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The Master Thief
127

Now Will had dressed himself up like an angel.

"It is the last day of judgment, and I have come for thee, Father Lawrence, to carry thee to heaven. Come within this bag, and in a short time thou wilt be in thine appointed place."

So Father Lawrence crept within the bag, and Will dragged him along, and when he bumped against the ground Father Lawrence said:

"Oh, we must be going through purgatory."

And then Will took him to the hen-coops and threw him in among the chickens and ducks and geese, and Father Lawrence said:

"We must be getting near the angels for I hear the rustling of their wings."

So Will went up to the lord's house and made him come down to the hen-coops and there showed him the priest in the bag, and the lord said:

"I do not know how you do these things. I cannot tell if you are really a Master Thief unless you take my horse from under me. If you can do that I will call you the Master of all Master Thieves."

Well, next day, Will dressed himself up as an old woman, and taking a cart with an old horse put in it a cask of beer, and then went driving along with his thumb in the bunghole.

Soon after he met the lord on horseback who asked him if he had seen a man like Will lurking about there in the forest.

"I think I have," said Will, "and could bring