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was a dance either at the burgomaster's, or at the tavern. As soon as
the bagpipes sounded, the boys all crowded into the room and the girls
gathered outside and looked in the windows. Katcha was always the
first at the window. The music would strike up and the boys would
beckon the girls to come in and dance, but no one ever beckoned
Katcha. Even when she paid the piper no one ever asked her to dance.
Yet she came Sunday after Sunday just the same.

One Sunday afternoon as she was hurrying to the tavern she thought to
herself: "Here I am getting old and yet I've never once danced with a
boy! Plague take it, today I'd dance with the devil if he asked me!"

She was in a fine rage by the time she reached the tavern, where she
sat down near the stove and looked around to see what girls the boys
had invited to dance.

Suddenly a stranger in hunter's green came in. He sat down at a table
near Katcha and ordered drink. When the serving maid brought the beer,
he reached over to Katcha and asked her to drink with him. At first
she was much taken back at this attention, then she pursed her lips
coyly and pretended to refuse, but finally she accepted.

When they had finished drinking, he pulled a ducat from his pocket,
tossed it to the piper, and called out:

"Clear the floor, boys! This is for Katcha and me alone!"

The boys snickered and the girls giggled hiding behind each other and
stuffing their aprons into their mouths so that Katcha wouldn't hear
them laughing. But Katcha wasn't noticing them at all. Katcha was
dancing with a fine young man! If the whole world had been laughing at
her, Katcha wouldn't have cared.

The stranger danced with Katcha all afternoon and all evening. Not
once did he dance with any one else. He bought her marzipan and sweet
drinks and, when the hour came to go home, he escorted her through the
village.

"Ah," sighed Katcha when they reached her cottage and it was time to
part, "I wish I could dance with you forever!"

"Very well," said the stranger. "Come with me."

"Where do you live?"

"Put your arm around my neck and I'll tell you."

Katcha put both arms about his neck and instantly the man changed into
a devil and flew straight down to hell.

At the gates of hell he stopped and knocked.

His comrades came and opened the gates and when they saw that he was
exhausted, they tried to take Katcha off his neck. But Katcha held on
tight and nothing they could do or say would make h