to-night. But, look out, if you come near my
bedroom I shall shoot you."

That night Will took a dummy man and propped it up on a ladder, which
he put up to the lord's bedroom.

And when the lord saw the dummy coming in at the window he shot his
pistol at it and it fell down. He rushed downstairs and out into the
open air looking to see if he had shot Will.

Meanwhile Will went up to the lord's bedroom and, speaking in the
lord's voice, said to his wife: "Give me the sheet, my dear, to wrap
the body of that poor Master Thief in."

So she gave him the sheet and he went away.

Next morning Will brought up the sheet to the lord, who said: "That
was a good trick, I must confess. But if you want really to prove that
you are a Master Thief bring to me the priest in a bag, and then I
will own your mastery."

So that night Will took a number of crabs and tied candle ends upon
them, and taking them to the cemetery lit the candle ends and let them
loose.

When the priest of the village saw these lights moving over the
cemetery he came to the door and watched them and called out:

"What is that?"

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 him to you if you
wanted. But I can't lea