h the devil to the farmer, Well, clown, thou hast
choused me once, it is thy fault; chouse me twice, 'twill be mine. Nay,
good sir devil, replied the farmer; how can I be said to have choused you,
since it was your worship that chose first? The truth is, that by this
trick you thought to cheat me, hoping that nothing would spring out of the
earth for my share, and that you should find whole underground the corn
which I had sowed, and with it tempt the poor and needy, the close
hypocrite, or the covetous griper; thus making them fall into your snares.
But troth, you must e'en go to school yet; you are no conjurer, for aught I
see; for the corn that was sow'd is dead and rotten, its corruption having
caused the generation of that which you saw me sell. So you chose the
worst, and therefore are cursed in the gospel. Well, talk no more of it,
quoth the devil; what canst thou sow our field with for next year? If a
man would make the best of it, answered the ploughman, 'twere fit he sow it
with radish. Now, cried the devil, thou talkest like an honest fellow,
bumpkin. Well, sow me good store of radish, I'll see and keep them safe
from storms, and will not hail a bit on them. But hark ye me, this time I
bespeak for my share what shall be above ground; what's under shall be
thine. Drudge on, looby, drudge on. I am going to tempt heretics; their
souls are dainty victuals when broiled in rashers and well powdered. My
Lord Lucifer has the griping in the guts; they'll make a dainty warm dish
for his honour's maw.

When the season of radishes was come, our devil failed not to meet in the
field, with a train of rascally underlings, all waiting devils, and finding
there the farmer and his men, he began to cut and gather the leaves of the
radishes. After him the farmer with his spade dug up the radishes, and
clapped them up into pouches. This done, the devil, the farmer, and their
gangs, hied them to market, and there the farmer presently made good money
of his radishes; but the poor devil took nothing; nay, what was worse, he
was made a common laughing-stock by the gaping hoidens. I see thou hast
played me a scurvy trick, thou villainous fellow, cried the angry devil; at
last I am fully resolved even to make an end of the business betwixt thee
and myself about the ground, and these shall be the terms: we will
clapperclaw each other, and whoever of us two shall first cry Hold, shall
quit his share of the field, which shall