ors, but she heard steps at the entrance of the
cave, and the robbers entered. She hid herself under a bed, and, to
her horror, she saw the man she had promised to marry bring in a
woman, whom he brutally murdered; and as he could not get a gold ring
off that was on her finger, he chopped it off with an axe, with such
violence that it rolled underneath the bed where she was. The robber
could not find it, and gave up the search. At night, the robbers all
departed on a plundering expedition, when she hastened home. She said,
however, nothing of what had happened. The wedding-day was fixed, and
the wedding guests assembled; but when the festivities were at the
highest, she produced the finger of the dead woman, with the ring on
it! The bridegroom turned pale, and, after being put to the torture,
confessed many murders, and was, with his band, executed with the
cruelty then practised; that is, their entrails were cut out by the
executioner, the bodies severed into pieces, and hung up to rot on a
gallows."

"The whole story is a very cruel picture," said Hardy.

"So the stories of robbers all are," said the Pastor. "There is a
story of a robber called Langekniv, or 'long knife.' His practice was
to kill people by casting a heavy knife at them, with a string
attached to it, so that he could possess himself of the knife again
with celerity. He committed many murders. But one day a pedlar was
going across a lonely heath, when he saw Langekniv coming. The pedlar
fell down at first with fright, but afterwards pretended to be nearly
dead from illness; and when Langekniv came up, he said, 'Take my pack
and my money, and fetch a doctor; I am dying.' Langekniv thought that
with a man who could be so easily robbed, it was not necessary to do
more than he was asked; but as soon as he turned to go away, the
pedlar struck him with his staff a blow on the ankle, that disabled
him from running. He then ran for assistance, and Langekniv, after
making it very hot for his captors by casting his long knife, was
seized, and bound, and put in a cart, and was executed. When his
entrails was being cut out by the executioner, he was asked if it
hurt, and Langekniv replied that it was not so bad as the toothache.

"There is one robber story, however, that illustrates the
extraordinary manner in which a clue to a murder can sometimes be
acquired. A pedlar was passing in a lonely hollow of a road on a heath
in Jutland, when two robbers attacked him