So he made up his mind it would be best to try to get either into Hell or Heaven, and to try at once, rather than to put it off any longer, so that he might know how things really stood. Then he threw his sledge-hammer over his shoulder and set off; and when he had gone a good bit of the way, he came to a place where two roads met, and where the path to the kingdom of Heaven parts from the path that leads to Hell, and here he overtook a tailor, who was pelting along with his goose in his hand.
“Good day”, said the Smith; “whither are you off to?”
“To the kingdom of Heaven”, said the Tailor, “if I can only get into it”—“but whither are you going yourself?”
“Oh, our ways don’t run together”, said the Smith; “for I have made up my mind to try first in Hell, as the Devil and I know something of one another, from old times.”
So they bade one another “Good-bye”, and each went his way; but the Smith was a stout, strong man, and got over the ground far faster than the tailor, and so it wasn’t long before he stood at the gates of Hell. Then he called the watch, and bade him go and tell the Devil there was some one outside who wished to speak a word with him.
“Go out”, said the Devil to the watch, “and ask him who he is?” So that when the watch came and told him that, the Smith answered:
“Go and greet the Devil in my name, and say it is the Smith who owns the purse he wots of; and beg him prettily to let me in at once, for I worked at my forge till noon, and I have had a long walk since.”
But when the Devil heard who it was, he charged the watch to go back and lock up all the nine locks on the gates of Hell.
“And, besides”, he said, “you may as well put on a padlock, for if he only once gets in, he’ll turn Hell topsy-turvy!”
“Well!” said the Smith to himself, when he saw them busy bolting up the gates, “there’s no lodging to be got here, that’s plain; so I may as well try my luck in the kingdom of Heaven”; and with that he turned round and went back till he reached the cross-roads, and then he went along the path the tailor had taken. And now, as he was cross at having gone backwards and forwards so far for no good, he strode along with all his might, and reached the gate of Heaven just as St Peter was opening it a very little, just enough to let the half-starved tailor slip in. The Smith was still six or seven strides off the gate, so he thought to himself, “Now there’s no time to be lost”; and, grasping his sledge-hammer, he hurled it into the opening of the door just as the tailor slunk in; and if the Smith didn’t get in then, when the door was ajar, why I don’t know what has become of him.