For me there are
neither locks nor bolts, whatsoever I desire is mine. Do not imagine
that I steal like a common thief, I only take some of the superfluity
of the rich. Poor people are safe, I would rather give to them than
take anything from them. It is the same with anything which I can have
without trouble, cunning and dexterity I never touch it.” “Alas, my
son,” said the father, “it still does not please me, a thief is still a
thief, I tell thee it will end badly.” He took him to his mother, and
when she heard that was her son, she wept for joy, but when he told her
that he had become a master-thief, two streams flowed down over her
face. At length she said, “Even if he has become a thief, he is still
my son, and my eyes have beheld him once more.” They sat down to table,
and once again he ate with his parents the wretched food which he had
not eaten for so long. The father said, “If our Lord, the count up
there in the castle, learns who thou art, and what trade thou
followest, he will not take thee in his arms and cradle thee in them as
he did when he held thee at the font, but will cause thee to swing from
a halter.” “Be easy, father, he will do me no harm, for I understand my
trade. I will go to him myself this very day.” When evening drew near,
the master-thief seated himself in his carriage, and drove to the
castle. The count received him civilly, for he took him for a
distinguished man. When, however, the stranger made himself known, the
count turned pale and was quite silent for some time. At length he
said, “Thou art my godson, and on that account mercy shall take the
place of justice, and I will deal leniently with thee. Since thou
pridest thyself on being a master-thief, I will put thy art to the
proof, but if thou dost not stand the test, thou must marry the
rope-maker’s daughter, and the croaking of the raven must be thy music
on the occasion.” “Lord count,” answered the master-thief, “Think of
three things, as difficult as you like, and if I do not perform your
tasks, do with me what you will.” The count reflected for some minutes,
and then said, “Well, then, in the first place, thou shalt steal the
horse I keep for my own riding, out of the stable; in the next, thou
shalt steal the sheet from beneath the bodies of my wife and myself
when we are asleep, without our observing it, and the wedding-ring of
my wife as well; thirdly and lastly, thou shalt steal away out of the
church, the parson and clerk. Mark what I am saying, for thy life
depends on it.”

The master-thief went to the nearest town; there he bought the clothes
of an old peasant woman, and put them on. Then he stained his face
brown, and painted wrinkles on it as well, so that no one could have
recognized him. Then he filled a small cask with old Hungary wine in
which was mixed a powerful sleeping-drink. He put the cask in a basket,
which he took on his back, and walked with slow and tottering steps to
the count’s castle. It was already dark when he arrived. He sat down on
a stone in the court-yard and began to cough, like an asthmatic old
woman, and to rub his hands as if he were cold. In front of the door of
the stable some soldiers were lying round a fire; one of them observed
the woman, and called out to her, “Come nearer, old mother, and warm
thyself beside us. After all, thou hast no bed for the night, and must
take one where thou canst find it.” The old woman tottered up to them,
begged them to lift the basket from her back, and sat down beside them
at the fire. “What hast thou got in thy little cask, old lady?” asked
one. “A good mouthful of wine,” she answered. “I live by trade, for
money and fair words I am quite ready to let you have a glass.” “Let us
have it here, then,” said the soldier, and when he had tasted one glass
he said, “When wine is good, I like another glass,” and had another
poured out for himself, and the rest followed his example. “Hallo,
comrades,” cried one of them to those who were in the stable, “here is
an old goody who has wine that is as old as herself; take a draught, it
will warm your stomachs far better than our fire.” The old woman
carried her cask into the stable. One of the soldiers had seated
himself on the saddled riding-horse, another held its bridle in his
hand, a third had laid hold of its tail. She poured out as much as they
wanted until the spring ran dry. It was not long before the bridle fell
from the hand of the one, and he fell down and began to snore, the
other left hold of the tail, lay down and snored still louder. The one
who was sitting in the saddle, did remain sitting, but bent his head
almost down to the horse’s neck, and slept and blew with his mouth like
the bellows of a forge. The soldiers outside had already been asleep
for a long time, and were lying on the ground motionless, as if dead. When the master-thief saw that he had succeeded, he gave the first a
rope in his hand instead of the bridle, and the other who had been
holding the tail, a wisp of straw, but what was he to do with the one
who was sitting on the horse’s back? He did not want to throw him down,
for he might have awakened and have uttered a cry. He had a good idea,
he unbuckled the girths of the saddle, tied a couple of ropes which
were hanging to a ring on the wall fast to the saddle, and drew the
sleeping rider up into the air on it, then he twisted the rope round
the posts, and made it fast. He soon unloosed the horse from the chain,
but if he had ridden over the stony pavement of the yard they would
have heard the noise in the castle. So he wrapped the horse’s hoofs in
old rags, led him carefully out, leapt upon him, and galloped off. When day broke, the master galloped to the castle on the stolen horse. The count had just got up, and was looking out of the window. “Good
morning, Sir Count,” he cried to him, “here is the horse, which I have
got safely out of the stable! Just look, how beautifully your soldiers
are lying there sleeping; and if you will but go into the stable, you
will see how comfortable your watchers have made it for themselves.”
The count could not help laughing, then he said, “For once thou hast
succeeded, but things won’t go so well the second time, and I warn thee
that if thou comest before me as a thief, I will handle thee as I would
a thief.” When the countess went to bed that night, she closed her hand
with the wedding-ring tightly together, and the count said, “All the
doors are locked and bolted, I will keep awake and wait for the thief,
but if he gets in by the window, I will shoot him.” The master-thief,
however, went in the dark to the gallows, cut a poor sinner who was
hanging there down from the halter, and carried him on his back to the
castle. Then he set a ladder up to the bedroom, put the dead body on
his shoulders, and began to climb up.