“Hutetu! it’s such foul weather out of doors to-night”, said he.
“So it is”, said she.
“Can I get leave to have a bed and shelter here to-night?” asked the youth.
“You’ll get no good by sleeping here”, said the old dame; “for if the folk come home and find you here, they’ll kill both me and you.”
“What sort of folk, then, are they who live here?” asked the youth.
“Oh, robbers! And a bad lot of them too”, said the old dame. “They stole me away when I was little, and have kept me as their housekeeper ever since.”
“Well, for all that, I think I’ll just go to bed”, said the youth. “Come what may, I’ll not stir out at night in such weather.”
“Very well”, said the old dame; “but if you stay, it will be the worse for you.”
With that the youth got into a bed which stood there, but he dared not go to sleep, and very soon after in came the robbers; so the old dame told them how a stranger fellow had come in whom she had not been able to get out of the house again.
“Did you see if he had any money?” said the robbers.