Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/271

Rh The landlord did that. "Come in back foremost." He did that, and John let the heavy sliding-door drop on the small of his back. He snatched up the knife which was on the table and cut off the landlord's polimina. He raised the sliding-door and let the landlord depart, and he was very stiff and ill. He understood it was the mistress who had played the trick upon him. He went home and took to his bed.

John came to the table and satisfied his hunger with the food. The master rose early next morning, and he did not forget to come to ask after John. John said to him, "I am well, master. The chill I caught yesterday brought out a lather of sweat upon me last night. I will go into the field with thee without delay." He put the boot of gold and silver of the landlord in a hiding-place for himself, and did not meddle with any of the other things there. He went to the field, and no sooner had he departed than the mistress came to the room, and found everything in the same place in which she had left them. "John is an honest lad," said she, "and I see that he was ill; I also see that the landlord is a deceiver. He is playing a trick upon me and deceiving me, and certainly he never came last night, and he has not kept his word with me, so for that reason I will lend no ear, nor pay attention to his false words from henceforth, but will attend to my own husband, who is courteous, civil, exemplary, and diligent in pursuit of his business, though I have broken my marriage duty with a man who is not worthy of me." So it was till John and the master came in to eat their morning meal.

John whispered to the mistress, and asked if she had heard the landlord was at the point of death. "Oh! John, I have not heard it. What has happened to him?" "I don't know," said John, "but he is deadly ill and thou should'st go to see him and carry a present to see him." "True, John, I will go there, for he was good himself." "Well, then," said John, "send me word out in the field by-and-by, and I will do up the present with thee." "I will do so," said she.

He went in, and they made up the present in a neat vessel, and when he was nearly ready with it, John said to her, "Go out and bring in a linen cloth to put round it." During the time she was out he took the meat out of the vessel and put it on one side, and he