Once on a time four travellers joined on the road. One of them was a king's son, the second a nobleman, the third a merchant and the fourth a hand-labourer. Each of the four had spent every coin he had, and they had nothing left but the clothes they wore on their backs.
One day they all felt hungry. How were they were to find money or food?
The prince said, "A fair trust in the Lord's protection is not to be forsaken."
The merchant then said, "Being prudent enough and with good judgement when it comes to calculated risks is my motto as long as luck is on my side."
"Being well-behaved, with an active, handsome and youthful figure is worth a lot," said the nobleman. He spoke for good manners as he had been taught them.
And the working-man said, "I for my part think a careful and industrious man may get on well in the world of work."
While they talked about it, the four travellers came to a city and sat down outside the city gate. It was evening. Three of them said to the other, "You speak for industry and carefulness, so go and see how you can get us a night's lodging and food by it. We will wait for you here, outside that inn."
"I will, and readily," answered the labourer, "if each of you in turn will put your mottos to work too."
They agreed to this. The working man went into the city, puzzling himself how he should contrive to lodge and feed himself and his comrades, and then asked people who lived in the city too. One of them advised him to fetch a load of wood and offer it for sale, for the city was wide, many lived in it, and wood was dear. The labourer set about it at once, and as soon as he had cut a sizable bundle of faggots, he brought it to the city and found a ready buyer for it for two silver pennies. This was enough to feed and lodge his comrades. Merry at heart he returned to the inn where he had left them and wrote with chalk over the door, "An honest man gained two silver pennies in one day by being industrious and strong."
The next day the nobleman was sent out to see how far, "Being well-behaved, with an active, youthful and handsome figure" would get him. He went into the city rather sadly, for he could not tell at all what he should best do to fulfil his task. Sad at heart he seated himself on the steps of a house, determined to part qfrom his companions since he could not bring back anything to them. But while he sat thus, a pretty, well-dowered widow went by. When she saw the nobleman's fine features, she stopped to ask who he was and where he came from. She sent her servants to invite him to have dinner at her house. When he came, she was so charmed with his manners and conversation that she gave him a hundred gold pennies when he left. Delighted with his good luck he returned to his companions and wrote over the door, "With his fresh young face a man got a hundred gold pennies in one day."
The third morning it was the merchant's turn to try. He passed through the town, which was close by the sea, to the harbour. Just at that time a ship lay at anchor there. On the shore stood the owner of the cargo and around him were many merchants who wanted to buy. But they said the sum he asked was too high, and went away. They felt assured that no one but themselves could buy the goods and that thei cargo owner would have to lower his terms.
The poor travelling merchant was the son of a rich merchant. While the other merchants were away, he walked up to the owner of the cargo and spoke with him. After he had told the cargo owner his name, he bought the goods for fifty thousand dollars, to be paid within a few weeks.
Soon afterwards the other merchants came back, for they could not really do without the goods. Now they had to buy them of the travelling merchant and pay him so that he got a profit of five thousand dollars.
The young merchant returned speedily to his companions and wrote beneath the other incriptions, "A merchant ventured a lot, gambling with money he did not have at hand he gained in one day five thousand dollars." It was not prudence that did it, after all, he considered, willing to revise his motto.
The next morning the king's son went into the city, thinking to himself what he should do to earn as much as his comrades. He had learnt no trade or profession, had no handsome face to recommend him, no rich merchant for a father and was neither gifted with foresight nor carefulness. However, he had faith in Providence. For all that he sat down on a stone by the wayside and buried his face deeply in his hands, reflecting.
A week earler the king of the city had died. That morning his corpse was being carried to a nearby cloister, followed by all the people. But the young prince sat so buried in thought that he heard and saw nothing of what was passing around him, and so he neglected to rise to show respect when the funeral procession approached. A soldier stepped aside out of the train and gave the prince a blow across his back, saying, "You bewildered rascal! Have you no sadness in your face for our dead, bewailed king? Away with you!"
The prince let the procession pass by him without a word, and when it came back, he had reseated himself on the same stone and in the same posture as before. Again the soldier struck him and said, "Didn't I tell you that you should not remain here?" He beckoned to some guards and ordered them to take the prince to prison. He was thrown into a gloomy cell, but he still believed in a mild Providence and looked forward to being released in due time. It came very soon, for a day or two after the old king's burial, the people met to elect a new king; and while they were debating about it, the soldier who had put the prince in prison presented him to them as fit. "A good king must be able to withstand imprisonments in rough times," he said, "and I have got a fit candidate here."
The prince said that he was a king's son and named his father. He further told them that when his father died, the kingdom should have come to him, but his younger brother had robbed him of it and forced him to leave his dominions or die.
Now, among the people who heard this were many who had known the father of the speaker and had also travelled through his territories. They shouted out that the father was a good man and this son was hopefully like him and unlike his brother; and some even cried, "Long live the king! Viva! Viva!"
So the young prince was chosen king. He was carried in triumph round the city according to the custom on such occasions. When he came to the place where his three comrades had inscribed their mottoes, he commanded a fourth to be added to them. The words were, "Careful industry, youth, a nose for good deals in business, are all great gifts if things go well." The people marvelled and exulted that they had made such a good choice of king and thanked Heaven.
When the king was led to his new throne, he called for his three old companions. As soon as they arrived he told them in front of a large assembley:
"I came here after I had been banished from my own place. First I entered the service of a nobleman who did not know me. Then, after a year's time I desired to move from there. I got my wages, but my traveller's clothes cost much and left me with only two pennies. I wanted to give a penny in charity. At that moment I met a fowler who was carrying two doves to market. I could use my money on nothing better than setting free one of these creatures, I considered. However, the fowler would sell me both of his birds or none, so I had to spend the money for the two doves. As soon as I got them, I walked to a neighbouring meadow and let them both fly. They alighted on a fir-tree; and I heard the one say to the other, 'This man has saved our lives by spending all he had. We owe him a grateful return' Then they flew up to me and said, 'You have been very kind to us. Beneath the roots of the tree over there lies a great treasure. Dig there and you will find it.'
"I thanked the birds for letting med know of the treasure, and asked them how they had fallen into a trap laid by man when they knew so much.
"They answered, 'The flight of a bird is in part ordained to happen, and that is the case with humans too.'"
The king ended his speech and settled his old fellow-travellers in various offices. The nobleman got a seat at his council-board; the daring merchant was to manage the finances of his kingdom; and the labourer was made overseer in general of the public works. The king also went with a retinue to see if he could find the buried treasure that the doves had told him about, now that he had men and tools to help him dig for it, and they found it some meters down in the hard soil under the tree.
"A little kindness goes a long way," he said to himself, thinking of how well the doves had repaid him.
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