me," says he.

"Are you in your right mind, Barin? How can one make a
young man of you?"

"Come, now! you know all about that."

"I know nothing of the kind."

"You lie, you scoundrel! Since you made my old woman
young, make me young too; otherwise, there will be no living
with her for me."

"Why I haven't so much as seen your good lady."

"Your journeyman saw her, and that's just the same thing.
If he knew how to do the job, surely you, an old hand, must
have learnt how to do it long ago. Come, now, set to work at
once. If you don't, it will be the worse for you. I'll have you
rubbed down with a birch-tree towel."

The Smith was compelled to try his hand at transforming
the seigneur. He held a private conversation with the coachman
as to how his journeyman had set to work with the lady,
and what he had done to her, and then he thought:--

"So be it! I'll do the same. If I fall on my feet, good; if
I don't, well, I must suffer all the same!"

So he set to work at once, stripped the seigneur naked, laid
hold of him by the legs with the tongs, popped him into the
furnace, and began blowing the bellows. After he had burnt
him to a cinder, he collected his remains, flung them into the
milk, and then waited to see how soon a youthful seigneur
would jump out of it. He waited one hour, two hours. But
nothing came of it. He made a search in the tub. There was
nothing in it but bones, and those charred ones.

Just then the lady sent messengers to the smithy, to ask
whether the seigneur would soon be ready. The poor Smith
had to reply that the seigneur was no more.

When the lady heard that the Smith had only turned her
husband into a cinder, instead of making him young, she was
tremendously angry, and she called together her trusty servants,
and ordered them to drag him to the gallows. No sooner said
than done. Her servants ran to the Smith's house, laid hold of
him, tied his hands together, and dragged him off to the gallows.
All of a sudden there came up with them the youngster
who used to live with the Smith as his journeyman, who asked
him:--

"Where are they taking you, master?"

"They're going to hang me," replied the Smith, and straightway
related all that had happened to him.

"Well, uncle!" said the Demon, "swear that you will never
strike me with your hammer, but that you will pay me the same
respect your fat