“No”, said the lad, he’d be sure not to do that. But when the man had been gone three or four days, the lad couldn’t bear it any longer, but went into the first room, and when he got inside he looked round, but he saw nothing but a shelf over the door where a bramble-bush rod lay.
Well, indeed! thought the lad; a pretty thing to forbid my seeing this.
So when the eight days were out, the man came home, and the first thing he said was:
“You haven’t been into any of these rooms, of course.”
“No, no; that I haven’t”, said the lad.
“I’ll soon see that”, said the man, and went at once into the room where the lad had been.
“Nay, but you have been in here”, said he; “and now you shall lose your life.”
Then the lad begged and prayed so hard that he got off with his life, but the man gave him a good thrashing. And when it was over, they were as good friends as ever.
Some time after the man set off again, and said he should be away fourteen days; but before he went he forbade the lad to go into any of the rooms he had not been in before; as for that he had been in, he might go into that, and welcome. Well, it was the same story aver again, except that the lad stood out eight days before he went in. In this room, too, he saw nothing but a shelf over the door, and a big stone, and a pitcher of water on it. Well, after all, there’s not much to be afraid of my seeing here, thought the lad.
But when the man came back, he asked if he had been into any of the rooms. No, the lad hadn’t done anything of the kind.