could help it, he was so tired of all that wiggle-waggle and that everlasting bridal gossip. As for the weather and the ways, they were just as they had been twice before. The sun shone, so that it was dazzling on the pools and bog-holes, and the lad sang and sprang as he was wont; but just as he sang and jumped, before he knew where he was, he was on the very same bridge across the bog again. So he was to jump from the bridge over a bog-hole on to a tuft, that he might not dirty his bright shoes. Plump it went, and it gave way with him, and there was no stopping till he was down in the same nasty deep, dark hole again. At first he was glad, for he could see nothing; but when he had been there a while he had a glimpse of the ugly rat, and he was so loath to see her with the bunch of keys at the end of her tail.
"Good day, my boy!" said the rat; "you shall be heartily welcome again, for I see you can't bear to be any longer without me. Thank you, thank you kindly; but now everything is ready for the wedding, and we shall set off to church at once."
"Something dreadful is going to happen," thought the lad, but he said nothing out loud.
Then the rat whistled, and there came swarming out such a lot of small rats and mice out of all the holes and crannies, and six big rats came harnessed to a frying-pan; two mice got up behind as footmen, and two got up before and drove; some, too, got into the pan, and the rat with the bunch of keys at her tail took her seat among them. Then she said to the lad—
"The road is a little narrow here, so you must be
