) He replies that he
knew him very intimately, but, poor man, he was far from well off,
having to go about begging from house to house. The goody gives him a
cart-load of clothes and a box of shining dollars, for her dear second
husband; for why should he go about begging in paradise when there was
so much of everything in their house? So the stranger, jumps into the
cart and drives off, as fast as possible. But Peter, the goody's third
husband, sees him on the road, and recognising his own horse and cart,
hastens home to his wife, and asks why a stranger has gone off with his
property. She explains the whole affair, upon which he mounts a horse
and gallops away after the rogue who had thus taken advantage of his
wife's simplicity. The stranger, perceiving him approach, hides the
horse and cart behind a high hedge, takes part of the horse's tail and
hangs it on the branches of a birch-tree, and then lays himself down on
his back and gazes up into the sky. When Peter comes up to him, he
exclaims, still looking at the sky, "What a wonder! there is a man going
straight to heaven on a black horse!" Peter can see no such thing. "Can
you not?" says the stranger. "See, there is his tail, still on the
birch-tree. You must lie down in this very spot, and look straight up,
and don't for a moment take your eyes off the sky, and then you'll see--
what you'll see.
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