As it had rain when there was rain
nowhere else, so it had sun when there was sun nowhere else. Everybody
came to buy corn at the farm, and went away pouring maledictions on
the Black Brothers. They asked what they liked, and got it, except
from the poor, who could only beg, and several of whom were starved at
their very door, without the slightest regard or notice.
It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when one day the
two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning to little
Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he was to let nobody in,
and give nothing out. Gluck sat down quite close to the fire, for it
was raining very hard, and the kitchen walls were by no means dry or
comfortable-looking. He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and
brown. "What a pity," thought Gluck, "my brothers never ask anybody to
dinner. I'm sure, when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as
this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it
would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them."
Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet
heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up--more like a
puff than a knock.
"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock
double knocks at our door."
No; it wasn't the wind: there it came again very hard, and what was
particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not
to be in the least afraid of the consequences.
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