“You are mad!” replied the other; “I never spoke a word.”
“Well, then,” said his comrade, “it is plain that fellow Tim has played us a trick. Let us go and see whether the swine is where we left her.”
But, after seeking her for a long time in vain, they concluded that their brother-in-law had
carried her back with him home, whereupon they set off for Tim’s house with all speed.
On arriving at the court-yard, they went to the kitchen, and one of them said:
“Brother, I am afraid we have lost our two hundred roubles. The old beldame, Tim’s mother, is awake and up. Don’t you hear her getting the mill in order? She is going to grind. However, I will go to my sister, and ask her, as I did before, where the swine is hid; perhaps it is not in the kitchen.”
So he climbed up upon the roof as he had done before, and waking his sister said:
“Wife, where is the swine?”
“You must be asleep,” she replied; “have you forgotten that she is tied to the hand-mill in the kitchen?”
The thief, having learnt where the swine was, ran to the kitchen, and seizing his booty hastened away with his brother, saying: