A few days after, the Sexton woke him at midnight, and told him to get up and ring the bells. ‘You shall soon be taught how to shudder!’ he thought, as he crept stealthily up the stairs beforehand.
When the Lad got up into the tower, and turned round to catch hold of the bell rope, he saw a white figure standing on the steps opposite the belfry window.
‘Who is there?’ he cried; but the figure neither moved nor answered.
‘Answer,’ cried the Lad, ‘or get out of the way. You have no business here in the night.’
But so that the Lad should think he was a ghost, the Sexton did not stir.
The Lad cried for the second time: ‘What do you want here? Speak if you are an honest fellow, or I’ll throw you down the stairs.’
The Sexton did not think he would go to such lengths, so he made no sound, and stood as still as if he were made of stone.
Then the Lad called to him the third time, and, as he had no answer, he took a run and threw the ghost down the stairs. It fell down ten steps, and remained lying in a corner.
Then he rang the bells, went home, and, without saying a word to anybody, went to bed and was soon fast asleep.
The Sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but, as he never came back, she got frightened, and woke up the Lad.