"Friend," said he, addressing the carpenter, "we will eat three cakes made of the best meat in my house. Choose which you will have."
The carpenter did as he was directed; he took the cakes and weighed them in his hand, one after another, and finding that with the earth weigh heaviest, he chose it. "And if I want more, my worthy host," added he, "I will have that"--laying his hand upon the cake containing the bones. "You may keep the third cake yourself."
"I see clearly," murmured the host, "I see very clearly that God does not will the money to be restored to this wretched man." Calling therefore the poor and the infirm, the blind and the lame, he opened the cake of gold in the presence of the carpenter, to whom he spoke, "Thou miserable varlet; this is thine own gold. But thou preferredst the cake of earth, and dead men's bones. I am persuaded, therefore, that God wills not that I return thee thy money." Without delay, he distributed it all amongst the poor, and drove the carpenter away.
There once lived a hermit, who in a remote cave passed day and night in God's service. Not far from his cell there was a flock kept by a shepherd, who one day fell into a deep sleep, when a robber, seeing him careless, carried off his sheep. When the keeper awoke, he began to swear in good set terms that he had lost his sheep; and where they were gone to he knew not. But the lord of the flock bade him be put to death. This gave to the hermit great offence. "O heaven," said he to himself, "seest thou this deed? The innocent suffers for the guilty: why permittest thou such things? If thus injustice triumph, why do I remain here? I will again enter the world, and do as other men do."
And so he left his hermitage, and went again into the world; but God willed not that he should be lost: an angel in the form of a man was sent to join him. And so, crossing the hermit's path, he said to him, "Whither bound, my friend?" "I go," said he, "to yonder city." "I will go with you," replied the angel; "I am a messenger from heaven, come to be your companion on the way."
So they walked on together to the city. When they had entered, they begged for the love of God harbourage during the night, at the house of a certain soldier, who received them cheerfully and entertained them nobly. The soldier had an only and most dear son lying in the cradle. After supper, their bed-chamber was sumptuously adorned for them; and the angel and the hermit went to rest. But about the middle of the night the angel rose, and strangled the sleeping infant. The hermit, horror-struck at what he witnessed, said within himself, "Never can this be an angel of God. The good soldier gave us everything that was necessary; he had but this poor innocent, and he is strangled." Yet he was afraid to reprove him.