Hans braced his back against one side of the chimney, his feet against the other and then, leaning forward, looked down between his knees. The gray light of the coming evening glimmered in a wide stone fireplace just below him. Within the fireplace two people were moving about upon the broad hearth, a great, fat woman and a shock-headed boy. The woman held a spit with two newly trussed fowls upon it, so that One-eyed Hans knew that she must be the cook.
“Thou ugly toad,” said the woman to the boy, “did I not bid thee make a fire an hour ago? and now, here there is not so much as a spark to roast the fowls withall, and they to be basted for the lord Baron’s supper. Where hast thou been for all this time?”
“No matter,” said the boy, sullenly, as he laid the fagots ready for the lighting; “no matter, I was not running after Long Jacob, the bowman, to try to catch him for a sweetheart, as thou hast been doing.”
The reply was instant and ready. The cook raised her hand; “smack!” she struck and a roar from the scullion followed.
“Yes, good,” thought Hans, as he looked down upon them; “I am glad that the boy’s ear was not on my head.”
“Now give me no more of thy talk,” said the woman, “but do the work that thou hast been bidden.” Then—“How came all this black soot here, I should like to know?”
“How should I know?” snuffled the scullion, “mayhap thou wouldst blame that on me also?”
“That is my doing,” whispered Hans to himself; “but if they light the fire, what then becomes of me?”
“See now,” said the cook; “I go to make the cakes ready; if I come back and find that thou hast not built the fire, I will warm thy other ear for thee.”
“So,” thought Hans; “then will be my time to come down the chimney, for there will be but one of them.”