The end of the matter was, that she said to him—­

“Hark ye, my child, give me your bell; and see, here is a white stick for you,” said she, taking out a little white stick which had Adam and Eve very ingeniously cut upon it as they were feeding their flocks in the Garden, with the fattest sheep and lambs dancing before them.  There, too, was the shepherd David, as he stood up with his sling against the giant Goliath.  “I will give you,” said the woman, “this stick for the bell, and as long as you drive the cattle with it they will be sure to thrive.  With this you will become a rich shepherd.  Your wethers will be always fat a month sooner than the wethers of other shepherds, and every one of your sheep will have two pounds of wool more than others, and yet no one will ever be able to see it on them.”

The old woman handed him the stick.  So mysterious was her gesture, and so strange and bewitching her smile, that the lad was at once in her power.  He grasped eagerly at the stick, gave her his hand, and cried—­

“Done! strike hands!  The bell for the stick!”

Cheerfully the old woman took the bell for the stick, and departed like a light breeze over the field and the heath.  He saw her vanish, and she seemed to float away before his eyes like a mist, and to go off with a slight whiz and whistle that made the shepherd’s hair stand on end.

The underground one, however, who, in the shape of an old woman, had wheedled him out of his bell, had not deceived him.  For the underground people dare not lie, but must ever keep their word—­a breach of it being followed by their sudden change into the shape of toads, snakes, dunghill beetles, wolves, and apes, forms in which they wander about, objects of fear and aversion, for a long course of years before they are freed.  They have, therefore, naturally a great dread of lying.  John Schlagenteufel gave close attention and made trial of his new shepherd’s staff, and he soon found that the old woman had told him the truth, for his flocks and his work, and all the labour of his hands, prospered with him, and he had wonderful luck, so that there was not a sheep-owner or head shepherd but was desirous of having him in his employment.

It was not long, however, that he remained an underling.  Before he was eighteen years of age he had got his own flocks, and in the course of a few years was the richest sheep-master in the whole island of Bergen.  At last he was able to buy a knight’s estate for himself, and that estate was Grabitz, close by Rambin, which now belongs to the Lords of Sunde.  My father knew him there, and how from a shepherd’s boy he became a nobleman.  He always conducted himself like a prudent, honest, and pious man, who had a good word for every one.  He brought up his sons like gentlemen, and his daughters like ladies, some of whom are still alive, and accounted people of great consequence.

Well may people who hear such stories wish that they had met with such an adventure, and had found a little silver bell which the underground people had lost!