ith.]

[Footnote 143: There is a story (French, I think) of a king who
overheard a poor man and his wife abusing Adam and Eve for their
poverty. The king took them home, and entertained them. They had a grand
feast of many covers every day, but there was always one, the largest of
all, which they were forbidden to open. The wife soon persuaded her
husband to do so, when a mouse ran out, and the king turned them out of
doors.]

[Footnote 144: This expression shows the late date of the present story,
for no people uninfluenced by the modern Christian notion that all
reasoning beings except men must be necessarily angels or devils, and
therefore immortal, represent superhuman beings as immortal, with the
exception of the gods, and not always even these.]

[Footnote 145: See page 157.]

THE ORPHAN BOY AND THE HELL-HOUNDS.[146]

(KREUTZWALD.)

Once upon a time there lived a poor labourer and his wife, who dragged
on a wretched existence from day to day. They had three children, but
only the youngest survived. He was a boy of nine years old when he
buried first his father and then his mother, and he had no other
resource than to beg his bread from door to door. A year afterwards he
happened to come to the house of a rich farmer just when they wanted a
herdboy. The farmer himself was not such a bad man to deal with, but his
wife had control of everything, and she was a regular brute. It may
easily be imagined how much the poor orphan boy suffered. The blows that
he received daily were three times more than sufficient, but he never
got enough bread to eat. But as the orphan had nothing better to look
forward to, he was forced to endure his misery.

One day the poor boy had the misfortune to lose a cow from the herd. He
ran about the forest till sundown from one place to another, but could
not find the lost cow; and although he well knew what awaited him when
he reached home, he was at last obliged to gather the herd together
without the missing cow. The sun had not set long when he already heard
the voice of his mistress shouting, "You lazy dog, where are you
dawdling with the herd?" He could not wait longer, but was forced to
hurry home to the stick. It was already growing dusk when the herd
arrived at the gate, but the sharp eyes of the mistress had already
discovered that one cow was missing. Without saying a word, she snatched
the first stake from the fence, and began to belabour the boy, as if she
would be