The Story of Viteau

by Frank R. Stockton

"Cost us!" laughed the robber. "How could it cost us anything when we had no money? And now, look you, we have more time than we shall know what to do with, and I am going down there for some wine to cheer us through the day. Ride you slowly on, and I will overtake you before you have gone half a mile."

So saying, the robber turned from the road, and dashed down into the glade. Reaching the cottage, he tied his horse by the door, and, entering, demanded of the old woman, who was cooking something over a little fire, that she should bring him some of her good wine, and plenty of it, too, for he wanted some to drink and some to carry away.

The old woman looked at him for a moment, and then went out and brought a jug of wine and a drinking-horn.

When the robber had sat down on a rough stool, and had begun to drink, she went out for some wood for her fire. But instead of picking up dry sticks, she ran to a small field where her sons were working.

"Come quickly!" she said. "One of the cowardly thieves who drank and wasted our wine, a while ago, and struck me in the face when I asked for pay, is in the cottage now, drinking and robbing us again. There were many of them then, and you could do nothing. Now there is only one. Come quickly!"

THE ROBBER IN THE OLD WOMAN'S COTTAGE.

Without a word, the young men, still carrying the heavy hoes they had been using, ran to the house, and rushing into the room where the robber was still seated on his stool, engaged in drinking his second horn of wine, they attacked him with their hoes.

The coterel sprang from his seat, and drew the heavy sword which hung at his belt, but, in an instant, it was knocked from his hand, and he was belabored over the head and shoulders by the hoes of the angry young peasants. If he had not worn an iron cap, which was his only piece of armor, he probably would have been killed. As it was, he was glad to plunge out of the door and run for the woods. The two young men pursued him, but he was a faster runner than they, and his legs were not injured. So, wounded and bruised, and very sorry that he had thought about the old woman's wine, he left them behind, and disappeared among the thick undergrowth of the neighboring forest. His pursuers returned to the cottage and set loose the robber's horse.

"The wicked thief shall not creep back," they said, "to do us further injury, and then jump on his horse and fly."