Page:The Grey Fairy Book.djvu/222

 bird flew up into the air, and the carter only hit the blind horse on the head, so that it fell down dead. ‘Oh! what an unlucky fellow I am!’ he exclaimed again.

‘You’ll have worse luck yet,’ said the sparrow; and when the carter drove on with his two horses she crept under the covering again, and pecked away at the cork of the second barrel till she got it away, and all the wine poured out on to the road.

When the carter perceived this fresh disaster he called out once more: ‘Oh! what an unlucky fellow I am!’

But the sparrow answered: ‘Your bad luck is not over yet,’ and flying on to the head of the second horse she pecked out its eyes.

The carter jumped out of the waggon and seized his axe, with which he meant to kill the sparrow; but the little bird flew high into the air, and the blow fell on the poor blind horse instead, and killed it on the spot. Then the carter exclaimed: ‘Oh! what an unlucky fellow I am!’

‘You’ve not got to the end of your bad luck yet,’ sang the sparrow; and, perching on the head of the third horse, she pecked out its eyes.

The carter, blind with rage, let his axe fly at the bird; but once more she escaped the blow, which fell on the only remaining horse, and killed it. And again the carter called out: ‘Oh! what an unlucky fellow I am!’

‘You’ll have worse luck yet,’ said the sparrow, ‘for now I mean to make your home desolate.’

The carter had to leave his waggon on the road, and he went home in a towering passion. As soon as he saw his wife, he called out: ‘Oh! what bad luck I have had! all my wine is spilt, and my horses are all three dead.’

‘My dear husband,’ replied his wife, ‘your bad luck pursues you, for a wicked little sparrow has assembled all the other birds in the world, and they are in our barn eating everything up.’

The carter went out to the barn where he kept his corn and found it was just as his wife had said. Thou-