Then he bade him fetch two leather sacks from the other room and collect the gold into them, filling them up to the brim. He must keep it all for himself and must not tell any one what he had seen. The gamekeeper promised that he wouldn’t even tell his wife, Hátička, how he had got the money. So he filled the two sacks up to the brim, and the old man helped him to hoist them on to his shoulders and saw him out of the door. All the time he kept warning him to keep his mouth shut: “For what a woman knows all the world knows; that’s gospel truth, sure enough.”
So the gamekeeper left the castle, carrying those two sacks, and the man shook hands with him before he left. At the border of the forest, near a beech-tree, his wife, Háta, was standing looking for him. She ran up to him.
“Great Heavens, Florian! where have you been all this long time? I have been looking everywhere for you for three days.”
Now Florian was delighted that his wife had come to meet him, so he blurted out: “Hátička, wife, Count Bambus has given me these two sacks of gold pieces. Have a look here—see what heaps of the stuff there are!” and he let one of the sacks fall on the ground. But behold! instead of gold there were only rustling leaves in it. Then he remembered that he was not to say anything about it. He frowned, and his wife burst into tears; and they had to spend the rest of their life, until they died, in poverty just as before.
FRANCIS AND MARTIN
Once there was a father who had only one son, Francis by name. They had a farmhand called Martin. One day Martin and Francis were ploughing behind the barn. Francis’s mother brought their meal for them, and Francis said: “Well, mother, the old man must have a lot more money than he lets on to have. We are not in debt, and yet he’s always complaining that he hasn’t any money.”
“Well, my son, you see, he’s built that large building.”
Next day Francis and Martin were ploughing together again. They decided that they must get on the old man’s track to see whether he had any money, and where he hid it. Francis promised Martin that, if he could find it out, he would build a cottage for him at the back of the barn. So they agreed that Martin should stay away from church to try to find out if the farmer had any money hidden away at home.
When Sunday came, Francis went to church, but Martin kept on saying he wouldn’t go, until the farmer forced him to go. So he dressed for church and went out through the farm gate. But he came back on the other side, climbed over the fence, and hid himself in the barn. Soon after this the farmer came into the barn, carrying a basket full of coins. He dug a hole in the threshing-floor, put the money in it, and said: “Black Barabbas! preserve this money for me! Thou black bird! I put it in thy power!” Then he went and fetched a second basket and put it in the hole. But while he was gone to fetch the money, Martin slipped out of his hiding-place, took some of the money, and put it in his boots. Now, the farmer came back again with a third basket, and said once more: “Thou black bird! keep this money for me, and let nobody else have it, unless he gets it by ploughing this threshing-floor with three black goats!”