played
her game as secretly as she was able, fearing that, if it came to her
husband's knowledge, he would kill her.

One day when he was abroad, his wife, thinking that he would not soon
return, sent for his reverence the parson, who came to confess her; and
while they were making good cheer together, her husband arrived, and
this so suddenly that the priest had not the time to escape out of the
house.

Looking about for a means of concealment, he mounted by the woman's
advice into a loft, and covered the trap-door through which he passed
with a winnowing fan.

The husband entered the house, and his wife, fearing lest he might
suspect something, regaled him exceedingly well at dinner, never sparing
the liquor, of which he drank so much, that, being moreover wearied with
his work in the fields, he at last fell asleep in his chair in front of
the fire.

The parson, tired with waiting so long in the loft, and hearing no noise
in the room beneath, leaned over the trap-door, and, stretching out his
neck as far as he was able, perceived the goodman to be asleep. However,
whilst he was looking at him, he leaned by mischance so heavily upon the
fan, that both fan and himself tumbled down by the side of the sleeper.
The latter awoke at the noise, but the priest was on his feet before the
other had perceived him, and said--

"There is your fan, my friend, and many thanks to you for it."

With these words he took to flight. The poor husbandman was in utter
bewilderment.

"What is this?" he asked of his wife. "'Tis your fan, sweetheart," she
replied, "which the parson had borrowed, and has just brought back."

Thereupon in a grumbling fashion the goodman rejoined--

"'Tis a rude way of returning what one has borrowed, for I thought the
house was coming down."

In this way did the parson save himself at the expense of the goodman,
who discovered nothing to find fault with except the rudeness with which
the fan had been returned.

"The master, ladies, whom the parson served, saved him that time so that
he might afterwards possess and torment him the longer."

"Do not imagine," said Geburon, "that simple folk are more devoid of
craft than we are; (3) nay, they have a still larger share. Consider the
thieves and murderers and sorcerers and coiners, and all the people of
that sort, whose brains are never at rest; they are all poor and of the
class of artisans."

"I do not think it strange," said Parlamente, "that they