to load the asses, strapping on the huge fagots with thongs of leather,
while the patient animals, putting out their fore-legs, quietly endured
all the tugs and pulls to which they were subjected.

"That pack of yours seems heavy, friend traveller," said the old man,
glancing at his companion; "let me carry it for you."

"No, no! Thanks to you," answered the traveller. "I am strong and
hearty. I would not put that on your shoulders which I feel burdensome
to my own."

"Then let us put it on the back of one of the asses," said the
woodcutter; "it will make but little difference to our long-eared
friend."

"A merciful man is merciful to his beast," said the traveller. "The
poor brutes seem already somewhat overloaded, and I should be unwilling
to add to their pain for the sake of relieving myself."

"Then let Karl, there, carry it; he is sturdy, and can bear it some
little way, at all events," said the old man.

"I would not place on young shoulders what I find tire a well-knit
pair," said the traveller, glancing at young Karl. "But perhaps he may
like to get some of the contents of my pack inside his head," he added.

"Down his mouth, I suppose you mean," said the old man, laughing. "Is
it food or liquor you carry in your pack?"

"No, indeed, friend," answered the traveller. "Yet it is food, of a
sort food for the mind, and better still, food for the soul. Is your
soul ever hungry, friend?"

"I know not what you mean," answered the old man. "I have a soul, I
know, for the priest tells me so; and so have my relatives who have gone
before me, as I know to my cost; for they make me pay pretty roundly to
get their souls out of purgatory. I hope Karl there will in his turn
pay for mine when I die."

"Ah, friend, yes, I see how it is," said the traveller. "Your soul
wants a different sort of nourishment from what it ever has had. I have
great hopes that the contents of my pack will afford it that
nourishment."

The traveller was walking on all this time with the old man and Karl,
behind the asses. Karl kept looking up in the former's face with an
inquiring glance, the expression of his countenance varying as the
traveller continued his remarks.

"I will not keep you in suspense any longer," said the traveller. "My
pack contains copies of that most precious book which has lately been
translated into our mother tongue by Dr Martin Luther, and from which
alone we have any authority for the Christian f