1 Whether the incidents here related be true or not, it is probable that this was a story told to Queen Margaret at the time of her journey to Spain in 1525. It will have been observed (_ante_, pp. 36 and 42) that both the previous tale and this one are introduced into the _Heptameron_ in a semi- apologetic fashion, as though the Queen had not originally intended that her work should include such short, slight anecdotes. However, already at this stage--the fifty-fifth only of the hundred tales which she proposed writing--she probably found fewer materials at her disposal than she had anticipated, and harked back to incidents of her earlier years, which she had at first thought too trifling to record. Still, slight as this story may be, it is not without point. The example set by the wife of the Saragossa merchant has been followed in modern times in more ways than one.--Ed.
When the burial was over and the first tears were shed, the wife, who was no more of a fool than Spanish women are used to be, went to the servant who with herself had heard his master declare his desire, and said to him--
Methinks I have lost enough in the person of a husband I loved so dearly, without afterwards losing his possessions. Yet would I not disobey his word, but rather better his intention; for the poor man, led astray by the greed of the priests, thought to make a great sacrifice to God in bestowing after his death a sum of money, not a crown of which, as you well know, he would have given in his lifetime to relieve even the sorest need. I have therefore bethought me that we will do what he commanded at his death, and in still better fashion than he himself would have done if had he lived a fortnight longer. But no living person must know aught of the matter.
When she had received the servants promise to keep it secret, she said to him--
You will go and sell the horse, and when you are asked, How much? you will reply, A ducat. I have, however, a very fine cat which I also wish to dispose of, and you will sell it with the horse for ninety-nine ducats, so that cat and horse together will bring in the hundred ducats for which my husband wished to sell the horse alone.
The servant readily fulfilled his mistresss command. While he was walking the horse about the market-place, and holding the cat in his arms, a gentleman, who had seen the horse before, and was desirous of possessing it, asked the servant what price he sought.