Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/57

 Rh which he had, and then went away, happy and cheerful, into the wide world. Towards evening the weather became terribly bad. He made haste to get under shelter, but dark night soon came on; then at last he came to a little church, which lay quite solitary on a small hill.

The door luckily stood ajar, and he crept in; here he decided to remain till the storm had gone down.

'Here I will sit down in a corner,' said he; 'I am quite tired and require a little rest.' Then he sat down, folded his hands, and said his evening prayer; and before he was aware of it he was asleep and dreaming, while it thundered and lightened without.

When he woke it was midnight; but the bad weather had passed by, and the moon shone in upon him through the windows. In the midst of the church stood an open coffin with a dead man in it who had not yet been buried. John was not at all timid, for he had a good conscience; and he knew very well that the dead do not harm any one. It is living people who do harm. Two such living bad men stood close by the dead man, who had been placed here in the church till he should be buried. They had an evil design against him, and would not let him rest quietly in his coffin, but were going to throw him out before the church door—the poor dead man!

'Why will you do that?' asked John; 'that is wrong and wicked. Let him rest, for mercy's sake.'

'Nonsense!' replied the bad men; 'he has cheated us. He owed us money and could not pay it, and now he's dead into the bargain, and we shall not get a penny! So we mean to revenge ourselves properly: he shall lie like a dog outside the church door!'

'I have not more than fifty dollars,' cried John, 'that is my whole inheritance; but I will gladly give it you, if you will honestly promise me to leave the poor dead man in peace. I shall manage to get on without the money; I have hearty strong limbs, and Heaven will always help me.'

'Yes,' said these ugly bad men, 'if you will pay his debt we will do nothing to him, you may depend upon that!' And then they took the money he gave them, laughed aloud at his good nature, and went their way. But he laid the corpse out again in the coffin, and folded