THE DEVIL'S POOL
"That one is too stupid! Our little children would n't take the trouble to answer you. What! Are these all you know?"
The Grave-digger: "Oh, we shall sing you so many that you will never be able to hear them all."
In this way a full hour passed. As the two antagonists were champions of the country round in the matter of songs, and as their store seemed inexhaustible, the contest might last all night with ease, all the more because the hemp-dresser, with a touch of malice, allowed several ballads of ten, twenty, or thirty couplets to be sung through, feigning by his silence to admit his defeat. Then the bridegroom's camp rejoiced and sang aloud in chorus, and thought that this time the foe was worsted; but at the first line of the last couplet, they heard the hoarse croaking of the old hemp-dresser bellow forth the second rhyme. Then he cried:
"You need not tire yourselves by singing such a long one, my children—we know that one to our finger-tips."
Once or twice, however, the hemp-dresser made a wry face, contracted his brow, and turned toward the expectant housewives with a baffled air. The grave-digger was singing something so old that his
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