e, 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.

'All right,' said Hans; 'I am well content with that, but I must have
something with me to eat--a baking of bread, a cask of butter, a barrel
of ale, and a keg of brandy. I can't do with less than that.'

The squire said that he could easily get all that, so Hans got all of
these tied up together, hung them over his shoulder on his good staff,
and tramped away to Devilmoss Lake.

There he got into the boat, rowed out upon the lake, and got everything
ready to fish. As he now lay out there in the middle of the lake, and
it was pretty late in the evening, he thought he would have something to
eat first, before starting to work. Just as he was at his busiest with
this, Old Eric rose out of the lake, caught him by the cuff of the neck,
whipped him out of the boat, and dragged him down to the bottom. It was
a lucky thing that Hans had his walking-stick with him that day, and had
just time to catch hold of it when he felt Old Eric's claws in his neck,
so when they got down to the bottom he said, 'Stop now, just wait a
little; here is solid ground.' With that he caught Old Eric by the back
of the neck with one hand, and hammered away on his back with the staff,
till he beat him out as flat as a pancake. Old Eric then began to lament
and howl, begging him just to let him go, and he would never come back
to the lake again.

'No, my good fellow,' said Hans, 'you won't get off until you promise
to bring all the fish in the lake up to the squire's courtyard, before
to-morrow morning.'

Old Eric eagerly promised this, if Hans would only let him go; so Hans
rowed ashore, ate up the rest of his provisions, and went home to bed.

Next morning, when the sq