me to a door
of the room in which the child was. I went to the King, and took hold of
him, and went back again, and began to tear at the door. The King
followed me, and asked for the key. The servant said it was in the room
of the stranger woman. The King caused search to be made for her, and
she was not to be found. "I will break the door," said the King, "as I
can't get the key." The King broke the door, and I went in, and went to
the trunk, and the King asked for a key to unlock it. He got no key, and
he broke the lock. When he opened the trunk the child and the hand were
stretched side by side, and the child was asleep. The King took the
hand, and ordered a woman to come for the child, and he showed the hand
to everyone in the house. But the stranger woman was gone, and she did
not see the King; and here she is herself to say if I am telling lies of
her.

"Oh, it's nothing but the truth you have."

The King did not allow me to be tied any more. He said there was nothing
so much to wonder at as that I cut the hand off, and I tied.

The child was growing till he was a year old, and he was beginning to
walk, and there was no one caring for him more than I was. He was
growing till he was three, and he was running out every minute; so the
King ordered a silver chain to be put between me and the child, so that
he might not go away from me. I was out with him in the garden every
day, and the King was as proud as the world of the child. He would be
watching him every place we went, till the child grew so wise that he
would loose the chain and get off. But one day that he loosed it I
failed to find him; and I ran into the house and searched the house, but
there was no getting him for me. The King cried to go out and find the
child, that he had got loose from the dog. They went searching for him,
but they could not find him. When they failed altogether to find him,
there remained no more favour with the King towards me, and everyone
disliked me, and I grew weak, for I did not get a morsel to eat half the
time. When summer came I said I would try and go home to my own country.
I went away one fine morning, and I went swimming, and God helped me
till I came home. I went into the garden, for I knew there was a place
in the garden where I could hide myself, for fear she should see me. In
the morning I saw my wife out walking, and my child with her, held by
the hand. I pushed out to see the child, and, as he was looking about
h