m cry on, knowing very well how to
go home again; for as he came he had taken care to drop all along the
way the little white pebbles he had in his pockets. Then said he to
them:

"Be not afraid, brothers, father and mother have left us here, but I
will lead you home again, only follow me." They did so, and he brought
them home by the very same way they came into the forest. They dared
not to go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what
their father and mother were saying.

The very moment the faggot-maker and his wife were got home, the lord
of the manor sent them ten crowns, which he had owed them a long
while, and which they never expected. This gave them new life; for the
poor people were almost famished. The faggot-maker sent his wife
immediately to the butcher's. As it was a long while since they had
eaten a bit, she bought thrice as much meat as would sup two people.
Having filled their bellies, the woman said:

"Alas! where are now our poor children? They would make a good feast
of what we have left here; but then it was you, William, who had a
mind to lose them; I told you we should repent of it: what are they
now doing in the forest? Alas! dear God, the wolves have, perhaps,
already eaten them up: thou art very inhuman thus to have lost thy
children."

The faggot-maker grew at last quite out of patience, for she repeated
this above twenty times, that they should repent of it, and she was in
the right of it for so saying. He threatened to beat her, if she did
not hold her tongue. It was not that the faggot-maker was not,
perhaps, more vexed than his wife, but that she teized him, and that
he was of the humour of a great many others, who love wives who speak
right, but think those very importunate who are always in the right.
She was half drowned in tears, crying out:

"Alas! where are now my children, my poor children?"

She spake this so very loud, that the children who were at the door,
began to cry out all together:

"Here we are, here we are."

She ran immediately to open the door, and said, hugging them:

"I am glad to see you, my dear children; you are very hungry and
weary; and my poor Peter, thou art horribly bemired; come in and let
me clean thee."

Now, you must know, that Peter was her eldest son, whom she loved
above all the rest, because he was somewhat carrotty, as she herself
was. They sat down to supper, and ate with such a good appetite as
pleased both father and