So Peter the Pedlar gave them two hundred dollars for this news, and thought how he could best be rid of the miller’s son. The first thing Peter did when he got home, was to set off for the mill. By that time the boy was so big that he had been confirmed, and went about the mill and helped the miller. Such a pretty boy you never saw.
“Can’t you spare me that lad yonder?” said Peter the Pedlar to the miller.
“No! that I can’t”, he answered; “I’ve brought him up as my own son, and he has turned out so well, that now he’s a great help and aid to me in the mill, for I’m getting old and past work.”
“It’s just the same with me”, said Peter the Pedlar; “that’s why I’d like to have some one to learn my trade. Now, if you’ll give him up to me, I’ll give you six hundred dollars, and then you can buy yourself a farm, and live in peace and quiet the rest of your days.”
Yes! when the miller heard that, he let Peter the Pedlar have the lad.
Then the two travelled about far and wide, with their packs and wares, till they came to an inn, which lay by the edge of a great wood. From this Peter the Pedlar sent the lad home with a letter to his wife, for the way was not so long if you took the short cut across the wood, and told him to tell her she was to be sure and do what was written in the letter as quickly as she could. But it was written in the letter, that she was to have a great pile made there and then, fire it, and cast the miller’s son into it. If she didn’t do that, he’d burn her alive himself when he came back. So the lad set off with the letter across the wood, and when evening came on he reached a house far, far away in the wood, into which he went; but inside he found no one. In one of the rooms was a bed ready made, so he threw himself across it and fell asleep. The letter he had stuck into his hat-band, and the hat he pulled over his face. So when the robbers came back—for in that house twelve robbers had their abode—and saw the lad lying on the bed, they began to wonder who he could be, and one of them took the letter and broke it open, and read it.
“Ho! ho!” said he; “this comes from Peter the Pedlar, does it? Now we’ll play him a trick. It would be a pity if the old niggard made an end of such a pretty lad.”
So the robbers wrote another letter to Peter the Pedlar’s wife, and fastened it under his hat-band while he slept; and in that they wrote, that as soon as ever she got it she was to make a wedding for her daughter and the miller’s boy, and give them horses and cattle, and household stuff, and set them up for themselves in the farm which he had under the hill; and if he didn’t find all this done by the time he came back, she’d smart for it—that was all.
Next day the robbers let the lad go, and when he came home and delivered the letter, he said he was to greet her kindly from Peter the Pedlar, and to say that she was to carry out what was written in the letter as soon as ever she could.
“You must have behaved very well then”, said Peter, the Pedlar’s wife to the miller’s boy, “if he can write so about you now, for when you set off, he was so mad against you, he didn’t know how to put you out of the way.” So she married them on the spot, and set them up for themselves, with horses, and cattle, and household stuff, in the farm up under the hill.