withies and
branches of broom; bought a shabby old cart and a great cask, and then
he told a poor old beggar woman that he would give her ten dollars if
she would get into the cask and keep her mouth wide-open beneath the
tap-hole, into which he was going to stick his finger. No harm should
happen to her, he said; she should only be driven about a little, and if
he took his finger out more than once, she should have ten dollars more.
Then he dressed himself in rags, dyed himself with soot, and put on
a wig and a great beard of goat's hair, so that it was impossible to
recognise him, and went to the parade ground, where the Governor had
already been riding about a long time.

When the Master Thief got there the mare went along so slowly and
quietly that the cart hardly seemed to move from the spot. The mare
pulled it a little forward, and then a little back, and then it stopped
quite short. Then the mare pulled a little forward again, and it moved
with such difficulty that the Governor had not the least idea that this
was the Master Thief. He rode straight up to him, and asked if he had
seen anyone hiding anywhere about in a wood that was close by.

'No,' said the man, 'that have I not.'

'Hark you,' said the Governor. 'If you will ride into that wood, and
search it carefully to see if you can light upon a fellow who is hiding
in there, you shall have the loan of my horse and a good present of
money for your trouble.'

'I am not sure that I can do it,' said the man, 'for I have to go to a
wedding with this cask of mead which I have been to fetch, and the
tap has fallen out on the way, so now I have to keep my finger in the
tap-hole as I drive.'

'Oh, just ride off,' said the Governor, 'and I will look after the cask
and the horse too.'

So the man said that if he would do that he would go, but he begged
the Governor to be very careful to put his finger into the tap-hole the
moment he took his out.

So the Governor said that he would do his very best, and the Master
Thief got on the Governor's horse.

But time passed, and it grew later and later, and still the man did not
come back, and at last the Governor grew so weary of keeping his finger
in the tap-hole that he took it out.

'Now I shall have ten dollars more!' cried the old woman inside the
cask; so he soon saw what kind of mead it was, and set out homewards.
When he had gone a very little way he met his servant bringing him the
horse, for the Master Th