umbling over each other in their haste. When the last foot had got
inside, the two halves of the shell shut close. Then Peter put it in his
pocket and went on to the house.

No sooner had he reached it than he cracked his nut for the second time,
and out came the horses, sheep, and oxen again. Indeed Peter thought
that there were even more of them than before. The old man could not
believe his eyes when he saw the multitudes of horses, oxen and sheep
standing before his door.

'How did you come by all these?' he gasped, as soon as he could speak;
and the son told him the whole story, and of the promise he had given
Eisenkopf.

The next day some of the cattle were driven to market and sold, and with
the money the old man was able to buy some of the fields and gardens
round his house, and in a few months had grown the richest and most
prosperous man in the whole village. Everything seemed to turn to gold
in his hands, till one day, when he and his son were sitting in the
orchard watching their herds of cattle grazing in the meadows, he
suddenly said: 'Peter, my boy, it is time that you were thinking of
marrying.'

'But, my dear father, I told you I can never marry, because of the
promise I gave to Eisenkopf.'

'Oh, one promises here and promises there, but no one ever thinks of
keeping such promises. If Eisenkopf does not like your marrying, he will
have to put up with it all the same! Besides, there stands in the stable
a grey horse which is saddled night and day; and if Eisenkopf should
show his face, you have only got to jump on the horse's back and ride
away, and nobody on earth can catch you. When all is safe you will come
back again, and we shall live as happily as two fish in the sea.'

And so it all happened. The young man found a pretty, brown-skinned girl
who was willing to have him for a husband, and the whole village came
to the wedding feast. The music was at its gayest, and the dance at its
merriest, when Eisenkopf looked in at the window.

'Oh, ho, my brother! what is going on here? It has the air of being a
wedding feast. Yet I fancied--was I mistaken?--that you had given me a
promise that you never would marry.' But Peter had not waited for the
end of this speech. Scarcely had he seen Eisenkopf than he darted like
the wind to the stable and flung himself on the horse's back. In another
moment he was away over the mountain, with Eisenkopf running fast behind
him.

On they went through thick fores