PETER THE GOATHERD. 603

steep mountain. When at length he reached the spot, enclosed
by the old walls of a ruined castle, where his flock was pastured,
Peter noticed that one of his finest goats had disappeared. On
searching closely, he found that Nanny must have made her
way through a crack in the wall; and having managed to
squeeze through the aperture after her, he followed her into a
kind of vault, where she was greedily picking up the oats that
kept dropping down from the roof. He now raised his eyes
upwards, to try and discover what occasioned this plentiful rain
of oats; but was none the wiser for a long while, till at last he
heard the neighing and trampling of several spirited horses,
when he came to the conclusion that the oats must fall from
their crib.

As the goatherd stood marvelling how these horses came to

 

be shut up in an uninhabited mountain, there came a strange-
looking man in an old-fashioned dress, who gave him a stout