Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/372

350 "I can but try," said Boots; so he laid hand on him who limped on one leg with seven hundredweight on the other, and said he must unbuckle the weights, and use both his legs as fast as ever he could; for he must have water from the world's end for the princess's tea in ten minutes.

So he took off the weights, and got a pail, and set off, and was out of sight in a trice. But time went on and on, for seven lengths and seven breadths, and yet he did not come back. At last there were no more than three minutes left till the time was up, and the king was as pleased as though some one had given him a horse. But just then Boots bawled out to him who heard the grass grow, and bade him listen and hear what had become of him.

"He has fallen asleep at the well," he said. "I can hear him snoring, and the Trolls are combing his hair."

So Boots called him who could shoot to the world's end, and bade him put a bullet into the Troll. Yes, he did that, and shot him right in the eye, and the Troll set up such a howl that he woke up at once him that was to fetch the water for tea; and when he got back to the king's grange, there was still one minute left of the ten.

Then Boots strode into the king, and said there was the water, and now he must have the princess, there must be no words about it. But more the king thought him just as sooty and smutty as before, and did not at all like to have him for a son-in-law. So the king said he had three hundred fathoms of wood, with which he was about to dry corn in the malt-house, and "all the same, if you are man enough to get