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"There have I had to buy him a wonderful book about mines over yonder, of the white-headed master miner who is as old as the hills, and who has been blind these three years: the marvellous grey-beard copied the book ages ago, when he was young and had a younker's itching for knowing more than his neighbours, from the manuscript of a travelling Tyrolese, and took the trouble of scratching likenesses of all the foolish pictures in it.

'Well, said the grandmother, 'we will shut the door, that he may not come in. Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried: 'Open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red-Cap, and am bringing you some cakes. But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, intending to wait until Red-Cap went home in the evening, and then to steal after her and devour her in the darkness.

Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried, "Open the door, grandmother, I am little Red-Cap, and am fetching you some cakes." But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, intending to wait until Red-Cap went home in the evening, and then to steal after her and devour her in the darkness.

Here the hot-blooded grey-beard raised his clenched fist in menace but, ere he had uttered the threat that hovered on his lips, he let his arm fall; for Gabriel, the oldest member of the tribe of Zebulun, shouted: "Remember your own son, who is to-day among the foes of his people."

Here the hot-blooded grey-beard raised his clenched fist in menace but, ere he had uttered the threat that hovered on his lips, he let his arm fall; for Gabriel, the oldest member of the tribe of Zebulun, shouted: "Remember your own son, who is to-day among the foes of his people."

Then spake the grey-beard, "From Sleipnir's kin is this horse come, and he must be nourished heedfully, for it will be the best of all horses;" and therewithal he vanished away. So Sigurd called the horse Grani, the best of all the horses of the world; nor was the man he met other than Odin himself. Now yet again spake Regin to Sigurd, and said

"Nay," said the King, who, like all true poets, had something of the deep sense of a sage, and was, indeed, regarded as the most prudent as well as the most adventurous chief in the Northland, "nay, it is not by such words, which my soul seconds too well, that thou canst entrap a ruler of men. Thou must show me the chances of success, as thou wouldst to a grey-beard.

They thus caught a Tartar; for the grey-beard no sooner saw them than he went and flogged them all back again, rebuking them on the way for their ingratitude to their chief, who had taken them in when they sought his shelter, and was now deserted by them on the first alarm of war. 10th.

But Korzh would never have suspected anything out of the way, only one day it is evident that none but the Evil One could have inspired him Peter took into his head to kiss the maiden's rosy lips with all his heart, without first looking well about him; and that same Evil One may the son of a dog dream of the holy cross! caused the old grey-beard, like a fool, to open the cottage door at that same moment.

But I stood as a debonair soldier should, and I could not but reflect how much credit I was bringing upon the Hussars of Conflans by the dignity of my bearing. I do not think that anyone could have carried himself better under such difficult circumstances. I looked with a fearless face from one assassin to another, and I waited for some reply. It was the grey-beard who at last broke the silence.