After walking on for a few hours, and just as he was beginning to feel a little tired, he met a man leading a horse by the bridle toward the town. The horse was in fine condition, and was all saddled and ready for a rider. 'The way is long and night rapidly coming on,' thought Gudbrand. 'I can hardly drag my cow along, and to-morrow I'll have to take this same walk over again. Now, here's an animal that would suit me a great deal better, and I'd go back home with him, as proud as a lord. Who would be delighted to see her husband returning in triumph, like a Roman general? Why, the wife of Gudbrand!' Upon this happy thought, Gudbrand stopped the trader and exchanged his cow for the horse. Once mounted on the charger's back, our hero felt some qualms of regret, for he was old and heavy, while the horse was young, frisky, and headstrong, so that, in less than half an hour, behold, our would-be cavalier was on foot again, vainly striving to drag along by the bridle a creature that cocked up his head at every puff of wind, and capered and pranced at every stone that lay in his path. 'This is a poor bargain I've made,' thought Gudbrand, when, just at that moment, he descried a peasant driving along a hog so fine and fat that its stomach touched the ground. 'A nail that is useful is better than a diamond that glitters and can be turned to nothing, as my wife often says,' reflected Gudbrand; and, with that, he traded off his horse for the hog. It was a bright idea to be sure, but our good man had counted without his host. Don Porker was tired, and wouldn't budge an inch. Gudbrand talked to him, coaxed him, swore at him, but all in vain; he dragged him by the snout, he pushed him from behind, he whacked him on both his fat sides with a cudgel, but it was only labor lost, and Mr. Hog remained there in the middle of the dusty road like a stranded whale. The poor farmer was yielding to despair, when, at the very nick of time, there came along a country lad leading a she-goat, that, with an udder all swollen with milk, skipped, ran, and played about, in a manner charming to behold. 'There! that's the very thing I want!' exclaimed Gudbrand. 'I'd far rather have that gay, sprightly creature than this huge, stupid brute.' Whereupon, without an instant's hesitation, he exchanged the hog for the she-goat. All went well for another half-hour. The young madam with her long horns greatly amused Gudbrand, who laughed at her pranks till his sides ached. In fact, too, the goat pulled him along; but, when one is on the wrong side of forty, one soon gets tired of scrambling over the rocks; and so the farmer, happening to meet a shepherd feeding his flock, traded his she-goat for a ewe. 'I'll have just as much milk,' mused he, 'from that animal as from the other, and, at least, she will keep quiet, and not worry either my wife or me.'