council-house."

This advice pleased them all, and with greater labour they carried the
stone to the top of the mountain again, and were about to roll it down,
when one of them said, "But how shall we know where it runs to? Who will
be able to tell us aught about it?" "Why," said the bailiff, who had
advised the stone being carried up again, "this is very easily managed.
One of us must stick in the hole [for the millstone, of course, had a
hole in the middle], and run down with it." This was agreed to, and one
of them, having been chosen for the purpose, thrust his head through the
hole, and ran down the hill with the millstone. Now at the bottom of the
mountain was a deep fish-pond, into which the stone rolled, and the
simpleton with it, so that the Schildburgers lost both stone and man,
and not one among them knew what had become of them. And they felt
sorely angered against their old companion who had run down the hill
with the stone, for they considered that he had carried it off for the
purpose of disposing of it. So they published a notice in all the
neighbouring boroughs, towns, and villages, calling on them, that "if
any one come there with a millstone round his neck, they should treat
him as one who had stolen the common goods, and give him to justice."
But the poor fellow lay in the pond, dead. Had he been able to speak, he
would have been willing to tell them not to worry themselves on his
account, for he would give them their own again. But his load pressed so
heavily upon him, and he was so deep in the water, that he, after
drinking water enough--more, indeed, than was good for him--died; and he
is dead at the present day, and dead he will, shall, and must remain!

The forty-seventh chapter recounts "How the Schildburgers purchased a
mouser, and with it their own ruin":