Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version Read Online Free PDF Page B

downstairs. Who are you and what do you want?’
    The sexton thought, ‘He wouldn’t throw me downstairs, I’m sure.’
    And he stood there like a stone, not making a sound.
    So the boy shouted once more, and still getting no answer, he yelled, ‘Well, you’ve asked for it, and here it comes!’
    And he rushed at the white figure and shoved him down the stairs. The ghost tumbled all the way down and lay moaning in a heap in the corner. Seeing that there was going to be no more trouble from him, the boy rang the bell as he’d been told and then went back to bed.
    The sexton’s wife had been waiting all this time, and when her husband didn’t come back she started to worry. She went to wake the boy.
    ‘Where’s my husband?’ she said. ‘Did you see him? He climbed the tower before you did.’
    ‘Dunno,’ said the boy. ‘I never saw him. There was someone in a white sheet standing near the sound hole, and he wouldn’t answer and he wouldn’t go away, so I thought he was up to no good and I shoved him down the stairs. Go and take a look – he’s probably still there. I’d be sorry if it was him. He fell with ever such a thump.’
    The wife ran out and found her husband groaning with the pain of a broken leg. She managed to carry him home, and then she ran screaming and yelling to the boy’s father.
    ‘Your fool of a son!’ she cried. ‘D’you know what he’s done? He threw my husband right from the top of the belfry! The poor man’s broken his leg and I shouldn’t wonder if half the rest of his bones are in pieces as well! Take the good-for-nothing wretch out of our house before he brings it down around our ears. I never want to see him again.’
    The father was horrified. He ran to the sexton’s house and shook the boy out of his bed.
    ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he said. ‘Desecrating the sexton? The Devil must have put you up to it!’
    ‘But father,’ said the boy, ‘I’m innocent. I had no idea it was the sexton. He was standing there by the sound hole with a white sheet over him. I couldn’t tell who it was, and I warned him three times.’
    ‘God in heaven!’ said the father. ‘You bring me nothing but trouble. Get out of my sight, go on. I don’t even want to look at you any more.’
    ‘I’d be glad to,’ said the boy. ‘Just let me wait till daylight, and I’ll go out into the world and leave you alone. I can look for the shivers, and then I’ll have a skill and I’ll be able to earn a living at last.’
    ‘Shivers, indeed! Do what you like, it’s all the same to me. Here you are – here’s fifty talers for you. Take them and go out into the wide world, but don’t you dare tell anyone where you come from or who your father is. I’d be ashamed.’
    ‘All right, father, yes, I’ll do as you wish. If that’s all you want me to do, I’ll easily remember it.’
    And as soon as morning came, the boy put his fifty talers in his pocket and set off, saying to himself all the time, ‘I wish I could get the shivers! If only I could get the shivers!’
    A man who happened to be going along the same way heard what the boy was saying. They hadn’t gone much further when a gallows came in sight.
    ‘Look,’ said the man, ‘here’s a tip for you. See that gallows? Seven men got married to the rope-maker’s daughter there, and now they’re learning to fly. If you sit down there beneath it and wait till night comes, then you’ll get the shivers all right.’
    ‘Really?’ said the boy. ‘It’s as easy as that? Well, I’ll soon learn in that case. If I get the shivers before morning, you can have my fifty talers. Just come back here and see me then.’
    He went to the gallows, sat himself down beneath it, and waited for night to fall. He felt cold, so he made himself a fire, but by midnight a wind arose and he couldn’t get warm in spite of the blazing logs. The wind pushed the hanged men to and fro so that the bodies jostled against one another, and the boy