or some other valuable property. We will go there after dark, and you shall let me down into the hole; after I have ransacked it we will share the plunder, and then I will pay you your twopence. This proposition was accepted. In the evening the parson's servant took up a sack and a rope, and having come with his confederate to the hole, he got into the sack, and the confederate fastened the rope round his waist and let him down into the hole. When the man reached the bottom he came out of the sack. Having examined the hole and not finding anything but corn, he said to himself, "If I tell my brother that there is nothing in the hole, he is likely to go away and leave me here; what would my master say to-morrow if he were to find me in this hole?" He quickly got into the sack again, fastened the rope to it, and then called out to his confederate, "Brother, pull up the sack, it is full of various things." As the man was pulling up the sack, he said to himself, "Why should I divide these things with my confederate? I had better take it myself, and he may come out of the hole as well as he can." Having lifted up the sack, with the confederate in it, he put it on his shoulders and hastened through the village; he was followed by a large number of dogs barking furiously. As he grew tired he allowed the sack to slip close to the ground, upon which the confederate in the sack called out, 66 Brother, pull up the sack, the dogs are biting me.' When the man who carried the sack heard this, he threw it down on the ground. Then he in the sack said,— "Thus, brother, you wanted to cheat me." And the other answered,—" By heaven, you have again cheated me." After a long dispute the man who owed the twopence promised to pay them faithfully to the other whenever he would come again, and then they parted. Some time afterwards the man who was in the service of the clergyman made himself a home and got married. One day as he was sitting with his wife before the hut, he observed his confederate walking directly towards it; then he said to his wife,— "Wife, here comes my confederate; I owe him twopence. Now, I do not know what to do, for I promised to pay them to him as soon as ever he found me out. I will go in, lie down on my back, and you must cover me up; then you must begin to cry and to lament, and tell him that I am dead; then, surely, he will go away." Having said this he went into the hut, lay on his back, and crossed his arms; his wife covered him up, and then began to lament. Meanwhile the confederate approached the hut, and wishing to the woman heaven's blessing, asked her whether this was the house of So-and-so; the woman, writhing in agony on the ground, answered him, "Yes, woe is me! This is his house, and here he lies dead in it." Then the confederate said, "Heaven have mercy upon his soul! He was my confederate. We have worked and transacted business together, and since I have found him in such a state, it is only right that I should stop and accompany him to his grave, and throw a handful of earth over his coffin." The woman told him that he would have to wait a long time for the funeral, and that he had better go away. But he answered, "Heaven forbid ! federate like this? until he is buried." How could I leave my former con- When the woman whispered this to her husband in、 the hut, he told her to go to the clergyman, tell him that he was dead, and have him removed to the church in the cemetery; then, perhaps, his confederate would go away. The woman went to the clergyman and told him of her husband's death. The clergyman came up with some of his men, who put the pretended dead on a bier, carried him off and left him in the middle of the church, so that he might spend the night there according to custom, and then on the following day receive the benediction and be buried. When the clergyman with the other people were about to leave the church, the confederate said that he |