set to work with poles and rollers and rolled the big mill-stone
to the brink of the well. It was with the greatest difficulty
that they got it thrown down there, and now they had no doubt
that he had got all that he wanted. But the stone happened to
fall so luckily that his head went right through the hole in the
middle of the mill-stone, so that it sat round his neck like a
priest's collar. At this, Hans would stay down no longer. He
came out of the well, with the mill-stone round his neck, ad went
straight to the squire and complained that the other men were
trying to make a fool of him. He would not be their priest, he
said; he had too little learning for that. Saying this, he bent
down his head and shook the stone off, so that it crushed one of
the squire's big toes.

The squire went limping in to his wife, and the steward was sent
for. He was told that he must devise some plan for getting rid
of this terrible person. The scheme he had devised before had
been of no use, and now good counsel was scarce.

'Oh, no' said the steward, 'there are good enough ways yet. The
squire can send him this evening to fish in Devilmoss Lake: he
will never escape alive from there, for no one can go there by
night for Old Eric.'

That was a grand idea, both the squire and his wife thought, and
so he limped out again to Hans, and said that he would punish his
men for having tried to make a fool of him. Meanwhile, Hans
could do a little job where he would be free from these rascals.
He should go out on the lake and fish there that night, and would
then be free from all work on the following day.