The Best English Fairy Tales / Лучшие английские сказки

The horse went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the wood[23 - The horse went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the wood – Лошадь шла почти также хорошо, как если бы ею управлял сам дровосек.]. The horse was going a little too fast, and Tom was calling out, “Gently! gently!” when two strangers came up.

“Strange”!’ said one: “there is a cart going along, and I hear someone talking to the horse, but I can see no one.

“Strange, indeed,” said the other; “let us follow the cart, and see where it goes.”

So they went on into the wood and came to the place where the woodman was.

Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried out, “See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe!”

The two strangers did not know what to say. At last one said,

“That little boy will make us rich if we get him, and carry him about from town to town as a show.

“I won’t sell him at all,” said the father, “my own flesh and blood is dearer to me than all the silver and gold in the world.”

But Tom had a plan. He jumped to his father’s shoulder and whispered in his ear,

“Take the money, father, and let them have me. I’ll soon come back to you.”

At last the woodman said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a large piece of gold, and they paid the price.

“Where would you like to sit?” asked one of the strangers.

�Oh, put me on your hat. I can walk about there and see the country as we go along.”

So they did as he wished.

They started their journey. When it was getting dark, then the little man said, “Let me get down, I’m tired.”

So the man took off his hat, and put him down. But Tom ran to an old mouse-hole and hid himself.

“Good night, my masters!” said he, “I’m off[24 - I’m off – Я вне игры!]! Look better after me the next time.

The strangers tried to get him out of the mouse-hole, but they couldn’t. Tom only crawled farther and farther in. And at last it became quite dark, so that they went their way without their prize.

When Tom found they were gone, he came out of his hiding place.

“What dangerous walking it is,” said he.

At last he found a large empty snail-shell.