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The Hunter and his Wife

It will soon be one o'clock, and when the master is away that is the time for thieves."

"Off with you, brother, and God be with you," says the second.

And the hunter heard the first dog go bounding away through the undergrowth, while the second lay still, with its head between its paws, watching its master blinking at the fire.

Early in the morning the hunter was awakened by the noise of the dog pushing through the brushwood on its way back. He heard how the dogs greeted each other.

"Well, and how are you, brother?" says the first.

"Finely," says the second; "and how's yourself?"

"Finely too. Did the night pass well?"

"Well enough, thanks be to God. But with you, brother? How was it at home?"

"Oh, badly. I ran home, and the mistress, when she sees me, sings out, 'What the devil are you doing here without your master? Well, there's your supper;' and she threw me a crust of bread, burnt to a black cinder. I snuffed it and snuffed it, but as for eating it, it was burnt through. No dog alive could have made a meal of it. And with that she ups with a poker and beats me. Brother, she counted all my ribs and nearly broke each one of them. But at night, later on—just as I thought—thieves came into the yard, and were going to clear out the barn and the larder. But I let loose such a howl, and leapt upon them so vicious and angry, that they had little thought to spare for other people's goods, and had all they could do to get away whole themselves. And so I spent the night."

The hunter heard all that the dogs said, and kept it in mind. "Wait a bit, my good woman," says he, "and see what I have to say to you when I get home."

That morning his luck was good, and he came home with a couple of hares and three or four woodcock.

"Good-day, mistress," says he to his wife, who was standing in the doorway.

"Good-day, master," says she.

"Last night one of the dogs came home."

"It did," says she.

"And how did you feed it?"

"Feed it, my love?" says she. "I gave it a whole basin of milk, and crumbled a loaf of bread for it.

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