eply. A third time he shouted:

'Good-evening, friend! are you deaf?' but the figure never replied. Then
the stranger, being angry at what he thought very rude behaviour, picked
up a big stone and threw it at Mrs. Goldsmith, crying:

'Let that teach you manners!'

Instantly poor Mrs. Goldsmith tumbled over; and the stranger, horrified
at seeing what he had done, was immediately seized by the goldsmith, who
ran out screaming:

'Wretch! you have killed my wife! Oh, miserable one; we will have
justice done to thee!'

With many protestations and reproaches they wrangled together, the
stranger entreating the goldsmith to say nothing and he would pay him
handsomely to atone for the sad accident. At last the goldsmith quieted
down, and agreed to accept one thousand gold pieces from the stranger,
who immediately helped him to bury his poor wife, and then rushed off to
the guest house, packed up his things and was off by daylight, lest the
goldsmith should repent and accuse him as the murderer of his wife. Now
it very soon appeared that the goldsmith had a lot of extra money, so
that people began to ask questions, and finally demanded of him the
reason for his sudden wealth.

'Oh,' said he, 'my wife died, and I sold her.'

'You sold your dead wife?' cried the people.

'Yes,' said the goldsmith.

'For how much?'

'A thousand gold pieces,' replied the goldsmith.

Instantly the villagers went away and each caught hold of his own wife
and throttled her, and the next day they all went off to sell their dead
wives. Many a weary mile did they tramp, but got nothing but hard words
or laughter, or directions to the nearest cemetery, from people to whom
they offered dead wives for sale. At last they perceived that they had
been cheated somehow by that goldsmith. So off they rushed home, seized
the unhappy man, and, without listening to his cries and entreaties,
hurried him down to the river bank and flung him--plop!--into the
deepest, weediest, and nastiest place they could find.

'That will teach him to play tricks on us,' said they. 'For as he can't
swim he'll drown, and we sha'n't have any more trouble with him!'

Now the goldsmith really could not swim, and as soon as he was thrown
into the deep river he sank below the surface; so his enemies went away
believing that they had seen the last of him. But, in reality, he was
carried down, half drowned, below the next bend in the river, where he
fortunately came across a 's