Page:Lange - The Blue Fairy Book.djvu/121

 hood, he actually asked to be taught to shudder.’ ‘If that’s all he wants,’ said the sexton, ‘I can teach him that; just you send him to me, I’ll soon polish him up.’ The father was quite pleased with the proposal, because he thought: ‘It will be a good discipline for the youth.’ And so the sexton took him into his house, and his duty was to toll the bell. After a few days he woke him at midnight, and bade him rise up and climb into the tower and toll. ‘Now, my friend, I’ll teach you to shudder,’ thought he. He stole forth secretly in front, and when the youth was up above, and had turned round to grasp the bell-rope, he saw, standing opposite the hole of the belfry, a white figure.



‘Who’s there?’ he called out, but the figure gave no answer, and neither stirred nor moved. ‘Answer,’ cried the youth, ‘or begone; you have no business here at this hour of the night.’ But the sexton remained motionless, so that the youth