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to sleep that night, but at sunrise he sprang up to start again on the hunt after the lost children.
When he was dressed he could not find his boots anywhere.
“’Tis very odd,” he said, “for I know I placed them here. Wife, have you seen my boots?” But the wife said she had seen nothing of them, and, what was very strange, she could not find her own boots either.
“Never mind,” quoth he, “I can walk as well without boots.”
So he started with his feet bare, but when he came to the roadside where the old man was as usual putting up his stall, he paused.
“Neighbour,” he said, “could you let me have a pair of very cheap boots this morning? I can’t find my own anywhere.”
And the old man answered as usual,—
Shoes for all.
Who'll try ? who'll try?”
As the miller took up some of the boots to choose a pair, he looked at the old man and said, “ Why, friend, what’s wrong? Are you ill? You have grown very pale and thin in the night.”