“‘What is the matter, good woman?’ asks the short one, for it was the shorter one and the wickeder of the two who was dogging her.

“‘Oh! master,’ says she, ’my wallet is so heavy, and I am so tired, that I badly want some good man to give me his arm’ (sly thing, only listen to her!) ‘if I am to get back to my poor home.’

“Thereupon the brigand offers to go along with her, and she accepts his offer.  The fellow takes hold of her arm to see if she is afraid.  Not she!  She does not tremble a bit, and walks quietly along.  So there they are, chatting away as nicely as possible, all about farming, and the way to grow hemp, till they come to the outskirts of the town, where the hunchback lived, and the brigand made off for fear of meeting some of the sheriff’s people.  The woman reached her house at mid-day, and waited there till her husband came home; she thought and thought over all that had happened on her journey and during the night.  The hemp-grower came home in the evening.  He was hungry; something must be got ready for him to eat.  So while she greases her frying-pan, and gets ready to fry something for him, she tells him how she sold her hemp, and gabbles away as females do, but not a word does she say about the pigs, nor about the gentleman who was murdered and robbed and eaten.  She holds her frying-pan in the flames so as to clean it, draws it out again to give it a wipe, and finds it full of blood.

“‘What have you been putting into it?’ says she to her man.

“‘Nothing,’ says he.

“She thinks it must have been a nonsensical piece of woman’s fancy, and puts her frying-pan into the fire again. . . . Pouf! A head comes tumbling down the chimney!

“‘Oh! look!  It is nothing more nor less than the dead man’s head,’ says the old woman.  ‘How he stares at me!  What does he want!’

“‘You must avenge me!’ says a voice.

“‘What an idiot you are!’ said the hemp-grower.  ’Always seeing something or other that has no sort of sense about it!  Just you all over.’

“He takes up the head, which snaps at his finger, and pitches it out into the yard.

“‘Get on with my omelette,’ he says, ’and do not bother yourself about that.  ‘Tis a cat.’

“’A cat! says she; ‘it was as round as a ball.’

“She puts back her frying-pan on the fire. . . . Pouf! Down comes a leg this time, and they go through the whole story again.  The man was no more astonished at the foot than he had been at the head; he snatched up the leg and threw it out at the door.  Before they had finished, the other leg, both arms, the body, the whole murdered traveler, in fact, came down piecemeal.  No omelette all this time!  The old hemp-seller grew very hungry indeed.

“‘By my salvation!’ said he, ’when once my omelette is made we will see about satisfying that man yonder.’

“‘So you admit, now, that it was a man?’ said the hunchback wife.  ’What made you say that it was not a head a minute ago, you great worry?’