"'Good-day,' said the sheriff. And then he went on, 'When was I ever your master?'
"'Oh, yes!' said little Freddy. 'Don't you remember how I served you three years for three pence?'
"'Heaven help us!' said the sheriff. 'How you have got on all of a hurry! And pray how was it that you got to be such a fine gentleman?'
"'Oh, that's telling!' said little Freddy.
"'And are you full of fun, that you carry a fiddle about with you?' asked the sheriff.
"'Yes! yes!' said Freddy. 'I have always had such a longing to get folk to dance; but the funniest thing of all is this gun, for it brings down almost anything that I aim at, however far it may be off. Do you see that magpie yonder, sitting in the spruce fir? What'll you bet I don't bag it, as we stand here?'
"On that the sheriff was ready to stake horse and groom, and a hundred dollars beside, that he couldn't do it; but, as it was, he would bet all the money he had about him; and he would go to fetch it when it fell--for he never thought it possible for any gun to carry so far.
"But as the gun went off down fell the magpie, and into a great bramble thicket; and away went the sheriff up into the brambles after it, and he picked it up and showed it to the lad. But in a trice Little Freddy began to scrape his fiddle, and the sheriff began to dance, and the thorns to tear him; but still the lad played on, and the sheriff danced, and cried, and begged till his clothes flew to tatters, and he scarce had a thread to his back.
"'Yes!' said Little Freddy; 'now I think you're about as ragged as I was when I left your service. So now you may get off with what you have got.'
"But, first of all, the sheriff had to pay him what he had wagered that he could not hit the magpie.
"So when the lad came to the town he turned aside into an inn, and he began to play, and all who came danced, and he lived merrily and well. He had no care, for no one could say him 'Nay' to anything he asked.
"But just as they were all in the midst of their fun up came the watchmen to drag the lad off to the town-hall: for the sheriff had laid a charge against him, and said he had waylaid him and robbed him, and nearly taken his life. And now he was to be hanged--they would not hear of anything else. But Little Freddy had a cure for all trouble, and that was his fiddle. He began to play on it, and the watchmen fell a-dancing, till they lay down and gasped for breath.