"And then it struck somebody else, that it was a very queer thing a dead hand should have made a great fellow like Big Lazy-bones fall flat down like that: and the magistrate accused him straight of having had more to do with that dead hand than he ought--of course, when nobody else was by. But then Big Lazy-bones foreswore it with such fearful oaths that the magistrate turned quite giddy. 'Well,' said the magistrate, 'if you didn't do it, I dare say you're a fellow, now, who would not mind sleeping with the skeleton to-night?'--'No; I shouldn't mind a bit,--not I,' said Big Lazy-bones. So the Doctor tied the joints of the skeleton together, and laid it in one of the beds in the barracks; and put another bed close by it for Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate wrapped himself in his cloak, and lay down close to the door outside. When night came on, and Big Lazy-bones had to go in to his bedfellow, the door shut behind him as though of itself, and he stood in the dark. But then Big Lazy-bones set off singing psalms, for he had a mighty voice. 'Why are you singing psalms?' the magistrate asked from outside the wall. 'May be the bells were never tolled for him,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then he began praying out loud, as earnestly as ever he could. 'Why are you praying?' asked the magistrate from outside the wall. 'No doubt, he has been a great sinner,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then a time after, all got so still that the magistrate might have gone to sleep. But then came a shrieking that made the very barracks shake: 'I'll call again!'--Then came a hellish noise and crash: 'Out with that fifty dollars of mine!' roared Big Lazy-bones: and the shrieking and crashing came again. Then the magistrate burst open the door; the people rushed in with poles and firebrands; and there lay Big Lazy-bones on the floor, with the skeleton on the top of him." There was a deep silence all round the table. At last a man who was lighting his clay-pipe said, "Didn't he go mad from that very time?" "Yes, he did." Arne fancied everybody was looking at him, and he dared not raise his eyes. "I say, as I said before," continued the man who had told the tale, "nothing can be buried so deeply that it won't one day be brought to light." "Well, now I'll tell you about a son who beat his own father," said a fair stout man with a round face. Arne no longer knew where he was sitting. "This son was a great fellow, almost a giant, belonging to a tall family in Hardanger; and he was always at odds with somebody or other. He and his father were always quarrelling about the yearly allowance; and so he had no peace either at home or out.