And that, too, after he had seen what uses may be made of an old bridle
or of a duck egg or of anything! Well, but all water that is past the
dam must go its way, even though it be a flood of tears--"
Here Manuel gently shrugged broad shoulders. He took out of his pocket
the feather he had plucked from the wing of Ferdinand's goose.
He said: "A feather I took from you in the red autumn woods, and a
feather I now restore to you, my Princess, in this white palace of
yours, not asking any reward, and not claiming to be remembered by you
in the gray years to come, but striving to leave no obligation
undischarged and no debt unpaid. And whether in this world wherein
nothing is certain, one feather is better than another feather, I do not
know. It well may come about that I must straightway take a foul doom
from fair lips, and that presently my head will be drying on a silver
pike. Even so, one never knows: and I have learned that it is well to
put all doubt of oneself quite out of mind."
He gave her the feather he had plucked from the third goose, and the
trumpets sounded as a token that the quest of Alianora's feather had
been fulfilled, and all the courtiers shouted in honor of Count Manuel.
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