Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/204

182 Yes, there he was.

"What did you buy to-day now?" asked the lad.

"Oh! it was worse, and no better," said the man; "but it was just as we bargained. I bought the first thing I met, and it was nothing else than this kitten."

"You could not have met anything better," said the lad; "I have been as fond of cats all my life as of dogs."

"Well," thought the man, "I did not get so badly out of that after all; but there's another day to come, when he is to go to town himself."

The third morning the lad set off, and just as he got into the town he met the same old hag with her basket on her arm.

"Good morning, granny!" said the lad.

"Good morning to you, my son," said the old hag.

"What have you got in your basket?"

"If you want to know you had better buy it," said the old hag.

"Will you sell it, then?" asked the lad.

Yes, she would; and fourpence was her price.

"That was cheap enough," said the lad, and he would have it, for he was to buy the first thing he met.

"Now you may take it, basket and all," said the old hag; "but mind you don't look inside it before you get home. Do you hear what I say?"

"Nay, nay, never fear, he wouldn't look inside it; was it likely?" But for all that he walked and wondered what there could be inside the basket, and whether he would or no he could not help just lifting the lid and peeping in. In the twinkling of an eye out