Page:Grimm's Fairy Tales.djvu/261

Rh bargain, and take his whole farm and stock instead. "Not I," said he. "I will be no farmer; I am foreman, and so I mean to keep, and to be paid as we agreed." Finding he could do nothing with him, the farmer only begged one fortnight's respite, and called together all his friends, to ask their advice in the matter. They bethought themselves for a long time, and at last agreed that the shortest way was to kill this troublesome foreman. The next thing was to settle how it was to be done; and it was agreed that he should be ordered to carry into the yard some great mill-stones, and to put them on the edge of the well; that then he should be sent down to clean it out, and when he was at the bottom, the mill-stones should be pushed down upon his head.

Everything went right, and when the foreman was safe in the well, the stones were rolled in. As they struck the bottom, the water splashed to the very top. Of course they thought his head must be crushed to pieces; but he only cried out, "Drive away the chickens from the well; they are scratching about in the sand above, and they throw it into my eyes, so that I cannot see." When his job was done, up he sprang from the well, saying, "Look here! see what a fine neckcloth I have!" as he pointed to one of the mill-stones that had fallen over his head and hung about his neck.

The farmer was again overcome with fear, and begged another fortnight to think of it. So his friends were called together again, and at last gave this advice; that the foreman should be sent and made to grind corn by night at the haunted mill, whence no man had ever yet come out in the morning alive. That very evening he was told to carry eight bushels of corn to the mill, and grind them in the night. Away he went to the loft, put two bushels