"The Fire-Rider"

Do you see at the window there again, that red cap? Something must be the matter for it is going up and down. And what a sudden mob is now by the bridge near the field! Hark! the fire-bell is shrilling: beyond the hill, there's a fire in the mill!

Look, there he goes, galloping furiously through the gate - it's the fire-rider on his horse, a bony nag, looking like a fire-ladder! Across the fields, through the smoke and heat he plunges, and he's already reached his goal! Over there the bells are pealing, beyond the hill, there's a fire in the mill!

You who so often smelled fire from a mile off, and with a fragment of the holy cross maliciously conjured the blaze - woe! from the rafters there grins the Enemy of Man in hellish light. May God have mercy on your soul! Beyond the hill, he is raging in the mill!

Not an hour had passed before the mill was reduced to rubble; but the bold rider from that hour was never seen again. People and wagons in crowds turn toward home away from all the horror; and the bell stops ringing: beyond the hill, it's burning!

Later a miller found a skeleton together with the cap upright against the wall of the cellar sitting on the mare of bone: Fire-rider, how coolly you ride now to your grave! Hush! there it falls to ashes. Rest well, down there in the mill!