“Who has done this task for you?” she shouted [[304]]in unbridled passion. “Tell me who it was, and I’ll have them boiled, roasted, and baked for my husband’s dinner.”
“I sha’n’t tell you anything, dame,” answered Bob. “You gave me a job to do; there it is done, according to order, and now I want my supper, please.”
The old woman looked silently and maliciously at him for several minutes, and then replied, “Very well, very well; doubtless you are a wonderful fellow; but I have a task in store for you to-morrow which will tax all your cleverness to accomplish. You got off too easily to-day. Wait till to-morrow.”
Bob followed her as she went towards the hut, muttering under her breath and shaking her staff at some imaginary foe. He ate his supper, like a man who was hungry, and then retired to rest for the night.
CHAPTER III.
A SLEEPING BEAUTY.
When morning dawned, the enchantress conducted Bob to that belt of trees before mentioned and which was situated to the rear of the hut. “See here, my son,” she said, with a wicked leer, [[305]]which made her face look positively odious; “your task to-day will be to cut down every tree on the cliff—split and cut the timber into short lengths; then you must pile the whole into one great stack, so that we may have a beacon to light the night hereabouts.”
“Is that all?” answered Bob, with self-feigned contempt. “Why, dame, I could stand on my head and do all that.”
She shot another evil glance at him from beneath her shaggy brows. “I care not how you stand,” she replied, “only the work I have given you must be finished before evening. You came here on a very foolish errand, but you do not return without your lesson.”