Scrub vowed that his brother was not fit to live with a respectable man; and taking his lasts, his awls, and his golden leaf, he left the wattle hut, and went to tell the villagers. They were astonished at the folly of Spare, and charmed with Scrub's good sense, particularly when he showed them the golden leaf, and told them that the cuckoo would bring him one every spring. The new cobbler immediately took him into partnership; the greatest people sent him their shoes to mend; Fairfeather smiled graciously upon him, and in the course of that summer they were married, with a grand wedding feast, at which the whole village danced, except Spare, who was not invited. As for Scrub, he established himself with Fairfeather in a cottage close by that of the new cobbler, and quite as fine. There he mended shoes to everybody's satisfaction, had a scarlet coat for holidays, and a fat goose for dinner every wedding-day anniversary. Spare lived on in the old hut and worked in the cabbage garden. Every day his coat grew more ragged, and the hut more weather-beaten; but people remarked that he never looked sad or sour; and the wonder was that, from the time they began to keep his company the tinker grew kinder to the poor ass with which he traveled the country, the beggar-boy kept out of mischief, and the old woman was never cross to her cat or angry with the children. I know not how many years passed in this manner, when a certain great lord, who owned that village, came to the neighborhood. His castle was ancient and strong, with high towers and a deep moat. All the country, as far as one could see from the highest turret, belonged to this lord; but he had not been there for twenty years, and would not have come then, only he was melancholy. The cause of his grief and sorrow was that he had been prime minister at court, and in high favor, till somebody told the Crown Prince that he had spoken disrespectfully concerning the turning out of his Royal Highness's toes, whereon the North Country lord was turned out of office, and banished to his own estate. There he lived for some weeks in very bad temper; but one day in the harvest time his lordship chanced to meet Spare gathering watercresses at a meadow stream, and fell into talk. How it was nobody could tell, but from the hour of that discourse the great lord cast away his melancholy, and went about with a noble train, making merry in his hall, where all travelers were entertained and all the poor were welcome. This strange story soon spread through the North Country, and a great company came to the cobbler's hut--rich men who had lost their money, poor men who had lost their friends, beauties who had grown old, wits who had gone out of fashion--all came to talk with Spare, and, whatever their troubles, all went home merry. The rich gave him presents, the poor gave him thanks.