His mother, on
hearing of this new piece of folly, tells him he should have cried, "To
the devil with you!" Again he sets out, and meeting a funeral
procession, he roars, "To the devil with you!" His mother says he should
have cried, "May your poor soul have mercy!" and sends him off for the
fifth time to look for a lass. On the road he sees some gipsies busy
skinning a dead dog, upon which he piously exclaims, "May your poor soul
have mercy!" His mother now goes herself to get him a wife, finds a lass
that is willing to marry him, and invites her to dinner. She privately
tells Matt how he should comport himself in the presence of his
sweetheart; he should cast an eye at her now and then. Matt understands
her instruction most literally: stealing into the sheepfold, he plucks
out the eyes of all the sheep and goats, and puts them in his pocket.
When he is seated beside his sweetheart, he casts a "sheep's eye" at
her, which hits her on the nose.[1]
This last incident, as we have seen, occurs in the _Tales of the Men
of Gotham ("ante_, p. 41" in original. This section is to be found
immediately after the reference to Chapter II, Footnote 9 in this
e-text), and it is also found in a Venetian story (Bernoni,
_Fiabe_, No. 11) entitled "The Fool," of which the following is the
first part:
Once upon a time there was a mother who had a son with little brains.
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