So he went off to the courtyard, under the Princess's window, and began
to go through his drill as Corporal Jack had taught him. But it was no
good, the Princess was just as sad and serious and did not so much as
smile at him once. So they took him and thrashed him well, and sent him
home again.
Well, he had hardly got home before his second brother wanted to set
off. He was a schoolmaster, and the funniest figure one ever laid eyes
upon; he was lopsided, for he had one leg shorter than the other, and
one moment he was as little as a boy, and in another, when he stood on
his long leg, he was as tall and long as a Troll. Besides this he was a
powerful preacher.
So when he came to the king's palace, and said he wished to make the
Princess laugh, the King thought it might not be so unlikely after all.
"But mercy on you," he said, "if you don't make her laugh. We are for
laying it on harder and harder for every one that fails."
Then the schoolmaster strode off to the courtyard, and put himself
before the Princess's window, and read and preached like seven parsons,
and sang and chanted like seven clerks, as loud as all the parsons and
clerks in the country round.
The King laughed loud at him, and the Princess almost smiled a little,
but then became as sad and serious as ever, and so it fared no better
with Paul, the schoolmaster, than with Peter the soldier--for you must
know one was called Peter and the other Paul.
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