"Throw the tan-
faced loons to the witches," bade the King, "there are no cats or rush-
lights here for them, but divide a frog between them every ten thousand
years, if they will be quiet and not deafen us with their barbarous
chatter."
After them came, methought, thirty labourers. Everybody wondered to see
so many of that honest calling, so seldom did any of them appear; but
they did not all come from the same parts nor for like faults--some for
raising prices, many for withholding their tithes, and defrauding the
parson of his dues, others for leaving their work to follow after the
gentry, and who in trying to stride along with their masters, strained
themselves, some for doing work on the Sabbath, some for thinking of
their sheep and kine in church, instead of giving attention to the
reading of Holy Writ, and others for wrongful bargains. When Lucifer
began to question them, lo! they were all as pure as gold, and not one of
them found anything amiss in himself so as to deserve such a dwelling
place. One can scarcely believe what neat excuses each one had to hide
his sin, although they were already in hell for it, offering them merely
out of evil disposition to thwart Lucifer and to accuse the righteous
Judge, who had condemned them, of injustice.
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