Protected by the holy circle, the schoolteacher watches as the hellhounds unearth the miller's body and desecrate the grave.

Though he was trembling he stayed quietly seated, looking to see what they would do.  The dogs leapt onto the miller’s grave and dug up the coffin with their claws; they ripped off the lid, dragged out the body, and pulled off its skin.  Once they’d disfigured the body, they threw it back and started refilling the grave with dirt.  Without knowing why, the schoolteacher pulled the miller’s skin into the sacred circle.

Their work done, the dogs began to search for the skin.  When they saw it in the circle they broke into their hellish howl, until the schoolteacher’s ears rang from the din.  “Go back to hell, you infernal filth?” he yelled, but the dogs redoubled their howling, their eyes glowing like embers as they jumped about in rage.  “Bring me a bag of silver pieces, and I’ll give you the skin,” he said in a little while and started laughing.  The moment he said it, the dogs ran away and before you could count to a hundred, they were back, dragging a sack of silver pieces.  “Look at how easy it is to make a little extra cash.  My devilish friends are so quick to help out.  But hold on, I’m not that stupid.   I won’t give you the skin until you bring me a bag of ducats.”

The devils yearned to tear him limb from limb, but they couldn’t enter the circle.  So they ran for the sack of ducats, threw it next to the sack of silver pieces, and then sat waiting for the miller’s skin.  But our dear schoolteacher wasn’t satisfied.  “Bring me pieces of gold as big as each of you and only then will I hand over the skin.”  The dogs growled, grimaced, and howled, but what could they do?

It took a while, this time, before they came back.  The gold was in such large pieces that they could barely carry it.  And then the clock struck midnight.  The hellhounds roared with fury and tried their damnedest to get at the schoolteacher, but he began to sprinkle them with holy water.  With the first cross he made over them, the fiendish pair disappeared, leaving behind an unbearable stench.

Only when dawn came did the schoolteacher leave his circle.  He now wondered how he was going to get the loot home without anyone seeing him.  At that moment he heard steps behind him and, turning around, saw the priest.

“How did the night pass, my son?”