So the next time the rat-catcher put his foot out of doors the ground gave way under it, and, snap!—the gnome had him by the leg.
“Let me go!” cried the rat-catcher; “I can’t get out!”
“Can’t you?” said the gnome. “If I let you out, what will you give me?”
“My daughter!” cried the rat-catcher; “my beautiful golden daughter!”
“Oh no!” laughed the gnome. “Guess again!”
“My own weight in gold!” cried the rat-catcher, in a frenzy; but the gnome would not close the bargain till he had wrung from the rat-catcher the promise of his last penny.
So the gnome carried away all the sacks of gold before the rat-catcher’s eyes; and when he had them safe underground, then at last he let the old man go. Then he called Jasome’ to follow him, and she went down willingly into the black earth.
For a whole year the gnome rubbed and scrubbed and tubbed her to get the gold out of her composition; and when it was done, she was the most shiningly beautiful thing you ever set eyes on.
When she got back to the palace, she found her dear prince pining for love of her, and wondering when she would return. So they were married the very next day; and the rat-catcher came to look on at the wedding.
He grumbled because he was in rags, and because he was poor; he wept that he had been robbed of his money and his daughter. But gnomes and daughters, he said, were in one and the same box; such ingratitude as theirs no one could beat.