And then, one day, the soldier was walking out to take the air, and he met an ancient old crone, so old and so ancient that she was like to fall whichever way the wind blew. She tottered along, blown this way and that, like a blade of withered grass. "What an old hag," said the soldier to himself. "It was time for her to die a many years ago." "Yes," says the old crone, with her toothless gums numbling and grumbling over her words. "Long ago it was time for me to die. When you shut up Death in the sack I had only an hour left to live. I had done with the world, and the world had done with me, and I would have been glad to be at peace. Long ago my place in heaven was made ready, and it is empty to this day for I cannot die. You, soldier, have sinned before God and before man. You have sinned a sin that God will not forgive. I am not the only soul in the world who is tortured as I am. Mine is not the only place that is growing dusty in heaven. Hundreds and thousands of us who should have died drag on in misery about the world. And but for you we should now be resting in peace." The soldier began to think. And he thought of all the other old men and women he had kept from the rest that God had made ready for them. "There is no doubt about it," thinks he; "I had better let Death loose again. No matter if I am the first of whom she makes an end. I have sinned many sins, not counting this one. Better go to the other world now and bear my punishment while I am strong, for when I am very old it will come worse to me to be tortured." So he set off to the forest of Brian, which is the thickest in all the world. He found the poplar tree, and saw the sack hanging from the topmost branches, swinging this way and that as wind blew. "Well, Death, are you alive up there?" the soldier shouted against the wind. And a little voice, hardly to be heard, answered from the sack: "Alive, little father!" So the soldier climbed up the tree, took down the sack, and carried it home over his shoulder. He said good-bye to his wife and his son, who was now a fine young lad. Then he went into his own room, opened the bag, lay down upon the bed, and begged Death to make an end of him. And Death, in the form of a little old woman, crept trembling out of the sack, looking this way and that, for she was very much afraid. As soon as she saw the soldier she bolted through the door, and ran away as fast as her little old legs could carry her. "The devils can make an end of you if they like," she shrieked, "but you don't catch me taking a hand in it." The soldier sat up on the bed and knew that he was alive and well. Troubled he was as to what to do next. Thinks he: "I'd better get straight along to hell, and let the devils throw me into the boiling pitch, and stew me until all my sins are stewed out of me." So he said good-bye to everybody, took his sack in his hands and set off to hell by the best road he could find.