Then he brought out all the horses the robbers had, and loaded them with the most valuable things which he could find--vessels of gold and of silver, and clothes and other magnificent things--and then he told the old woman to greet the robbers from him and thank them from him, and say that he had gone away, and that they would have a great deal of difficulty in finding him again, and with that he drove the horses out of the courtyard. After a long, long time he came to the road on which he was travelling when he came to the robbers. And when he had got very near home, and was in sight of the house where his father lived, he put on a uniform which he had found among the things he had taken from the robbers, and which was made just like a general"s, and drove into the yard just as if he were a great man. Then he entered the house and asked if he could find a lodging there.
"No, indeed you can"t!" said his father. "How could I possibly be able to lodge such a great gentleman as you? It is all that I can do to find clothes and bedding for myself, and wretched they are."
"You were always a hard man," said the youth, "and hard you are still if you refuse to let your own son come into your house."
"Are you my son?" said the man.
"Do you not know me again then?" said the youth.
Then he recognised him and said, "But what trade have you taken to that has made you such a great man in so short a time?"
"Oh, that I will tell you," answered the youth. "You said that I might take to anything I liked, so I apprenticed myself to some thieves and robbers, and now I have served my time and have become Master Thief."
Now the Governor of the province lived by his father"s cottage, and this Governor had such a large house and so much money that he did not even know how much it was, and he had a daughter too who was both pretty and dainty, and good and wise. So the Master Thief was determined to have her to wife, and told his father that he was to go to the Governor, and ask for his daughter for him. "If he asks what trade I follow, you may say that I am a Master Thief," said he.
"I think you must be crazy," said the man, "for you can"t be in your senses if you think of anything so foolish."
"You must go to the Governor and beg for his daughter--there is no help," said the youth.
"But I dare not go to the Governor and say this. He is so rich and has so much wealth of all kinds," said the man.
"There is no help for it," said the Master Thief; "go you must, whether you like it or not. If I can"t get you to go by using good words, I will soon make you go with bad ones."
But the man was still unwilling, so the Master Thief followed him, threatening him with a great birch stick, till he went weeping and wailing through the door to the Governor of the province.
"Now, my man, and what"s amiss with you?" said the Governor.
So he told him that he had three sons who had gone away one day, and how he had given them permission to go where they chose, and take to whatsoever work they fancied. "Now," he said, "the youngest of them has come home, and has threatened me till I have come to you to ask for your daughter for him, and I am to say that he is a Master Thief," and again the man fell a-weeping and lamenting.
"Console yourself, my man," said the Governor, laughing. "You may tell him from me that he must first give me some proof of this. If he can steal the joint off the spit in the kitchen on Sunday, when every one of us is watching it, he shall have my daughter. Will you tell him that?"
The man did tell him, and the youth thought it would be easy enough to do it. So he set himself to work to catch three hares alive, put them in a bag, clad himself in some old rags so that he looked so poor and wretched that it was quite pitiable to see him, and in this guise on Sunday forenoon he sneaked into the pa.s.sage with his bag, like any beggar boy. The Governor himself and every one in the house was in the kitchen, keeping watch over the joint. While they were doing this the youth let one of the hares slip out of his bag, and off it set and began to run round the yard.
"Just look at that hare," said the people in the kitchen, and wanted to go out and catch it.
The Governor saw it too, but said, "Oh, let it go! it"s no use to think of catching a hare when it"s running away."
It was not long before the youth let another hare out, and the people in the kitchen saw this too, and thought that it was the same. So again they wanted to go out and catch it, but the Governor again told them that it was of no use to try.
Very soon afterwards, however, the youth let slip the third hare, and it set off and ran round and round the courtyard. The people in the kitchen saw this too, and believed that it was still the same hare that was running about, so they wanted to go out and catch it.
"It"s a remarkably fine hare!" said the Governor. "Come and let us see if we can get hold of it." So out he went, and the others with him, and away went the hare, and they after it, in real earnest.
In the meantime, however, the Master Thief took the joint and ran off with it, and whether the Governor got any roast meat for his dinner that day I know not, but I know that he had no roast hare, though he chased it till he was both hot and tired. At noon came the Priest, and when the Governor had told him of the trick played by the Master Thief there was no end to the ridicule he cast on the Governor.
"For my part," said the Priest, "I can"t imagine myself being made a fool of by such a fellow as that!"
"Well, I advise you to be careful," said the Governor, "for he may be with you before you are at all aware."
But the Priest repeated what he had said, and mocked the Governor for having allowed himself to be made such a fool of.
Later in the afternoon the Master Thief came and wanted to have the Governor"s daughter as he had promised.
"You must first give some more samples of your skill," said the Governor, trying to speak him fair, "for what you did to-day was no such very great thing after all. Couldn"t you play off a really good trick on the Priest? for he is sitting inside there and calling me a fool for having let myself be taken in by such a fellow as you."
"Well, it wouldn"t be very hard to do that," said the Master Thief. So he dressed himself up like a bird, and threw a great white sheet over himself; broke off a goose"s wings, and set them on his back; and in this attire climbed into a great maple tree which stood in the Priest"s garden. So when the Priest returned home in the evening the youth began to cry, "Father Lawrence! Father Lawrence! "for the Priest was called Father Lawrence.
"Who is calling me?" said the Priest.
"I am an angel sent to announce to thee that because of thy piety thou shalt be taken away alive into heaven," said the Master Thief. "Wilt thou hold thyself in readiness to travel away next Monday night? for then will I come and fetch thee, and bear thee away with me in a sack, and thou must lay all thy gold and silver, and whatsoever thou may "st possess of this world"s wealth, in a heap in thy best parlour."
So Father Lawrence fell down on his knees before the angel and thanked him, and the following Sunday he preached a farewell sermon, and gave out that an angel had come down into the large maple tree in his garden, and had announced to him that, because of his righteousness, he should be taken up alive into heaven, and as he thus preached and told them this everyone in the church, old or young, wept.
On Monday night the Master Thief once more came as an angel, and before the Priest was put into the sack he fell on his knees and thanked him; but no sooner was the Priest safely inside it than the Master Thief began to drag him away over stocks and stones.
"Oh! oh! "cried the Priest in the sack. "Where are you taking me?"
"This is the way to heaven. The way to heaven is not an easy one," said the Master Thief, and dragged him along till he all but killed him.
At last he flung him into the Governor"s goose-house, and the geese began to hiss and peck at him, till he felt more dead than alive.
"Oh! oh! oh! Where am I now?" asked the Priest.
"Now you are in Purgatory," said the Master Thief, and off he went and took the gold and the silver and all the precious things which the Priest had laid together in his best parlour.
Next morning, when the goose-girl came to let out the geese, she heard the Priest bemoaning himself as he lay in the sack in the goose-house.
"Oh, heavens! who is that, and what ails you?" said she.
"Oh," said the Priest, "if you are an angel from heaven do let me out and let me go back to earth again, for no place was ever so bad as this--the little fiends nip me so with their tongs."
"I am no angel," said the girl, and helped the Priest out of the sack.
"I only look after the Governor"s geese, that"s what I do, and they are the little fiends which have pinched your reverence."
"This is the Master Thief"s doing! Oh, my gold and my silver and my best clothes!" shrieked the Priest, and, wild with rage, he ran home so fast that the goose-girl thought he had suddenly gone mad.
When the Governor learnt what had happened to the Priest he laughed till he nearly killed himself, but when the Master Thief came and wanted to have his daughter according to promise, he once more gave him nothing but fine words, and said, "You must give me one more proof of your skill, so that I can really judge of your worth. I have twelve horses in my stable, and I will put twelve stable boys in it, one on each horse.
If you are clever enough to steal the horses from under them, I will see what I can do for you."
"What you set me to do can be done," said the Master Thief, "but am I certain to get your daughter when it is?"
"Yes; if you can do that I will do my best for you," said the Governor.
So the Master Thief went to a shop, and bought enough brandy to fill two pocket flasks, and he put a sleeping drink into one of these, but into the other he poured brandy only. Then he engaged eleven men to lie that night in hiding behind the Governor"s stable. After this, by fair words and good payment, he borrowed a ragged gown and a jerkin from an aged woman, and then, with a staff in his hand and a poke on his back, he hobbled off as evening came on towards the Governor"s stable. The stable boys were just watering the horses for the night, and it was quite as much as they could do to attend to that.
"What on earth do you want here?" said one of them to the old woman.
"Oh dear! oh dear! How cold it is!" she said, sobbing, and shivering with cold. "Oh dear! oh dear! it"s cold enough to freeze a poor old body to death!" and she shivered and shook again, and said, "For heaven"s sake give me leave to stay here and sit just inside the stable door."