as the old man told them to do, and looked out of the opening they saw their uncle with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. He was breaking off big pieces of gingerbread and filling the barrow as fast as he could. But when he had filled it he could not move it, for it was no longer gingerbread, but stone he had to carry. The old man motioned to the children to keep quiet, and he opened a door they had not noticed and went out. Just what he said the children never knew. But they soon found out that instead of being poor, as they had thought, their miser uncle had taken all the silver and gold their parents had left and hidden it in his cellar under the stones. The miser uncle disappeared and was never seen again, and the old man, who was really[Pg 99] a wizard, told them where to go and what to do with their wealth. So they were happy ever after. [Pg 99] Of course, they never forgot the Gingerbread Rock or the kind old man. But because he was a wizard they knew they would never see him again, for fairies and witches and wizards are all enchanted and disappear in a very strange manner. “Our good fortune came to us because we tried to be kind to the old man, I am sure,” said Hans one day, when they were talking about the Gingerbread Rock. “Yes, and because we wanted to repair the damage we had done he knew we did not mean to do any harm,” said Lisbeth; “but I shall never eat gingerbread again without thinking of him.” “Nor I,” said Hans. [Pg 100] [Pg 100] PRINCE ROUL’S BRIDE Once upon a time in a far-off land there lived by an ocean an ogre and his wife. O
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