‘Indeed it is,’ said the old woman.
‘Can I sleep here, and have shelter for the night?’ asked the youth.
‘It wouldn’t be good for you to sleep here,’ said the old hag, ‘for if the people of the house come home and find you, they will kill both you and me.’
‘What kind of people are they then, who dwell here?’ said the youth.
‘Oh! robbers, and rabble of that sort,’ said the old woman; ‘they stole me away when I was little, and I have had to keep house for them ever since.’
‘I still think I will go to bed, all the same,’ said the youth. ‘No matter what happens, I’ll not go out to-night in such weather as this.’
‘Well, then, it will be the worse for yourself,’ said the old woman.
The young man lay down in a bed which stood near, but he dared not go to sleep: and it was better that he didn’t, for the robbers came, and the old woman said that a young fellow who was a stranger had come there, and she had not been able to get him to go away again.
‘Did you see if he had any money?’ said the robbers.
‘He’s not one to have money, he is a tramp! If he has a few clothes to his back, that is all.’