Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/269

Rh your right senses? How can I make you young again?"

"You ought to know that best yourself."

"But I assure you, sir, I don't know anything."

"You lie, you rascal! If you could make my wife young again, I suppose you can do the same with me. If you don't do this, I shall never be able to live with her any more."

"But I never set eyes on your wife."

"Never mind! Then your workman must have seen her, and made her young again; and if he could do so, then you, who are the master, ought certainly to be able to do it also! Now, then, look alive, my friend! If you don't, woe betide you!"

The blacksmith was thus forced to change the old man into a young one, but how? He began asking the man what his workman had done, and how he did it and what it was he used, and any amount of other questions, which the old man answered as best he could, for his wife had told him something about the milk being ordered, and also about her sudden plunge into the fiery furnace.

"Well," thought the blacksmith to himself, "whatever happens, I must try and obey the extraordinary order. If I succeed, so much the better; if not, then I shall get into as bad a mess as if I had not obeyed the order at all."

So he caught the old man by the legs and threw him into the furnace, and then began blowing at him with the bellows. The unfortunate man was soon burnt to ashes, and nothing but the bones remained. These the blacksmith took and threw into the large