One ran as follows: "Here are shoes for sale, Round above and flat below; If David's foot they will not fit, Goliath's sure they'll suit, I know." The other was: "When through the desert roved the Jews, Their shoes for forty years they wore, Were the same custom now in use, 'Prentice would ne'er seek cobbler's door." On the ridge of the lofty house was the stork's nest, now empty.

The red-billed guests did not usually set out on their journey to the south so early, and some were still in Leyden, standing on the roofs as if lost in thought.

What could have become of the cobbler's beloved lodgers?
At noon the day before, their host, who in March usually fastened the luck-bringing nest firmly with his own hands, had stolen up to the roof, and with his cross-bow shot first the little wife and then the husband.

It was a hard task, and his wife sat weeping in the kitchen while the evil deed was done, but whoever is tormented by the fierce pangs of hunger and sees his dear ones dying of want, doesn't think of old affection and future good fortune, but seeks deliverance at the present time.
The storks had been sacrificed too late, for the cobbler's son, his growing apprentice, had closed his eyes the night before for his eternal sleep.

Loud lamentations reached Maria's ear from the open door of the shop, and Adrian said: "Jacob is dead, and Mabel is very sick.