g, when he saw the first door with a cross
on it.

'No, there it is, my dear!' said the Queen, when she likewise saw a
door with a cross.

'But here is one, and there is another!' they all exclaimed; wherever
they looked there was a cross on the door. Then they realised that the
sign would not help them at all.

But the Queen was an extremely clever woman, who could do a great deal
more than just drive in a coach. She took her great golden scissors,
cut up a piece of silk, and made a pretty little bag of it. This she
filled with the finest buckwheat grains, and tied it round the
Princess' neck; this done, she cut a little hole in the bag, so that
the grains would strew the whole road wherever the Princess went.

In the night the dog came again, took the Princess on his back and ran
away with her to the Soldier, who was very much in love with her, and
would have liked to have been a Prince, so that he might have had her
for his wife.

The dog did not notice how the grains were strewn right from the
castle to the Soldier's window, where he ran up the wall with the
Princess.

In the morning the King and the Queen saw plainly where their daughter
had been, and they took the Soldier and put him into prison.

[Illustration: 'He Was Skipping Along So Merrily']

There he sat. Oh, how dark and dull it was there! And they told him:
'To-morrow you are to be hanged.' Hearing that did not exactly cheer
him, and he had left his tinder-box in the inn.

Next morning he could see through the iron grating in front of his
little window how the people were hurrying out of the town to see him
hanged. He heard the drums and saw the soldiers marching; all the
people were running to and fro. Just below his window was a
shoemaker's apprentice, with leather apron and shoes; he was skipping
along so merrily that one of his shoes flew off and fell against the
wall, just where the Soldier was sitting peeping through the iron
grating.

'Oh, shoemaker's boy, you needn't be in such a hurry!' said the
Soldier to him. 'There's nothing going on till I arrive. But if you
will run back to the house where I lived, and fetch me my tinder-box,
I will give you four shillings. But you must put your best foot
foremost.'

The shoemaker's boy was very willing to earn four shillings, and
fetched the tinder-box, gave it to the Soldier, and--yes--now you
shall hear.

Outside the town a great scaffold had been erected, and all round were
standing the