squire and his wife thought this a splendid idea, and went about
rejoicing at the thought that now they would get rid of Hans.

But Hans was hard to kill, as we shall see. He slept long next
morning, as he always did, and finally, as he would not waken by
himself, the squire had to go and call him. 'Get up, Hans, you
are sleeping too long,' he cried. Hans woke up and rubbed his
eyes. 'That's so,' said he, 'I shall rise and have my
breakfast.' He got up then and dressed himself, while the
breakfast stood waiting for him. When he had finished the whole
of this, he asked what he was to do that day. He was told to
help the other men to clean out the well. That was all right,
and he went out and found the other men waiting for him. To
these he said that they could choose whichever task they
liked--either to go down into the well and fill the buckets while
he pulled them up, or pull them up, and he alone would go down to
the bottom of the well. They answered that they would rather
stay above-ground, as there would be no room for so many of them
down in the well.

Hans therefore went down alone, and began to clean out the well,
but the men had arranged how they were to act, and immediately
each of them seized a stone from a heap of huge blocks, and threw
them down above him, thinking to kill him with these. Hans,
however, gave no more heed to this than to shout up to them, to
keep the hens away from the well, for they were scraping gravel
down on the top of him.

They then saw that they could not kill him with little stones,
but they had still the big one left. The whole twelve of them