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By Root 2206 0

according to your knowledge, it is easy to see that you are not familiar with gardening. That tree there is old, and mis-shapen, no one can make it straight now. Trees must be trained while they are young.” “That is how it was with your son,” said the stranger, “if you had trained him while he was still young, he would not have run away; now he too must have grown hard and mis-shapen.” “Truly it is a long time since he went away,” replied the old man, “he must have changed.” “Would you know him again if he were to come to you?” asked the stranger. “Hardly by his face,” replied the peasant, “but he has a mark about him, a birth-mark on his shoulder, that looks like a bean.” When he had said that the stranger pulled off his coat, bared his shoulder, and showed the peasant the bean. “Good God!” cried the old man, “you are really my son!” and love for his child stirred in his heart. “But,” he added, “how can you be my son, you have become a great lord and live in wealth and luxury? How have you contrived to do that?” “Ah, father,” answered the son, “the young tree was bound to no post and has grown crooked. Now it is too old, it will never be straight again. How have I come by all this? I have become a thief, but do not be alarmed, I am a master-thief. For me there are neither locks nor bolts, whatsoever I desire is mine. Do not imagine that I steal like a common thief, I only take some of the superfluity of the rich. Poor people are safe, I would rather give to them than take anything from them. It is the same with anything which I can have without trouble, cunning and dexterity—I never touch it.” “Alas, my son,” said the father, “it still does not please me, a thief is still a thief, I tell you it will end badly.” He took him to his mother, and when she heard that was her son, she wept for joy, but when he told her that he had become a master-thief, two streams flowed down over her face. At length she said: “Even if he has become a thief, he is still my son, and my eyes have beheld him once more.”

They sat down to table, and once again he ate with his parents the wretched food which he had not eaten for so long. The father said: “If our lord, the count up there in the castle, learns who you are, and what trade you follow, he will not take you in his arms and cradle you in them as he did when he held you at the font, but will cause you to swing from a halter.” “Be easy, father, he will do me no harm, for I understand my trade. I will go to him myself this very day.” When evening drew near, the master-thief seated himself in his carriage, and drove to the castle. The count received him civilly, for he took him for a distinguished man. When, however, the stranger made himself known, the count turned pale and was quite silent for some time. At length he said: “You are my godson, and on that account mercy shall take the place of justice, and I will deal leniently with you. Since you pride yourself on being a master-thief, I will put your art to the proof, but if you do not stand the test, you must marry the rope-maker’s daughter, and the croaking of the raven must be your music on the occasion.” “Lord Count,” answered the master-thief, “think of three things, as difficult as you like, and if I do not perform your tasks, do with me what you will.” The count reflected for some minutes, and then said: “Well, then, in the first place, you shall steal the horse I keep for my own riding, out of the stable; in the next, you shall steal the sheet from beneath the bodies of my wife and myself when we are asleep, without our observing it, and the wedding-ring of my wife as well; thirdly and lastly, you shall steal away out of the church, the parson and clerk. Mark what I am saying, for your life depends on it.”

The master-thief went to the nearest town; there he bought the clothes of an old peasant woman, and put them on. Then he stained his face brown, and painted wrinkles on it as well, so that no one could have recognized him. Then he filled a small cask with old Hungary wine in which was mixed a powerful sleeping-drink. He put the