By a clear well, within a little field Full of green grass and flowers of every hue, Sat three young girls, relating (as I knew) Their loves. And each had twined a bough to shield Her lovely face; and the green leaves did yield The golden hair their shadow,--while the two Sweet colours mingled, both blown lightly through With a soft wind for ever stirr’d and still’d. After a little while one of them said (I heard her)--“Think! if ere the next hour struck Each of our lovers should come here to-day, Think you that we should fly or feel afraid?” To whom the others answer’d--“From such luck A girl would be a fool to run away!” _THE STOLEN PIG_ Calandrino had a little farm, not far from Florence, which came to him through his wife. There he used to have a pig fatted every year, and some time about December he and his wife went always to kill and salt it for the use of the family. Now it happened once--she being unwell at the time--that he went thither by himself to kill his pig; which Bruno and Buffalmacco hearing, and knowing she was not to be there, they went to spend a few days with a great friend of theirs, a priest in Calandrino’s neighborhood. Now the pig had been killed the very day they came thither, and Calandrino, seeing them along with the priest, called to them and said, “Welcome, kindly; I would gladly you should see what a good manager I am.” Then, taking them into the house, he showed them this pig. They saw that it was fat, and were told by him that it was to be salted for his family. “Salted, booby?” said Bruno. “Sell it, let us make merry with the money, and tell your wife that it was stolen.” “No,” said Calandrino, “she will never believe it; and, besides, she would turn me out of doors. Trouble me, then, no further about any such thing, for I will never do it.” They said a great deal more to him, but all to no purpose. At length he invited them to supper, but did it in such a manner that they refused. After they had come away from him, said Bruno to Buffalmacco, “Suppose we steal this pig from him to-night.” “How is it possible?” “Oh, I know well enough how to do it, if he does not remove it in the meantime from the place where we just now saw it.” “Then let us do it, and afterward we and the parson will make merry over it.” The priest assured them that he should like it above all things. “We must use a little art,” quoth Bruno; “you know how covetous he is, and how freely he drinks when it is at another’s cost. Let us get him to the tavern, where the parson shall make a pretense of treating us all, out of compliment to him. He will soon get drunk, and then the thing will be easy enough, as there is nobody in the house but himself.”