A poor woodcutter, about to fell a beech at the back of the scattered ruins of the castle of Dummburg, seeing a monk approach slowly through the forest, hid himself behind a tree.  The monk passed by and went among the rocks.  The woodcutter stole cautiously after him and saw that he stopped at a small door which had never been discovered by the villagers.  The monk knocks gently and cries, “Little door, open!” and the door springs open.  He also cries, “Little door, shut!” and the door is closed.  The woodcutter carefully observes the place, and next Sunday goes secretly and obtains access to the vault by the same means as that employed by the monk.  He finds in it “large open vessels and sacks full of old dollars and fine guilders, together with heavy gold pieces, caskets filled with jewels and pearls, costly shrines and images of saints, which lay about or stood on tables of silver in corners of the vault.”  He takes but a small quantity of the coin, and as he is quitting the vault a voice cries, “Come again!” First giving to the church, for behoof of the poor, a tenth of what he had taken, he goes to the town and buys clothes for his wife and children, giving out to his neighbours that he had found an old dollar and a few guilders under the roots of a tree that he had felled.  Next Sunday he again visits the vault, this time supplying himself somewhat more liberally from the hoard, but still with moderation and discretion, and “Come again!” cries a voice as he is leaving.  He now gives to the church two tenths, and resolves to bury the rest of the money he had taken in his cellar.  But he can’t resist a desire to first measure the gold, for he could not count it.  So he borrows for this purpose a corn-measure of a neighbour—­a very rich but penurious man, who starved himself, hoarded up corn, cheated the labourer of his hire, robbed the widow and the orphan, and lent money on pledges.  Now the measure had some cracks in the bottom, through which the miser shook some grains of corn into his own heap when selling it to the poor labourer, and into these cracks two or three small coins lodged, which the miser was not slow to discover.  He goes to the woodcutter and asks him what it was he had been measuring.  “Pine-cones and beans.  But the miser holds up the coins he had found in the cracks of the measure, and threatens to inform upon him and have him put to the question if he will not disclose to him the secret of his money.  So the woodcutter is constrained to tell him the whole story and much against his will, but not before he had made the miser promise that he would give one-tenth to the church, he conducts him to the vault.  The miser enters, with a number of sacks, the woodcutter waiting outside to receive them when filled with treasure.  But while the miser is gloating over the enormous wealth before him—­even “wealth beyond the dreams of avarice”—­a great black dog comes and lays himself down on the sacks.  Terrified at the flaming eyes of the dog, the miser crept towards