HOP-O’-My- The next morning early Hop-o’-my-Thumb put on
THUMB his seven-league boots and was in the village in a
moment, for it was only ten miles off. He found it
in a great state of commotion. The people were
gathered together on the village green, talking all
at once. So Hop-o-my-Thumb went up to them,
and asked a woman what was the matter.
‘Oh, my little dear,’ said she—she was a stranger,
and did not know Hop-o’-my-Thumb. ‘Oh, my
dear, the squire has just held a court and con-
demned a cruel woodcutter and his wife to death.
The wicked people had cast forth seven innocent
babes to be eaten by the wolves.’
‘Ah!’ thought Hop-o’-my-Thumb, ‘those are my
father and mother. I am only just in time.’
So he stepped home again, and said to his
brothers—
‘Make haste and walk as fast as you can to the
village, and show the squire that we are yet alive.’
So the six brothers set out and walked as fast as
their little feet could carry them.
Then Hop-o’-my-Thumb, taking them by the hand,
led the little string of boys to the house of the
forester, who was greatly astonished to see them
alive and well.
Hop-o’-my-Thumb related his adventures, and the
forester insisted on taking them to the squire, who
listened to their story with great interest. Of
course, as the children were not dead, the wood-
cutter and his wife were not put to death; but the
squire, though he restored the mother to her
children, kept the father in prison for two months
as punishment.
Then the squire sent some of his soldiers, con-
ducted by Hop-o’-my-Thumb, to the ogre’s house,
to see what had become of his wife.
They found that she had gone away to her kinsfolk
in the country whence the ogre had carried her off,
and the squire, on whose land the dwelling stood,
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