That is bad sport, that riding, especially when one mounts
such a beast as that, which stumbles and throws one off so as to nearly
break one's neck. I will never ride on that animal again. Commend me to
your cow: one may walk behind her without any discomfort, and besides
one has, every day for certain, milk, butter, and cheese.
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