Just what he said the children never knew. But they soon found out that instead of being poor, as they had thought, their miser uncle had taken all the silver and gold their parents had left and hidden it in his cellar under the stones.
The miser uncle disappeared and was never seen again, and the old man, who was really a wizard, told them where to go and what to do with their wealth. So they were happy ever after.
Of course, they never forgot the Gingerbread Rock or the kind old man. But because he was a wizard they knew they would never see him again, for fairies and witches and wizards are all enchanted and disappear in a very strange manner.
“Our good fortune came to us because we tried to be kind to the old man, I am sure,” said Hans one day, when they were talking about the Gingerbread Rock.
“Yes, and because we wanted to repair the damage we had done he knew we did not mean to do any harm,” said Lisbeth; “but I shall never eat gingerbread again without thinking of him.”
“Nor I,” said Hans.
PRINCE ROUL’S BRIDE
Once upon a time in a far-off land there lived by an ocean an ogre and his wife.
Their home was a cave in a big white rock which was so white it shone like a light even in the darkest night, and many a ship had thought it a harbor in a storm and been wrecked by the shore where the ogre lived.