Page:The pink fairy book (IA pinkfairybooklan00lang).pdf/176

160 When the robber got home and found no dog he thought ‘He must have gone back to his old master,’ and, though night had already fallen, he went off after him.

‘Master Joseph, is the dog here?’ asked he.

‘Ah! yes, the poor beast is so fond of me! You must give him time to get accustomed to new ways.’

So the captain brought the dog back, and the following morning handed him over to another of the band, just saying that the animal really could do what the shoemaker had said.

The second robber carefully kept his own counsel, and fetched the dog secretly back from the shoemaker, and so on through the whole band. At length, when everybody had suffered, they met and told the whole story, and next day they all marched off in fury to the man who had made game of them. After reproaching him with having deceived them, they tied him up in a sack, and told him they were going to throw him into the sea. The shoemaker lay quite still, and let them do as they would.

They went on till they came to a church, and the robbers said, ‘The sun is hot and the sack is heavy; let us leave it here and go in and rest.’ So they put the sack down by the roadside, and went into the church.

Now, on a hill near by there was a swineherd looking after a great herd of pigs and whistling merrily.

When Master Joseph heard him he cried out as loud as he could, ‘I won’t; I won’t, I say.’

‘What won’t you do?’ asked the swineherd.

‘Oh,’ replied the shoemaker. ‘They want me to marry the king’s daughter, and I won’t do it.’

‘How lucky you are!’ sighed the swineherd. ‘Now, if it were only me!’

‘Oh, if that’s all!’ replied the cunning shoemaker, ‘get you into this sack, and let me out.’

Then the swineherd opened the sack and took the place of the shoemaker, who went gaily off, driving the pigs before him.