The hunting season had come to an end, and the Mullets had not succeeded
in selling the Brogue.  There had been a kind of tradition in the family
for the past three or four years, a sort of fatalistic hope, that the
Brogue would find a purchaser before the hunting was over; but seasons
came and went without anything happening to justify such ill-founded
optimism.  The animal had been named Berserker in the earlier stages of
its career; it had been rechristened the Brogue later on, in recognition
of the fact that, once acquired, it was extremely difficult to get rid
of.  The unkinder wits of the neighbourhood had been known to suggest
that the first letter of its name was superfluous.  The Brogue had been
variously described in sale catalogues as a light-weight hunter, a lady's
hack, and, more simply, but still with a touch of imagination, as a
useful brown gelding, standing 15.1.  Toby Mullet had ridden him for four
seasons with the West Wessex; you can ride almost any sort of horse with
the West Wessex as long as it is an animal that knows the country.  The
Brogue knew the country intimately, having personally created most of the
gaps that were to be met with in banks and hedges for many miles round.
His manners and characteristics were not ideal in the hunting field, but
he was probably rather safer to ride to hounds than he was as a hack on
country roads.  According to the Mullet family, he was not really road-
shy, but there were one or two objects of dislike that brought on sudden
attacks of what Toby called the swerving sickness.  Motors and cycles he
treated with tolerant disregard, but pigs, wheelbarrows, piles of stones
by the roadside, perambulators in a village street, gates painted too
aggressively white, and sometimes, but not always, the newer kind of
beehives, turned him aside from his tracks in vivid imitation of the
zigzag course of forked lightning.  If a pheasant rose noisily from the
other side of a hedgerow the Brogue would spring into the air at the same
moment, but this may have been due to a desire to be companionable.  The
Mullet family contradicted the widely prevalent report that the horse was
a confirmed crib-biter.

It was about the third week in May that Mrs. Mullet, relict of the late
Sylvester Mullet, and mother of Toby and a bunch of daughters, assailed
Clovis Sangrail on the outskirts of the village with a breathless
catalogue of local happenings.

"You know our new neighbour, Mr. Penricarde?" she vociferated; "awfully
rich, owns tin mines in Cornwall, middle-aged and rather quiet.  He's
taken the Red House on a long lease and spent a lot of money on
alterations and improvements.  Well, Toby's sold him the Brogue!"

Clovis spent a moment or two in assimilating the astonishing news; then
he broke out into unstinted congratulation.  If he had belonged to a more
emotional race he would probably have kissed Mrs. Mullet.

"How wonderfully lucky to have pulled it off at last!  Now you can buy a
decent animal.  I've always said that Toby was clever.  Ever so many
congratulations."

"Don't congratulate me.  It's the most unfortunate thing that could have
happened!" said Mrs. Mullet dramatically.

Clovis stared at her in amazement.

"Mr. Penricarde," said Mrs. Mullet, sinking her voice to what she
imagined to be an impressive whisper, though it rather resembled a
hoarse, excited squeak, "Mr. Penricarde has just begun to pay attentions
to Jessie.  Slight at first, but now unmistakable.  I was a fool not to
have seen it sooner.  Yesterday, at the Rectory garden party, he asked
her what her favourite flowers were, and she told him carnations, and to-
day a whole stack of carnations has arrived, clove and malmaison and
lovely dark red ones, regular exhibition blooms, and a box of chocolates
that he must have got on purpose from London.  And he's asked her to go
round the links with him to-morrow.  And now, just at this critical
moment, Toby has sold him that animal.  It's a calamity!"

"But you've been trying to get the horse off your hands for years," said
Clovis.

"I've got a houseful of daughters," said Mrs. Mullet, "and I've been
trying--well, not to get them off my hands, of course, but a husband or
two wouldn't be amiss among the lot of them; there are six of them, you
know."

"I don't know," said Clovis, "I've never counted, but I expect you're
right as to the number; mothers generally know these things."

"And now," continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic whisper, "when there's a
rich husband-in-prospect imminent on the horizon Toby goes and sells him
that miserable animal.  It will probably kill him if he tries to ride it;
anyway it will kill any affection he might have felt towards any member
of our family.  What is to be done?  We can't very well ask to have the
horse back; you see, we praised it up like anything when we thought there
was a chance of his buying it, and said it was just the animal to suit
him."

"Couldn't you steal it out of his stable and send it to grass at some
farm miles away?" suggested Clovis; "write 'Votes for Women' on the
stable door, and the thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage.  No one
who knew the horse could possibly suspect you of wanting to get it back
again."

"Every newspaper in the country would ring with the affair," said Mrs.
Mullet; "can't you imagine the headline, 'Valuable Hunter Stolen by
Suffragettes'?  The police would scour the countryside till they found
the animal."

"Well, Jessie must try and get it back from Penricarde on the plea that
it's an old favourite.  She can say it was only sold because the stable
had to be pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease, and that
now it has been arranged that the stable is to stand for a couple of
years longer."

"It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse back when you've just
sold him," said Mrs. Mullet, "but something must be done, and done at
once.  The man is not used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as
quiet as a lamb.  After all, lambs go kicking and twisting about as if
they were demented, don't they?"

"The lamb has an entirely unmerited character for sedateness," agreed
Clovis.

Jessie came back from the golf links next day in a state of mingled
elation and concern.

"It's all right about the proposal," she announced; "he came out with it
at the sixth hole.  I said I must have time to think it over.  I accepted
him at the seventh."

"My dear," said her mother, "I think a little more maidenly reserve and
hesitation would have been advisable, as you've known him so short a
time.  You might have waited till the ninth hole."

"The seventh is a very long hole," said Jessie; "besides, the tension was
putting us both off our game.  By the time we'd got to the ninth hole
we'd settled lots of things.  The honeymoon is to be spent in Corsica,
with perhaps a flying visit to Naples if we feel like it, and a week in
London to wind up with.  Two of his nieces are to be asked to be
bridesmaids, so with our lot there will be seven, which is rather a lucky
number.  You are to wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton lace
jabbed into it.  By the way, he's coming over this evening to ask your
consent to the whole affair.  So far all's well, but about the Brogue
it's a different matter.  I told him the legend about the stable, and how
keen we were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally keen on
keeping it.  He said he must have horse exercise now that he's living in
the country, and he's going to start riding to-morrow.  He's ridden a few
times in the Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry octogenarians
and people undergoing rest cures, and that's about all his experience in
the saddle--oh, and he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteen
and the pony twenty-four; and to-morrow he's going to ride the Brogue!  I
shall be a widow before I'm married, and I do so want to see what
Corsica's like; it looks so silly on the map."

Clovis was sent for in haste, and the developments of the situation put
before him.

"Nobody can ride that animal with any safety," said Mrs. Mullet, "except
Toby, and he knows by long experience what it is going to shy at, and
manages to swerve at the same time."

"I did hint to Mr. Penricarde--to Vincent, I should say--that the Brogue
didn't like white gates," said Jessie.

"White gates!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; "did you mention what effect a pig
has on him?  He'll have to go past Lockyer's farm to get to the high
road, and there's sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane."

"He's taken rather a dislike to turkeys lately," said Toby.

"It's obvious that Penricarde mustn't be allowed to go out on that
animal," said Clovis, "at least not till Jessie has married him, and
tired of him.  I tell you what: ask him to a picnic to-morrow, starting
at an early hour; he's not the sort to go out for a ride before
breakfast.  The day after I'll get the rector to drive him over to
Crowleigh before lunch, to see the new cottage hospital they're building
there.  The Brogue will be standing idle in the stable and Toby can offer
to exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of the sort and
go conveniently lame.  If you hurry on the wedding a bit the lameness
fiction can be kept up till the ceremony is safely over."

Mrs. Mullet belonged to an emotional race, and she kissed Clovis.

It was nobody's fault that the rain came down in torrents the next
morning, making a picnic a fantastic impossibility.  It was also nobody's
fault, but sheer ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in
the afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay with the
Brogue.  They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer's farm; the
rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white
a year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the
habit of making a violent curtsey, a back-pedal and a swerve at this
particular point of the road.  Subsequently, there being apparently no
further call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard,
where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to the orchard
found the coop almost intact, but very little left of the turkey.

Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruised
knee and some minor damages, good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his
own inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed Jessie to
nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-fitness within something
less than a week.

In the list of wedding presents which the local newspaper published a
fortnight or so later appeared the following item:

"Brown saddle-horse, 'The Brogue,' bridegroom's gift to bride."

"Which shows," said Toby Mullet, "that he knew nothing."

"Or else," said Clovis, "that he has a very pleasing wit."

"There is a back way on to the lawn," said Mrs. Philidore Stossen to her
daughter, "through a small grass paddock and then through a walled fruit
garden full of gooseberry bushes.  I went all over the place last year
when the family were away.  There is a door that opens from the fruit
garden into a shrubbery, and once we emerge from there we can mingle with
the guests as if we had come in by the ordinary way.  It's much safer
than going in by the front entrance and running the risk of coming bang
up against the hostess; that would be so awkward when she doesn't happen
to have invited us."

"Isn't it a lot of trouble to take for getting admittance to a garden
party?"

"To a garden party, yes; to _the_ garden party of the season, certainly
not.  Every one of any consequence in the county, with the exception of
ourselves, has been asked to meet the Princess, and it would be far more
troublesome to invent explanations as to why we weren't there than to get
in by a roundabout way.  I stopped Mrs. Cuvering in the road yesterday
and talked very pointedly about the Princess.  If she didn't choose to
take the hint and send me an invitation it's not my fault, is it?  Here
we are: we just cut across the grass and through that little gate into
the garden."

Mrs. Stossen and her daughter, suitably arrayed for a county garden party
function with an infusion of Almanack de Gotha, sailed through the narrow
grass paddock and the ensuing gooseberry garden with the air of state
barges making an unofficial progress along a rural trout stream.  There
was a certain amount of furtive haste mingled with the stateliness of
their advance, as though hostile search-lights might be turned on them at
any moment; and, as a matter of fact, they were not unobserved.  Matilda
Cuvering, with the alert eyes of thirteen years old and the added
advantage of an exalted position in the branches of a medlar tree, had
enjoyed a good view of the Stossen flanking movement and had foreseen
exactly where it would break down in execution.

"They'll find the door locked, and they'll jolly well have to go back the
way they came," she remarked to herself.  "Serves them right for not
coming in by the proper entrance.  What a pity Tarquin Superbus isn't
loose in the paddock.  After all, as every one else is enjoying
themselves, I don't see why Tarquin shouldn't have an afternoon out."

Matilda was of an age when thought is action; she slid down from the
branches of the medlar tree, and when she clambered back again Tarquin,
the huge white Yorkshire boar-pig, had exchanged the narrow limits of his
stye for the wider range of the grass paddock.  The discomfited Stossen
expedition, returning in recriminatory but otherwise orderly retreat from
the unyielding obstacle of the locked door, came to a sudden halt at the
gate dividing the paddock from the gooseberry garden.

"What a villainous-looking animal," exclaimed Mrs. Stossen; "it wasn't
there when we came in."

"It's there now, anyhow," said her daughter.  "What on earth are we to
do?  I wish we had never come."

The boar-pig had drawn nearer to the gate for a closer inspection of the
human intruders, and stood champing his jaws and blinking his small red
eyes in a manner that was doubtless intended to be disconcerting, and, as
far as the Stossens were concerned, thoroughly achieved that result.

"Shoo!  Hish!  Hish!  Shoo!" cried the ladies in chorus.

"If they think they're going to drive him away by reciting lists of the
kings of Israel and Judah they're laying themselves out for
disappointment," observed Matilda from her seat in the medlar tree.  As
she made the observation aloud Mrs. Stossen became for the first time
aware of her presence.  A moment or two earlier she would have been
anything but pleased at the discovery that the garden was not as deserted
as it looked, but now she hailed the fact of the child's presence on the
scene with absolute relief.

"Little girl, can you find some one to drive away--" she began hopefully.

"_Comment?  Comprends pas_," was the response.

"Oh, are you French?  _Etes vous francaise_?"

"_Pas de tous.  'Suis anglaise_."

"Then why not talk English?  I want to know if--"

"_Permettez-moi expliquer_.  You see, I'm rather under a cloud," said
Matilda.  "I'm staying with my aunt, and I was told I must behave
particularly well to-day, as lots of people were coming for a garden
party, and I was told to imitate Claude, that's my young cousin, who
never does anything wrong except by accident, and then is always
apologetic about it.  It seems they thought I ate too much raspberry
trifle at lunch, and they said Claude never eats too much raspberry
trifle.  Well, Claude always goes to sleep for half an hour after lunch,
because he's told to, and I waited till he was asleep, and tied his hands
and started forcible feeding with a whole bucketful of raspberry trifle
that they were keeping for the garden-party.  Lots of it went on to his
sailor-suit and some of it on to the bed, but a good deal went down
Claude's throat, and they can't say again that he has never been known to
eat too much raspberry trifle.  That is why I am not allowed to go to the
party, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all the
afternoon.  I've had to tell you all this in English, as there were words
like 'forcible feeding' that I didn't know the French for; of course I
could have invented them, but if I had said _nourriture obligatoire_ you
wouldn't have had the least idea what I was talking about.  _Mais
maintenant, nous parlons francais_."

"Oh, very well, _tres bien_," said Mrs. Stossen reluctantly; in moments
of flurry such French as she knew was not under very good control.  "_La,
a l'autre cote de la porte, est un cochon_--"

"_Un cochon? Ah, le petit charmant_!" exclaimed Matilda with enthusiasm.

"_Mais non, pas du tout petit, et pas du tout charmant; un bete feroce_--"

"_Une bete_," corrected Matilda; "a pig is masculine as long as you call
it a pig, but if you lose your temper with it and call it a ferocious
beast it becomes one of us at once.  French is a dreadfully unsexing
language."

"For goodness' sake let us talk English then," said Mrs. Stossen.  "Is
there any way out of this garden except through the paddock where the pig
is?"

"I always go over the wall, by way of the plum tree," said Matilda.

"Dressed as we are we could hardly do that," said Mrs. Stossen; it was
difficult to imagine her doing it in any costume.

"Do you think you could go and get some one who would drive the pig
away?" asked Miss Stossen.

"I promised my aunt I would stay here till five o'clock; it's not four
yet."

"I am sure, under the circumstances, your aunt would permit--"

"My conscience would not permit," said Matilda with cold dignity.

"We can't stay here till five o'clock," exclaimed Mrs. Stossen with
growing exasperation.

"Shall I recite to you to make the time pass quicker?" asked Matilda
obligingly.  "'Belinda, the little Breadwinner,' is considered my best
piece, or, perhaps, it ought to be something in French.  Henri Quatre's
address to his soldiers is the only thing I really know in that
language."

"If you will go and fetch some one to drive that animal away I will give
you something to buy yourself a nice present," said Mrs. Stossen.

Matilda came several inches lower down the medlar tree.

"That is the most practical suggestion you have made yet for getting out
of the garden," she remarked cheerfully; "Claude and I are collecting
money for the Children's Fresh Air Fund, and we are seeing which of us
can collect the biggest sum."

"I shall be very glad to contribute half a crown, very glad indeed," said
Mrs. Stossen, digging that coin out of the depths of a receptacle which
formed a detached outwork of her toilet.

"Claude is a long way ahead of me at present," continued Matilda, taking
no notice of the suggested offering; "you see, he's only eleven, and has
golden hair, and those are enormous advantages when you're on the
collecting job.  Only the other day a Russian lady gave him ten
shillings.  Russians understand the art of giving far better than we do.
I expect Claude will net quite twenty-five shillings this afternoon;
he'll have the field to himself, and he'll be able to do the pale,
fragile, not-long-for-this-world business to perfection after his
raspberry trifle experience.  Yes, he'll be _quite_ two pounds ahead of
me by now."

With much probing and plucking and many regretful murmurs the beleaguered
ladies managed to produce seven-and-sixpence between them.

"I am afraid this is all we've got," said Mrs. Stossen.

Matilda showed no sign of coming down either to the earth or to their
figure.

"I could not do violence to my conscience for anything less than ten
shillings," she announced stiffly.

Mother and daughter muttered certain remarks under their breath, in which
the word "beast" was prominent, and probably had no reference to Tarquin.

"I find I _have_ got another half-crown," said Mrs. Stossen in a shaking
voice; "here you are.  Now please fetch some one quickly."

Matilda slipped down from the tree, took possession of the donation, and
proceeded to pick up a handful of over-ripe medlars from the grass at her
feet.  Then she climbed over the gate and addressed herself
affectionately to the boar-pig.

"Come, Tarquin, dear old boy; you know you can't resist medlars when
they're rotten and squashy."

Tarquin couldn't.  By dint of throwing the fruit in front of him at
judicious intervals Matilda decoyed him back to his stye, while the
delivered captives hurried across the paddock.

"Well, I never!  The little minx!" exclaimed Mrs. Stossen when she was
safely on the high road.  "The animal wasn't savage at all, and as for
the ten shillings, I don't believe the Fresh Air Fund will see a penny of
it!"

There she was unwarrantably harsh in her judgment.  If you examine the
books of the fund you will find the acknowledgment: "Collected by Miss
Matilda Cuvering, 2s. 6d."

There was once a dove who built a nice soft nest as a home for her three
little ones. She was very proud of their beauty, and perhaps talked
about them to her neighbours more than she need have done, till at last
everybody for miles round knew where the three prettiest baby doves in
the whole country-side were to be found.

One day a jackal who was prowling about in search of a dinner came by
chance to the foot of the rock where the dove's nest was hidden away,
and he suddenly bethought himself that if he could get nothing better he
might manage to make a mouthful of one of the young doves. So he shouted
as loud as he could, 'Ohe, ohe, mother dove.'

And the dove replied, trembling with fear, 'What do you want, sir?'

'One of your children,' said he; 'and if you don't throw it to me I will
eat up you and the others as well.'

Now, the dove was nearly driven distracted at the jackal's words; but,
in order to save the lives of the other two, she did at last throw
the little one out of the nest. The jackal ate it up, and went home to
sleep.

Meanwhile the mother dove sat on the edge of her nest, crying bitterly,
when a heron, who was flying slowly past the rock, was filled with pity
for her, and stopped to ask, 'What is the matter, you poor dove?'

And the dove answered, 'A jackal came by, and asked me to give him one
of my little ones, and said that if I refused he would jump on my nest
and eat us all up.'

But the heron replied, 'You should not have believed him. He could never
have jumped so high. He only deceived you because he wanted something
for supper.' And with these words the heron flew off.

He had hardly got out of sight when again the jackal came creeping
slowly round the foot of the rock. And when he saw the dove he cried out
a second time, 'Ohe, ohe, mother dove! give me one of your little ones,
or I will jump on your nest and eat you all up.'

This time the dove knew better, and she answered boldly, 'Indeed, I
shall do nothing of the sort,' though her heart beat wildly with fear
when she saw the jackal preparing for a spring.

However, he only cut himself against the rock, and thought he had better
stick to threats, so he started again with his old cry, 'Mother dove,
mother dove! be quick and give me one of your little ones, or I will eat
you all up.'

But the mother dove only answered as before, 'Indeed, I shall do nothing
of the sort, for I know we are safely out of your reach.'

The jackal felt it was quite hopeless to get what he wanted, and asked,
'Tell me, mother dove, how have you suddenly become so wise?'

'It was the heron who told me,' replied she.

'And which way did he go?' said the jackal.

'Down there among the reeds. You can see him if you look,' said the
dove.

Then the jackal nodded good-bye, and went quickly after the heron. He
soon came up to the great bird, who was standing on a stone on the edge
of the river watching for a nice fat fish. 'Tell me, heron,' said he,
'when the wind blows from that quarter, to which side do you turn?'

'And which side do you turn to?' asked the heron.

The jackal answered, 'I always turn to this side.'

'Then that is the side I turn to,' remarked the heron.

'And when the rain comes from that quarter, which side do you turn to?'

And the heron replied, 'And which side do you turn to?'

'Oh, I always turn to this side,' said the jackal.

'Then that is the side I turn to,' said the heron.

'And when the rain comes straight down, what do you do?'

'What do you do yourself?' asked the heron.

'I do this,' answered the jackal. 'I cover my head with my paws.'

'Then that is what I do,' said the heron. 'I cover my head with my
wings,' and as he spoke he lifted his large wings and spread them
completely over his head.

With one bound the jackal had seized him by the neck, and began to shake
him.

'Oh, have pity, have pity!' cried the heron. 'I never did you any harm.'

'You told the dove how to get the better of me, and I am going to eat
you for it.'

'But if you will let me go,' entreated the heron, 'I will show you the
place where the panther has her lair.'

'Then you had better be quick about it,' said the jackal, holding tight
on to the heron until he had pointed out the panther's den. 'Now you may
go, my friend, for there is plenty of food here for me.'

So the jackal came up to the panther, and asked politely, 'Panther,
would you like me to look after your children while you are out
hunting?'

'I should be very much obliged,' said the panther; 'but be sure you take
care of them. They always cry all the time that I am away.'

So saying she trotted off, and the jackal marched into the cave, where
he found ten little panthers, and instantly ate one up. By-and-bye the
panther returned from hunting, and said to him, 'Jackal, bring out my
little ones for their supper.'

The jackal fetched them out one by one till he had brought out nine, and
he took the last one and brought it out again, so the whole ten seemed
to be there, and the panther was quite satisfied.

Next day she went again to the chase, and the jackal ate up another
little panther, so now there were only eight. In the evening, when she
came back, the panther said, 'Jackal, bring out my little ones!'

And the jackal brought out first one and then another, and the last one
he brought out three times, so that the whole ten seemed to be there.

The following day the same thing happened, and the next and the next and
the next, till at length there was not even one left, and the rest of
the day the jackal busied himself with digging a large hole at the back
of the den.

That night, when the panther returned from hunting, she said to him as
usual, 'Jackal, bring out my little ones.'

But the jackal replied: 'Bring out your little ones, indeed! Why, you
know as well as I do that you have eaten them all up.'

Of course the panther had not the least idea what the jackal meant by
this, and only repeated, 'Jackal, bring out my children.' As she got
no answer she entered the cave, but found no jackal, for he had crawled
through the hole he had made and escaped. And, what was worse, she did
not find the little ones either.

Now the panther was not going to let the jackal get off like that, and
set off at a trot to catch him. The jackal, however, had got a good
start, and he reached a place where a swarm of bees deposited their
honey in the cleft of a rock. Then he stood still and waited till the
panther came up to him: 'Jackal, where are my little ones?' she asked.

And the jackal answered: 'They are up there. It is where I keep school.'

The panther looked about, and then inquired, 'But where? I see nothing
of them.'

'Come a little this way,' said the jackal, 'and you will hear how
beautifully they sing.'

So the panther drew near the cleft of the rock.

'Don't you hear them?' said the jackal; 'they are in there,' and slipped
away while the panther was listening to the song of the children.

She was still standing in the same place when a baboon went by. 'What
are you doing there, panther?'

'I am listening to my children singing. It is here that the jackal keeps
his school.'

Then the baboon seized a stick, and poked it in the cleft of the rock,
exclaiming, 'Well, then, I should like to see your children!'

The bees flew out in a huge swarm, and made furiously for the panther,
whom they attacked on all sides, while the baboon soon climbed up out of
the way, crying, as he perched himself on the branch of a tree, 'I wish
you joy of your children!' while from afar the jackal's voice was heard
exclaiming: 'Sting, her well! don't let her go!'

The panther galloped away as if she was mad, and flung herself into the
nearest lake, but every time she raised her head, the bees stung her
afresh so at last the poor beast was drowned altogether.




The Little Hare

Contes populaires des Bassoutos. Recueillis et traduits par E. Jacottet.
Paris: Leroux, Editeur.


A long, long way off, in a land where water is very scarce, there lived
a man and his wife and several children. One day the wife said to her
husband, 'I am pining to have the liver of a nyamatsane for my dinner.
If you love me as much as you say you do, you will go out and hunt for
a nyamatsane, and will kill it and get its liver. If not, I shall know
that your love is not worth having.'

'Bake some bread,' was all her husband answered, 'then take the crust
and put it in this little bag.'

The wife did as she was told, and when she had finished she said to her
husband, 'The bag is all ready and quite full.'

'Very well,' said he, 'and now good-bye; I am going after the
nyamatsane.'

But the nyamatsane was not so easy to find as the woman had hoped. The
husband walked on and on and on without ever seeing one, and every now
and then he felt so hungry that he was obl