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Updated: July 10, 2025
When the Devil had vanished the soldier took his left boot off, and said, "We will soon pull the charcoal-burner's nose for him, just give me your knife, comrade." He cut the sole off the boot, and put it in the high grass near the grave on the edge of a hole that was half over-grown. "That will do," said he; "now the chimney-sweep may come."
The line fell in, the men getting to their horses and mounting in silence; the Colonel put himself at their head and gave the order of march, and the dark line turned in the darkness, crossed the little plateau between the smouldering camp-fires and the spectral caissons with the harness hanging beside them, and slowly entered the dim charcoal-burner's track.
Once at home, the Queen commanded that the little winged boy be washed and tidied, and his charcoal-burner's rags replaced with a pretty black velvet suit. You may be sure that, when the bird-boy was washed and dressed, there was no handsomer, more winning little boy in all the world. So the bird-boy became the best beloved playmate of the Queen's only child, her darling Rosabella.
It was safe to thread a way among huge trees and tall ferns and young saplings. It was not always easy but it was safe. Sometimes they saw a charcoal-burner's hut or a shelter where a shepherd was hiding with the few sheep left to him.
One of the party opportunely remembered a charcoal-burner's hut in the vicinity, that would at least afford a rude shelter from the driving storm. Several of the men hastened in search of it, and soon a halloo not far distant indicated that the cabin, such as it was, had been discovered.
The men, whom Count Frohlinger had left behind as a guard, waited patiently with the smith for his son's return until noon, then they urged departure, and the party moved forward. Not a word was spoken, till the travellers stopped before the charcoal-burner's house. Jorg was in the city, but his wife said that the boy had been there, and had gone back to the forest an hour before.
Bébée ran up and then down again gleefully, with her lapful of big black cherries; Tambour, the old white dog, who had used to drag her about in his milk cart, leaping on her in sympathy and congratulation. "What a supper we will have!" she cried to the charcoal-burner's children, who were turning somersaults in the dock leaves, while the swans stared and hissed.
He reported that he derived unspeakable comfort from the practice, and for my part I believe that he did. The charcoal-burner's convoy, bearing at once the evidence and the reward of his humanity, a battered lady on one ass and her flayed friend on another, jogged leisurely through the forest glades.
So the whole afternoon passed quickly while he was chopping wood, and he had collected a goodly pile to take back to his wife. When the day began to draw to a close, he turned his face homewards. The old man had not gone far on his way down the mountain pass when the sky clouded and rain began to fall heavily. He looked about for some shelter, but there was not even a charcoal-burner's hut near.
We both saw it together. I thought it might be the hotel, but Sir Lionel said he feared it was more probably the window of some remote cottage or charcoal-burner's hut. We walked toward it, and that was what it was: a charcoal-burner's hut. Sir Lionel must have been disappointed, because he wanted to get me home, but I wasn't.
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