48 Fairy Tales

only just reached the cave in time, for he
was quite exhausted; but the woman laid
her hand on the wounds, and gave him
food, and his sobbing sighs soon passed
into sleep. Occasionally there was quarrel-
ling, always helped on by Klopp the wolf,
and then the woman would speak very
sternly, and strike right and left with her
ice-staff, and Jacob would draw the skins
round him and close his eyes again, and
feel warm and content.

But at last one evening he was awakened
by a gay jingling of sleigh-bells outside, and
in tramped a burly figure, carrying a great
pack on his back, and covered with snow-
flakes. As he stood by the fire and stamped
and slapped his elbows, his jovial laugh
seemed to send a glow through the whole
cave, and the woman, leaning on her staff,
looked at him as if she loved him.

‘‘Where dost come from last, Klaus?” she
asked.

He had taken his pack from his shoulders,
and as he set it on the ground, all sorts of