Page:Grimm-Rackham.djvu/254

 He took aim, and down fell the bird into a quickset hedge.

‘Go, you rogue,’ he said to the Jew, ‘and pick up the bird.’

‘Leave out the “rogue,” young man. I will get the bird sure enough, as you have killed it for me,’ said the Jew.

He lay down on the ground and began to creep into the hedge.

When he had got well among the thorns, a spirit of mischief seized the Servant, and he began to play his fiddle with all



his might. The Jew was forced to spring up and begin to dance, and the more the Servant played, the faster he had to dance. The thorns tore his shabby coat, combed his goat’s beard, and scratched him all over.

‘Merciful Heavens!’ cried the Jew. ‘Leave off that fiddling! I don’t want to dance, my good fellow.’

But the Servant paid no attention to him, but thought: ‘You have fleeced plenty of people in your time, my man, and