far as the field.'

'Well', said Boots, 'all I can say is, I lay in the barn till the sun
rose, and neither saw nor heard anything; I can't think what there
was in the barn to make you both so afraid.'

'A pretty story', said his brothers; 'but we'll soon see how you have
watched the meadow'; so they set off; but when they reached it, there
stood the grass as deep and thick as it had been over night.

Well, the next St John's eve it was the same story over again;
neither of the elder brothers dared to go out to the outlying field
to watch the crop; but Boots, he had the heart to go, and everything
happened just as it had happened the year before. First a clatter and
an earthquake, then a greater clatter and another earthquake, and so
on a third time; only this year the earthquakes were far worse than
the year before. Then all at once everything was as still as death,
and the lad heard how something was cropping the grass outside the
barn-door, so he stole to the door, and peeped through a chink; and
what do you think he saw? why, another horse standing right up
against the wall, and chewing and champing with might and main. It
was far finer and fatter than that which came the year before, and it
had a saddle on its back, and a bridle on its neck, and a full suit
of mail for a knight lay by its side, all of silver, and as grand as
you would wish to see.

'Ho ho!' said Boots to himself; 'it's you that gobbles up our hay, is
it? I'll soon put a spoke in your wheel'; and with that he took the
steel out of his tinder-box, and threw it over the horse's crest,
which stood as still as a lamb. Well, the lad rode this horse, too,