Long ago up our way there were two wee boys, true rascals full of fun and mischief, who were the best of friends. The lads were always in each other’s company and every day was full of adventures for them.  

Like many lads they were always hungry and liked to eat. Many the time they took what they found and of course in the autumn, when fruits and berries hung heavy on branches and vines, they were in their element.  

One autumn day they climbed into the big orchard of one of the richest fattest farmers in the district and went scrumping for apples. Their teamwork was great, and soon they filled a big cloth sack full of fruit, before the famer or any of his hired help had a notion they were there.  

As dusk fell they slipped away with their loot and went to hide in the old graveyard by the church. No one went there that time of day. They knew they’d be left alone to divvy up their spoils.    

As they climbed the wall by the lychgate, two of the apples fell out of the sack. But they didn’t stop for them and instead went straight for their hiding spot. They snuggled in among the gravestones, dumped the rest of the apples out of the sack and into a pile, and began to count them out to share them between them.  

‘One for you and one for me. Two for you and two for me,’ they counted.  

It just so happened that the village constable was doing his rounds and came round the bend by the lychgate and heard voices in the graveyard. A very suspicious sound, voices in a graveyard at night. He was sure some mischief was up.  
So he listened, to see if he could tell who was confabulating in the churchyard.  

And he heard the two lads who’d been scrumping divvying up the apples: ‘Three for you and three for me. Two for you and two for me. One for you and one for me…’  

When the police constable, who like most constables wasn’t very bright, heard two voices counting in the graveyard he came to the conclusion that the only ones who did business with the dead were God and the Devil. And so they must surely be divvying out the souls of the dead—one for God, one for the Devil, two for God, two for the Devil.  

Believing this so he hopped on his bike and pedalled like anything, going fast as the wind, down to the village police station. He ran in and called for his sergeant.  

‘Guv!’ he cried. ‘God and the Devil themselves our up in our graveyard, counting out the souls of the dead in this parish!’  

Well the sergeant wasn’t much better in the head than his constable, and when he heard this news he had to see it for himself. The two officers raced up the hill to the church and eavesdropped by the lychgate.  
And they heard ‘God’ and the ‘Devil’ counting away: “One for you and one for me. Four for you and four for me….’  

‘There now,’ said one voice. ‘We’ve counted them up and divvied them all out.’  

‘Not likely,’ said the other voice. ‘What about them two buggers that fell out over by the gate?’  

Well, the constable and the police sergeant they were the two buggers God and the Devil were talking about. And thinking they were coming for their souls, the two hightailed it down the hill and out of the village and a police officer has not been seen in that village to this very day.  
But there are still plenty of boys and girls who go scrumping for apples and get up to no good in the graveyard.