Then said her master, “I will go and fetch the visitors myself,” and away he went.
As soon as his back was turned Grethel put the spit with the birds on one side, and thought, “I have been standing by the fire so long that it has made me quite thirsty. Who knows when they will come? While I am waiting I may as well run into the cellar and have a little drop.” So she seized a jug, and said, “All right, Grethel, you shall have a good draft. Wine is so tempting!” she continued, “and it does not do to spoil your draft.” And she drank without stopping till the jug was empty.
After this she went into the kitchen, and placed the fowls again before the fire, basted them with butter, and rattled the spit round so furiously that they browned and frizzled with the heat. “They would never miss a little piece if they searched for it ever so carefully,” she said to herself. Then she dipped her finger in the dripping-pan to taste, and cried, “Oh, how nice these fowls are! It is a sin and a shame that there is no one here to eat them!”
She ran to the window to see if her master and the guests were coming; but she could see no one. So she went and stood again by the fowls, and thought, “The wing of that fowl is a little burned. I had better eat it out of the way.” She cut it off as she thought this, and ate it up, and it tasted so nice that when she had finished it she thought, “I must have the other. Master will never notice that anything is missing.”
After the two wings were eaten, Grethel again went to look for her master, but there were no signs of his appearance.
“Who knows?” she said to herself; “perhaps the visitors are not coming at all, and they have kept my master to dinner, so he won’t be back. Hi, Grethel! there are lots of good things left for you; and that piece of fowl has made me thirsty. I must have another drink before I come back and eat up all these good things.”
So she went into the cellar, took a large draft of wine, and returning to the kitchen, sat down and ate the remainder of the fowl with great relish.
There was now only one fowl left, and as her master did not return, Grethel began to look at the other with longing eyes. At last she said, “Where one is, there the other must be; for the fowls belong to each other, and what is right for one is also fair and right for the other. I believe, too, I want some more to drink. It won’t hurt me.”
The last draft gave her courage. She came back to the kitchen and let the second fowl go after the first.
As she was enjoying the last morsel, home came her master.