The elder son laughed when he heard him, and thought: 'Good heavens! what a fool my brother is; he will never do any good as long as he lives.' But his Father sighed, and answered: 'You will easily enough learn how to shudder, but you won't make your bread by it.' Soon after, the Sexton came to the house on a visit, and the Father confided his troubles about his son to him. He told him how stupid he was, and how he never could learn anything. 'Would you believe that when I asked him how he was going to make his living, he said he would like to learn how to shudder?' 'If that's all,' said the Sexton, 'he may learn that from me. Just let me have him, and I'll soon put the polish on him.' The Father was pleased, for he thought: 'Anyhow, the Lad will gain something by it.' So the Sexton took him home with him, and he had to ring the church bells. 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. 'Don't you know what has become of my husband?' she asked. 'He went up into the church tower before you.' 'No,' answered the Lad. 'There was somebody standing on the stairs opposite the belfry window, and, as he would neither answer me nor go away, I took him to be a rogue and threw him downstairs. Go and see if it was your husband; I should be sorry if it were.' The woman hurried away and found her husband lying in the corner, moaning, with a broken leg. She carried him down, and then hastened with loud cries to the Lad's father. 'Your son has brought about a great misfortune; he has thrown my husband downstairs and broken his leg. Take the good-for-nothing fellow away, out of our house.' The Father was horrified, and, going back with her, gave the Lad a good scolding.