The Master Thief

`How could I possibly be able to lodge such a great gentleman as you? It is all that I can do to find clothes and bedding for myself, and wretched they are.'

`You were always a hard man,' said the youth, `and hard you are still if you refuse to let your own son come into your house.'

`Are you my son?' said the man.

`Do you not know me again then?' said the youth.

Then he recognised him and said, `But what trade have you taken to that has made you such a great man in so short a time?'

`Oh, that I will tell you,' answered the youth. `You said that I might take to anything I liked, so I apprenticed myself to some thieves and robbers, and now I have served my time and have become Master Thief.'

Now the Governor of the province lived by his father's cottage, and this Governor had such a large house and so much money that he did not even know how much it was, and he had a daughter too who was both pretty and dainty, and good and wise. So the Master Thief was determined to have her to wife, and told his father that he was to go to the Governor, and ask for his daughter for him. `If he asks what trade I follow, you may say that I am a Master Thief,' said he.

`I think you must be crazy,' said the man, `for you can't be in your senses if you think of anything so foolish.'

`You must go to the Governor and beg for his daughter--there is no help,' said the youth.

`But I dare not go to the Governor and say this. He is so rich and has so much wealth of all kinds,' said the man.

`There is no help for it,' said the Master Thief; `go you must, whether you like it or not. If I can't get you to go by using good words, I will soon make you go with bad ones.'

But the man was still unwilling, so the Master Thief followed him, threatening him with a great birch stick, till he went weeping and wailing through the door to the Governor of the province.

`Now, my man, and what's amiss with you?' said the Governor.

So he told him that he had three sons who had gone away one day, and how he had given them permission to go where they chose, and take to whatsoever work they fancied.