“Oh, my child, do not ask to come in here! Get away as fast as your legs can carry you. I would willingly give you shelter! But my husband is an ogre. He devours without pity all who fall into his hands.”
However, I felt so weary, I was chilled by the cold night air, and the loneliness of the wood so terrified me that to be under cover of a roof with human beings I was willing to run all risks.
To be eaten alive by an ogre was not a very agreeable prospect! But if I continued to wander about in the woods at night, I ran the danger of coming face to face with this awful man. Perhaps under his own roof I should be in less danger of being eaten.
I begged and implored so earnestly that the woman gave in and opened the door.
“Little friend,” the good soul said to me, “you have not a moment to lose. It is nearly ten o’clock, it is at that hour that my husband returns from his first round. Here is a little bread and milk. If you are hungry and thirsty, eat and drink! Take good heed of what I am going to say to you! Directly you hear a knock at the door, hide yourself in the dark corner by the cupboard behind those two large tubs. If you value your life do not move a muscle. If my husband finds you, he will eat you, skin, bones, and all. If you are as quiet as a mouse I may save you, God helping me.”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when “bang, bang, bang,” the door shook under the blows of a heavy fist. A rough voice, at the sound of which my blood ran cold, shook the little house.
“Great heavens! woman! How much longer must I wait before you open the door?”
Before the wife had lifted the latch, I was crouching behind the two tubs. I made myself as small as possible. I was so terrified that I shrank with fear. I shrank more and more, sometimes I felt as small as a little dog, then as small as a cat, and then as small as a frog!
BEHIND THOSE TWO LARGE TUBS