Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/25

Rh and not tasted a morsel of food for hundreds of years." That was what she said.

But for all that Peter laughed more and more. He thought it all fine fun. All he said was, as she had stood so for hundreds of years she might hold out for hundreds of years still.

When he got to the king's grange, they took him for keeper at once. It was not bad serving there, and he was to have good food and good pay, and maybe the princess into the bargain; but if one of the king's hares got lost, they were to cut three red stripes out of his back and cast him into a pit of snakes.

So long as Peter was in the byre and home-field he kept all the hares in one flock: but as the day wore on, and they got up into the wood, all the hares began to frisk, and skip, and scuttle away up and down the hillocks. Peter ran after them this way and that, and nearly burst himself with running, so long as he could make out that he had one of them left, and when the last was gone he was almost broken-winded. And after that he saw nothing more of them.

When it drew towards evening he sauntered along on his way home, and stood and called and called to them at each fence, but no hares came; and when he got home to the king's grange, there stood the king all ready with his knife, and he took and cut three red stripes out of Peter's back, and then rubbed pepper and salt into them, and cast him into a pit of snakes.

After a time, Paul was for going to the king's grange to keep the king's hares. The old gaffer said