TWILIGHT LAND

, Well, the hazel-nut Jay and lay and lay, and all the
time that it lay there nobody met with ill-luck ; but one
day who should come travelling that way but a rogue of
a Fiddler, with his fiddle under his arm. The day was
warm, and he was tired ; so down he sat under the shade
of the oak-tree to rest his legs. By-and-bye he heard a
little shrill voice piping and crying, ‘‘ Let me out! let me
out! let me out!”

The Fiddler looked up and down, but he. could see no-
body. ‘ Who are you ?” says he.

“Tam Ill-Luck! Let me out! let me out!”

“Let you out?” says the Fiddler. “NotI; if you
are bottled up here it is the better for all of us ;” and,
so saying, he tucked his fiddle under his arm and off he
marched.

But before he had gone six steps he stopped. He was
one of your peering, prying sort, and liked more than a
little to know all that was to be known about this or that
or the other thing that he chanced to see or hear. “TI
wonder where Ill-Luck can be, to be in such a tight
place as he seems to be caught in,” says he to himself;
and back he came again. ‘‘ Where are you, Ill-Luck ?”
says he.

“ Here I am,” says Ill-Luck ; “here in this hazel-nut,
under the roots of the oak-tree.”

Thereupon the Fiddler laid aside his fiddle and bow,
and fell to poking and prying under the roots until he
found the nut. Then he began twisting and turning it in
his fingers, looking first on one side and then on the
other, and all the while Ill-Luck kept crying, ‘‘ Let me out!
let me out!”

It was not long before the Fiddler found the little
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