5. He cause some trouble
The next morning Antipka quickly gathered up all the odd pieces of rope he could find, and knotted them together until he had made one very very long rope out of them. He wasn’t an unkind man at heart and he didn’t want to leave his wife in the mud at the bottom of the pit for too long.
With his rope coiled over his shoulder and under his arm he bounced along the road, whistling to himself.
“Hee hawwww”, brayed Sasha’s donkey.
“Be quiet,” said Antipka.
When he reached the pit he first helped himself to a ripe cranberry and then began to lower the end of the rope down, down, down into the black hole. It took quite a time to unwind enough but finally he felt a tug on the rope and knew that his wife had caught hold of it.
“Hold tight!” shouted Antipka down the pit, and began to pull on the rope, hand over hand. His wife was surprisingly light, after all, and Antipka found it much easier than he had expected.
But just imagine his astonishment when, instead of his wife, he drew out a small, wicked-looking hobgoblin from the pit. Before Antipka had leapt off the rope and on to the ground, and had then clambered nimbly up the nearest birch tree, where he now sat dnagling his legs.
“Pheww,” panted the hobgoblin. “I don’t know who you are but you’ve done me a great service. It never much fun living down at the bottom of that hole, but yesterday a terriible thing happened.
A enormous woman came down and never stopped screeching and scolding. She even started punching me. I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. It was awful.” The hobgoblin shuddered to think about it. “But now you’ve rescued me and I don’t have to put up with her anymore.
And what’s more,” he continued, catching sight of the roofs of the town in the distance. “I now can go into town and cause some trouble. I haven’t made any mischief for a long time and I’m quite looking forward to it.”
With that he gave an evil little chuckle and sprang from the branch of the birch tree on to the ground.
“Thank you again,” he called, and with a happy squeal he ran off towards the town.
