So when Peter the Pedlar got home with the boy, he sent for a carpenter, and had a little chest made, which was so tidy and neat, ’twas a joy to see. This he made water-tight with pitch, put the miller’s boy into it, locked it up, and threw it into the river, where the stream carried it away.
“Now, I’m rid of him”, thought Peter the Pedlar.
But when the chest had floated ever so far down the stream, it came into the mill-head of another mill, and ran down and hampered the shaft of the wheel, and stopped it. Out came the miller to see what stopped the mill, found the chest and took it up. So when he came home to dinner to his wife, he said:
“I wonder now whatever there can be inside this chest which came floating down the mill-head, and stopped our mill to-day?”
“That we’ll soon know”, said his wife; “see, there’s the key in the lock, just turn it.”
So they turned the key and opened the chest, and lo! there lay the prettiest child you ever set eyes on. So they were both glad, and were ready to keep the child, for they had no children of their own, and were so old, they could now hope for none.
Now, after a little while, Peter the Pedlar began to wonder how it was no one came to woo his daughter, who was so rich in land, and had so much ready money. At last, when no one came, off he went again to the Stargazers, and offered them a heap of money if they could tell him whom his daughter was to have for a husband.
“Why! we have told you already, that she is to have the miller’s son down yonder”, said the Stargazers.
“All very true, I daresay”, said Peter the Pedlar; “but it so happens he’s dead; but if you can tell me whom she’s to have, I’ll give you two hundred dollars, and welcome.” So the Stargazers looked at the stars again, but they got quite cross, and said,
“We told you before, and we tell you now, she is to have the miller’s son, whom you threw into the river, and wished to make an end of; for he is alive, safe and sound, in such and such a mill, far down the stream.”