a peasant who was beginning to stock his little farm had bought a cow and a milk-pail at the fair, and was going quietly home by a lonely path through the forest, when he suddenly fell into the hands of a robber. the robber stripped him as bare as a lime-tree.

"have mercy!" cried the peasant. "i am utterly ruined. you have reduced me to beggary. for a whole year i have worked to buy this dear little cow. i could hardly bear to wait for this day to arrive."

"very good," replied the robber, touched with compassion; "don't cry out so against me. after all, i shall not want to milk your cow; so i'll give you back your milk-pail."