Just then Elijah and St. Nicholas were once more passing by. Elijah looked blithely at the field and said: “Just look, Nicholas, what a blessing I have wrought! This is my reward to the pope, and he’ll never forget it all his life.”

“The pope! No, brother; it is a great boon, but then this is the peasant’s field; the pope hasn’t a rod of it!”

“Wha-at?”

“It is true. After the meadow had been battered by hail, the peasant went up to the pope and bought it back at half price.”

“Stop a bit,” said the Prophet Elijah, “I’ll take all the good out of it; out of all the peasant’s ricks he shall not thresh more than six gallons at a time.”