After that he took a pair of tongs, caught hold of the lady by the feet, flung her into the furnace, and burnt her up; nothing was left of her but her bare bones. When the buckets of milk were brought, he emptied them into a large tub, then he collected all the bones and flung them into the milk. Just fancy! at the end of about three minutes the lady emerged from the milk--alive, and young, and beautiful! Well, she got into her carriage and drove home. There she went straight to her husband, and he stared hard at her, but didn't know she was his wife. "What are you staring at?" says the lady. "I'm young and elegant, you see, and I don't want to have an old husband! Be off at once to the smithy, and get them to make you young; if you don't, I won't so much as acknowledge you!" There was no help for it; off set the seigneur. But by that time the Smith had returned home, and had gone into the smithy. He looked about; the journeyman wasn't to be seen. He searched and searched, he enquired and enquired, never a thing came of it; not even a trace of the youth could be found. He took to his work by himself, and was hammering away, when at that moment up drove the seigneur, and walked straight into the smithy. "Make a young man of me," says he. "Are you in your right mind, Barin? How can one make a young man of you?" "Come, now! you know all about that." "I know nothing of the kind." "You lie, you scoundrel! Since you made my old woman young, make me young too; otherwise, there will be no living with her for me." "Why I haven't so much as seen your good lady." "Your journeyman saw her, and that's just the same thing. If he knew how to do the job, surely you, an old hand, must have learnt how to do it long ago. Come, now, set to work at once. If you don't, it will be the worse for you. I'll have you rubbed down with a birch-tree towel." The Smith was compelled to try his hand at transforming the seigneur. He held a private conversation with the coachman as to how his journeyman had set to work with the lady, and what he had done to her, and then he thought:-- "So be it! I'll do the same. If I fall on my feet, good; if I don't, well, I must suffer all the same!" So he set to work at once, stripped the seigneur naked, laid hold of him by the legs with the tongs, popped him into the furnace, and began blowing the bellows. After he had burnt him to a cinder, he collected his remains, flung them into the milk, and then waited to see how soon a youthful seigneur would jump out of it. He waited one hour, two hours. But nothing came of it. He made a search in the tub. There was nothing in it but bones, and those charred ones. Just then the lady sent messengers to the smithy, to ask whether the seigneur would soon be ready. The poor Smith had to reply that the seigneur was no more.