"I am an angel," said the Master Thief, "sent from God to let you know that you shall be taken up alive into heaven for your piety's sake. Next Monday you must hold yourself ready for the journey, for I shall come then to fetch you in a sack; and all your gold and your silver, and all that you have of this world's goods, you must lay together in a heap in your dining-room."
Well, Father Laurence fell on his knees before the angel, and thanked him; and the very next day he preached a farewell sermon, and expounded how there had come down an angel unto the big maple in his garden, who had told him that he was to be taken up alive into heaven for his piety's sake; and he preached and made such a touching discourse, that all who were at church wept, both young and old.
So the Monday after came the Master Thief like an angel again, and the Priest fell on his knees and thanked him before he was put into the sack; but when he had got him well in, the Master Thief drew and dragged him over stocks and stones.
"Ow! ow!" groaned the Priest inside the sack, "wherever are we going!"
"This is the narrow way which leadeth unto the kingdom of heaven," said the Master Thief, who went on dragging him along till he had nearly broken every bone in his body. At last he tumbled him into a goose-house that belonged to the Squire, and the geese began pecking and pinching him with their bills, so that he was more dead that alive.
"Now you are in the flames of purgatory, to be cleansed and purified for life everlasting," said the Master Thief; and with that he went his way, and took all the gold and silver, and all the fine things which the Priest had laid together in his dining-room. The next morning, when the goose-girl came to let the geese out, she heard how the priest lay in the sack and bemoaned himself in the goose-house.
"In heaven's name, who's there, and what ails you?" she cried. "Oh!" said the Priest, "if you are an angel from heaven, do let me out, and let me return again to earth, for it is worse here than in hell. The little fiends keep on pinching me with tongs."
"God help us, I am no angel at all," said the girl as she helped the Priest out of the sack; "I only look after the Squire's geese, and like enough they are the little fiends which have pinched your reverence."
"Oh!" groaned the Priest, "this is all that Master Thief's doing. Ah! my gold and my silver, and my fine clothes." And he beat his breast, and hobbled home at such a rate that the girl thought he had lost his wits all at once.
Now when the Squire came to hear how it had gone with the Priest, and how he had been along the narrow way, and into purgatory, he laughed till he wellnigh split his sides. But when the Master Thief came and asked for his daughter as he had promised, the Squire put him off again, and said—